Daisuki is simulcasting this Monogatari season, which is great because it’s free and its stream actually runs on my computer, unlike the Crunchyroll ones which act up on my laptop even when I try play them in SD. Thing is, even though I watch them on Daisuki, I end up pirating the episode anyway because I need to take 50 thousand screencaps of Senjogahara in weird poses. I tried contorting my body into that position she’s in up there, but just ended up straining my leg muscles and falling over. I think I might have gotten it though, unlike the Shaft head-tilt which I’ve never managed to pull off.
You might be expecting me to go “omg nakkid shower scene with Senge Ohgoh Ara omg” but I just felt the whole thing to be rather dull. Part of the reason I like the sort-of-but-not-really fanservice in the Monogatari series is its flirting based on the character’s personalities so the flirtation comes out as a natural part of their characters. Just plonking a cartoon arse on the screen, even if they say it’s Senjogahara’s ass, does little for me. It’s something I’ve never really gotten about those tits and ass series like Highschool DxD. I thought the appeal of watching these is supposed to be seeing these characters get their tits out. So why are the characters all so bland and samey? If I want to see girls showering, I don’t watch some blueballing ecchi anime. I get out my binoculars and look into the apartment block across the street, or I watch actual proper porn.
The other thing is the shower sort of broke my suspension of disbelief a bit. Senjogahara suggesting herself and Hanekawa go shower together so she can tease Arararagi about being able to do so? I can swallow that. The two of them then proceeding to rigorously finger each other in the shower? Right, thanks, but let’s move on please.
What I did really like was Senjogahara and Hanekawa acting like newlyweds. The waking up next to each other, looking at the other person sleeping for a bit with a smile on their face, sitting about in their underwear tidying up the bed while the other puts on breakfast. Sitting together politely at the breakfast table as they conduct mindless smalltalk. Heck, they even had pillow talk. I guess the rigourous shower fingering session the night before falls into that category too.
Perhaps newlyweds is an outdated term, given that most couples have lived together for ages before sticking an MD Geist dvd around each others’ fingers. It’s more like a couple who are in their first week of owning a flat together and still not quite used to living in each other’s company. It’s that great mix of being undoubtedly pleased with the situation but a little unsure of how to conduct oneself when going about things that have for the entire rest of your life being conducted on your lonesome.
Better yet, I get to watch Senjogahara faff about and be herself without holding back much. She’s got an odd way of showing up, but you can tell she’s genuinely thrilled to have a real friend of her own. The quirks in how she holds herself around Hanekawa. Sure it’s mostly Shaft-isms, but there’s a noticeable change in her demeanorĀ around Hanekawa in these episodes then Senjogahara around any of the other characters she’s met. Even around Arararagi she’s not quite this relaxed. It’s even more recognisable when her demeanor switches back to old Senjogahara when she realises Hanekawa doesn’t seem to dislike anything. What is friendship when you like everybody?
I would like to extend Senjogahara’s wisdom about liking everything meaning not liking anything to anime and to the people who keep moaning about whether I even like anime when I bitch about most anime being piles of poo on sticks. My retort: Do you even like anything? Not liking most things means I genuinely love the ones that do leave an impression. I don’t squawk over every cartoon girl that graces my screen unlike you hnnngggg-meisters.
In other words, you don’t really rabu your waifu, Senjogahara is mai waifu 5eva.
The Cart Driver 
I like the waifu analogy at the end. I’ve thought that for awhile about flaky otaku. But people like me who are loyal to one 2D girl are just plain creepy and not much better.
You just can’t win.
(Also was disappointed when I clicked the Proposing with an MD Geist dvd and there was nothing else in it. Please remedy this soon)
You’ll have to ping mai waifu on that MD Geist proposal thing.
Yes, Senjogahara does plan to propose to me with MD Geist
Ah, the whole “liking everything/everyone means not liking anything” fallacy. It’s too often used as a handwave of rudeness or a way for someone to cop out of explaining themselves. Refraining from being critical is not the same as being unable to think critically.
Not that this is a dig at you, Scamp, or even at Senjougahara. I get why and how it’s deployed here and why the point is valid for revealing insight into Hanekawa’s character, but I dislike when it’s used by others as a curmudgeon’s crutch, a whole “Hey, I hate most stuff, so if I like THIS it MUST be good and I don’t have to explain why at all!” type of excuse, just to inflate the importance or validity of one’s opinion.
Also, the way that kind of statement links to the greater notion that if you’re not being an asshole you’re somehow not being “genuine”, that’s also a really crappy, toxic way to go about things.
I see your point about how people say if they like something then therefore it must be good and won’t express why, but I have never actually seen that argument used. Also the “if you’re not being an asshole you’re not genuine” is a thing I’ve noticed the internet has stopped using anyway. So while I see what you’re saying, but I feel it’s a strawman argument.
Apologies for the LATE reply, but you’re not in the right places if you’re not seeing that kind of argument deployed in one way or another. Or maybe you’re in the right places and I’m in the WRONG ones. Either way, it gets used far too often, and in fact was a source for last week’s game writing drama.
http://www.merseyremakes.co.uk/gibber/2013/07/assholes-are-assholes/
I have been sort of seeing these White Dangerous Pyro Tiger thingy like an “elephant in the room”. He is a presence that reminds Hanekawa of her problems, and how she is constantly bottling up her feelings. The idea that she is screwed because she saw him is that she is fucked because she saw her problems hit her in the face in a way that she cannot ignore now. What is also nice is that this arc doesnt have rararagi in it, so nobody can save her(wich is what has happened until now). The cat is not strong enough so here is where she should have some sort of narrative conclusion.
On the other hand, you missed that really “please sleep with me” pose and yes, the shower scene felt kinda underwhelming.
I keep forgetting and ignoring the highly metaphorical meanings behind the oddities… I like the idea of the elephant in the room though but the show hasn’t really tell us what’s the Tiger signifies. You’re still probably correct though. And yeah without Durararagi to help around is a cool twist because the cat is like the personification of solving problem with another problem
The problem with predicting anything about the oddities is they’re based on Japanese sayings, wordplay, letter re-arranging and so on. I know nothing about Japanese so I just leave that part aside altogether
Not to mention that said oddities are especially difficult to get a firm grasp on their metaphorical significance, as they’re seldom actually the oddity in question, but instead a variation thereof. For instance, Shinobu is definitely a vampire, but black Hanekawa is “sort of” a curse cat?
…
What?
Another Gahara fascination post. Needs more Hanekawa. I like Hanekawa, she is best girl. Go take Gahara, I take Hanekawa as my waifu ā¤
Funny how the conversation seems stupid and nonsensical yet natural then we finds out its actually a psychological test (the seasoning part) really clever.
I don’t even plan these posts to be only Senjogahara pics. It just somehow ends up like that
So is every Monogatari post you write going to have nothing but Senjougahara pictures? What are you gonna do when there is no Senjougahara in that episode?
He’ll painstakingly photoshop Hitagi’s head on all the other women who appear in that episode.
By the way Scamp, didn’t you call Akane from Psycho Pass your wife once? Don’t try to claim superiority, you’re just like the rest of us with our anime harems.
That’s a wonderful idea…hmmm…
I’ve also said that Horo is mai waifu. But hey, as I can have more than one favourite anime, I can have more than one waifu. So long as I keep the number in single digits. Hurrah for monogamy!
I bitch about most anime being piles of poo on sticks
You get sticks for your anime poo piles? I’m envious.
I like the idea of equating “liking everything” to “not liking anything”. The next phase is the critic’s dilemma, where you’ve liked and disliked such a variety of things that you’re not sure whether you actually like or dislike a certain thing. Have you felt this way before? In conclusion, filling every post with pictures of Senjogahara is a completely valid blogging strategy.
Not really, I always know whether I’ve enjoyed something or not. I tend to start from the position of whether I enjoyed that or not and then work backwards from there to discover why, not the other way around.
“I tried contorting my body into that position sheās in up there, but just ended up straining my leg muscles and falling over.”
Maybe it’s only possible to do if you don’t have man parts?
For years I saw that “sitting on the floor, legs splayed, feet pointing outward” anime-girl position (e.g., http://services.flikie.com/view/v3/android/wallpapers/16790095 ) and thought it unlikely until I saw some Japanese girls actually sitting that way in real-life.
Her legs are spread so man parts don’t get in the way.
Also that style you’re mentioning isn’t a whole lot different from the classic Japanese sitting on your legs style. I can do it, but it hurts because I don’t sit in that style regularly
I can do the japanese kneeling position just fine, but when I tried that negima and senjougahara pose my bones creaked, I even pulled muscles I didn’t know I had.
Also, my stomach always got in the way.
I also sat on the floor for 3 minutes laughing, wonder what ever got into me to try out those poses.
I blame scamp for that one š
Pretty much in agreement with all of the commentary but wanted to add something…
There was something about the overall flow of the episode that gives me a different view of it than just considering the constituent parts. For all the Hanekawa-Senjogahara interactions, I had more or less the same impressions plus a certain nervous boredom during the shower scene due to wondering what my flatmate would think if he peeked over my shoulder during that moment. I kept having the thought, “I should be bored but want to keep watching.”
For me, the domestic bliss scenes really made the Black Hanekawa part stand out in an interesting way. The whole flow of the episode including the background music was really gripping, especially once Black Hanekawa appeared. Difficult to put words to but all the different parts had a ridiculousness to them that fit together well to make something more fascinating than ridiculous…
Seeing as every other commenter is actually the disjointed consciousness of Sigmund Freud, or a master-debater and slayer of fallacies, I’ll instead just say: though I like to think otherwise, I really doubt that it was a rigorous fingering session so much as it was Hanekawa trying to inoffensively maintain her absolute territory field, which, of course, was noticed by Hitagi Space-Invader Senjougahara, who responded promptly with “lol NOPE. This shower is going to be a mutual effort whether you want it to be or not.”
proceeds with thinly veiled sexual assault
And here I thought DxD would be the most shameless fanservice show this season… I’m starting to think I was wrong.
I read the novel, so I know what to expect. The anime is an abbreviation of the novel, so it has to move faster (only 21 minutes). Episode 1 covered chapters 1 to 11, and episode 2 covers chapters 12 to 21. in the next episode on July 20th, we may see how Tsubasa interacts with the Araragi family, then sleeps in Koyomi’s bed, becomes Black Hanekawa, and talks to Shinobu Oshino who is sitting upside down on the ceiling.
“before sticking an MD Geist dvd around each othersā fingers”
That one phrase brings me to the decision to choose to follow your blogging of this season. Besides, how could I possibly trust anyone who doesn’t think Senjougahara is the best girl.