hontou ni Stripey Insists Sisters Cry Oniichan Now

Bakemonogatari 11

Summary:

We begin with a flashback to last year's Golden Week; Tsubasa talks to Koyomi about her complicated family life - her stepfather has married a new wife, the atmosphere is not good, on holidays she can't bear to stay at home, going out on long meandering walks and is able to see snails, her gauze on her face covering a wound from her stepfather but she covers for the bastard, telling Koyomi she will do anything for his silence. She finds a dead white cat on the road, Koyomi helps her to bury it. End flashback.

Back to the present, Nadeko flirts with her Koyomi-oniichan at the gate, handing over Gone Like The Wind Suruga's bloomers and school swimsuit. Doraemon references ensue as Koyomi reprises his tsukkomi role, firmly established since elementary school. Nadeko relates how she can tell how Shinobu silently stares at Meme and Koyomi differently from Suruga and her. Tsubasa shows up and Nadeko beats a hasty retreat, the former relates rumblings of how Koyomi is a bad influence on Hitagi but the Class Rep diametrically disagrees, speaking up for the psychedelic duo.

Koyomi is about to ask if Tsubasa has anyone special when the recurrence of her sudden headache recalls out last summer when she became Black Hanekawa, unleashing her repressed personality under the influence of a meddlesome cat spirit and attacking people at night with her energy drain, first and most seriously against her parents. A cornered Koyomi, who fails at stealthy tailing, is saved by Shinobu who drains away enough of the years of built-up stress for Tsubasa to return to normal. Ominously the return of the symptoms after a year, and with Koyomi as a possible cause, are not explored - Tsubasa changes the topic back to Koyomi x Hitagi, just in time for the episode to run out of time.

Reaction:

I was wondering if this would be a pure flashback arc but I'm really glad how the story is weaving past and present together by revealing that the problem from last summer was not solved definitively. I expect that what Black Hanekawa was saying, how if the stress was not resolved in a year, before Shinobu got the jump on her will be critical to the next (and OH NOES concluding) episode and the resolution of the Tsubasa Cat arc; I keenly await that to see if my guess that Koyomi is currently part of the problem is confirmed.

Sadly, no speaking lines for Hitagi or Suruga but it was a wonderful showcase for Horie Yui (whose power is so great that Stripey held off watching Otoboku for fear of falling in love with Mizuho which he did in due course) especially with her nyah lines. In terms of complicity with the oddity, Tsubasa is much closer to Suruga than to Mayoi, Nadeko or even Hitagi; the power of the oddity is used in direct action against those the afflicted girl feels ill will towards, with a similar cover story of one's will and intentions being unconscious and/or twisted by the nature of the oddity. Mayoi was the oddity. A truly innocent Nadeko (though it all feels a little less innocent after reading what Haess said) had brought the oddity on herself by trying to save herself is the furthest away from Suruga or Tsubasa. While Hitagi did call on the crab, its effects were confined to her body weight, maternal ties and memories - BTW I still don't get what stationery has got to do with heavy stone gods.

Gah, it's the penultimate episode and I'm already feeling the hole that this series will leave in my schedule. Koyomi vampire OVA please?

Related posts:

1. Bakemonogatari 10
2. Bakemonogatari 14
3. Bakemonogatari 09