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Summary:
It is Mother’s Day, but Koyomi finds himself alone at the park instead of at home. He notices what appears to be a young girl who needs directions, however she runs off before he can do anything. Hitagi then shows up, and Koyomi learns that this is the area she used to live in. Sitting down next to him, she brings up the topic of repaying him for how he helped her so that they can become friends on equal terms afterward. After much discussion of what Hitagi is willing to do, Koyomi brings up how he got into an argument with his sister over celebrating Mother’s Day. Unlike him, his sisters are close to their mother, and since he felt that he didn’t belong in his own home today, he got into an argument with Karen. Koyomi is frustrated with his small-mindedness, yet he doesn’t want to return home, and despite some teasing in regard to this, Hitagi vows not to abandon him. She even offers to help him if he wants a girlfriend, and though he considers it, he turns it all down.
The young girl, whose name tag reads Hachikuji Mayoi, then appears again looking lost, so Koyomi goes to talk to her. Mayoi, however, doesn’t want to talk to him and claims that she hates him. She ignores him when he attempts to talk to her again, so the third time, he smacks her against the wall. This doesn’t make her any more receptive to him, but she at least talks to him again and reiterates that she hates him. Their conversation ends up leading nowhere, and after Mayoi kicks him in the gut, Koyomi gets into a fight with her and briefly knocks her out. He laughs triumphantly until Hitagi shows up, and he tries to explain what’s going on and gets Hitagi to help Mayoi find the place she’s looking for. Since Hitagi doesn’t want to touch anything he’s touched, he reads her the address, and she knows the area well enough to be able to lead them in the right direction. Mayoi by now has regained consciousness, and Koyomi has convinced her that she had a dream that’s opposite of reality. She confuses him, however, by calling herself the lost child of the snail.
Preview
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Despite being rather dialogue heavy – over sixteen straight minutes worth with no OP in between – this episode had a surprisingly large amount of good character/relationship development for Koyomi and Hitagi. I say “surprisingly” because I assumed that this arc would focus more on Mayoi and not quite so much on Hitagi. Not that what they did is a bad thing: this episode managed to be pretty amusing at times, like with the whole siscon and sorocon thing, and I even chuckled at Hitagi’s Dragonball reference when she was describing what she could do. Hitagi in general is just a lot of fun to watch when she’s driving Koyomi crazy and sort of flirting at the same time.
Admittedly though, the most interesting part of the episode was after all that, when Mayoi appeared the second time. I laughed when Koyomi suddenly smacked her, and their subsequent fight had a bit of a Scooby Doo quality to it, which made the fact that he fought a grade-schooler a little less awkward, but no less absurd. Mayoi herself is pretty cute, and Katou Emiri does a pretty good job with her voice. The question is what the snail has to do with her being lost, and I’m sure there’ll be some sort of wordplay behind it to explain it in the two remaining episodes of this story arc. Hopefully they’ll also show Koyomi using more of his vampire powers like he briefly did this episode with his eyes.
Interesting Episode ^^ 1st
Wow, no opening?
Not that I care,but I like this episode.^^
So, I’ve been looking at the summaries you write up on these and the screencaps… what genre is this anime anyway?
And from the screencaps it doesn’t seem like much happens in the episodes, are they full length or shorter?
It definitely has an interesting visual style, I’ll give it that.
“Hitagi in general is just a lot of fun to watch when she’s driving Koyomi crazy and sort of flirting at the same time;” well said, and I’m happy her personality didn’t change dramatically after being helped last episode. The exaggerated facial expressions were amusing, particularly after Koyomi’s kick in the gut.
too bad the subs can’t come any sooner.
Damn nice visuals. The playground is really nifty.
The latter half of this episode was definitely on the interesting side although I had to keep myself from nodding off during most of it. It was no use during the first half though. I’ll have to re-watch it when I’m at full strength just so their conversation don’t put me to sleep again.
Its turning into a very interesting series, the characters are all intriging and a gelight to watch and the visual styling is fantastic, currently its reminding me slightly of ergo proxy, just that weird style and anythign could happen. I’m still wondering what all that fighting etc was about in the first episode?
Visually, looking from the side, Mayoi looks like a snail, and would probably cast a snail like shadow.
@Coxi
A prequel.
If I remember correctly from the novel its
Show Spoiler ▼
Is it just me or does this art style look like a clash between casshern sins and mariaholic? It’s awesome but it’s bothering me at the same time. Not to mention Hitagi looks like Yomi from GaRei Zero
The fighting in the the start of the first episode was:
Show Spoiler ▼
Loving it…
It started waaaaay weird at first but I adjusted to the visuals and story in no time. This is very intriguing. Hope I won’t be bored with the next episode.
@dbreak, I don’t see the Casshern sins resemblance. It looks more like a mix of Druaga with something else to me, especially this shot: https://randomc.net/image/Bakemonogatari/Bakemonogatari%20-%2003%20-%2008.jpg
Ah Senjougahara tease, so much <3 for that.
https://randomc.net/image/Bakemonogatari/Bakemonogatari%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2007.jpg
Antenna is straighter than usual. . .
fix this crap
https://randomc.net/image/Bakemonogatari/Bakemonogatari%20-%2002%20-%20Large%2038.jpg
@dbreak Well I can’t say it looks like Casshern, but it’s not surprising it looks like Maria Holic since SHAFT produced that as well as this one.
I can’t wait to see how the dynamic changes between Koyomi and Hitagi after this arc. I’m not quite sure how much her role expands after this but it changes. Something for everyone to look out for in the future.
@ AC?
I don’t know but somehow I think they did that on purpose. It looks as if he’s surprise at his own look so in his head (left), that’s how he looks when he’s looking at his image of him in reality (right).
Ok lets be honest, i think 99% of the reason one would watch this show is because of Hitagi. I wrote this show off after watching a boring episode 1 but then once we saw the character depelopment of Hitagi this show really took off and got interesting.
Maybe this episode (at least the 1st part when they are on the playground) would make more sense to me if I was as high as a kite?
@ Silver
I like your explanation far more than mine. I just thought it was a Shaft joke, since generally most vampires don’t have reflections, so when he gained his humanity back he also regained his reflection. However, due to side effects of his vampirism his reflection is now forever emo.
@ Jin
Agreed.
Is this a symptom
https://randomc.net/image/Bakemonogatari/Bakemonogatari%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2022.jpg
i hate the fact that this is a great show but the subbing sucks for it so i cant even get the jokes. -_-
Do not watch the episode three subs done by Superior. The translation is horrible. One of the worst I’ve ever seen.
lucky to have learned some jap hehe
the part about her saying “i am experienced” was kinda funny and looking at koyomi’s reaction xD
@Toma: i think those eyes are also remnants of his vampire powers (eagle eye?)
@Silver et al.
The frames before and after are normal, and playing it at normal speed one wouldn’t normally notice it such that Omni got pretty lucky to take the screenshot right during those 2-3 frames
So in either case it seems either a very careless mistake or very subtle joke
Very interesting episode even if it was mostly dialogue.
Btw, gg subs the series.
fucked up forum no wonder animetake hates you
wait… .RIGHT YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE A FORUM YOU PIECE OF CRAP BLOG
This was a good episode, but Hitagi can be maddening at times. She is so sarcastic, it is impossible to figure out how serious she really is, or if she is just tormenting Koyomi. Still, this is one of the stronger series this season.
Am I alone in hating how pointlessly overly polished the background or certain random cutscenes for these shows (Sayonara…Sensei and Negima!). It’s getting to be a real turn off for me.
@Remy
They do that because the average anime fan couldn’t last 1 minute watching this episode before their ADD kicks in.
Character development for Koyomi: he smacks and beats up a grade-schooler this episode. Later episodes will feature him beating his sisters and then finally Hitagi.
Hey Jaalin I developed a girl sitting fetish after seeing this episode at 8:47
WOW I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW STUPID AND BORING THIS ANIME IS DO PEOPLE REALLY BELIEVE THAT ANIME IS “GOOD” JUST BECAUSE ITS DIFFERENT FROM WHATS ALREADY BEEN DONE? IS THIS THE WAY THE WORLD IS TURNING?
Come on… how can you not like it when, Hitagi, an official moe girl herself, proclaims she’ll be sporting “Maid Play” and “Nekomimi Play” to future generations!!! Of course this is the same girl who was in her underwear for, what seemed like the entire episode 2… LOL not to mention her own butt cheek slap LOL Omg.. I actually had to replay that cuz I thought the otaku within had gotten the best of me! Anyway, her outfit rocked… I hope she continues her dizzyingly fast flirting/bashing combos on poor/not so poor Koyomi.
@ AC?
Yesh someone has problems…
@ GD
Personally, I couldn’t agree with you more that just because it’s different doesn’t mean its good. However, it’s interesting to hear about the different japanese mythologies if I’m correct. Animation is also good, not a huge factor in me personally as long as the story rocks I’m good with any kind of animation.
The things that keeping me is the curiosity and interest factor on what they talk about which keeps me watching. The other thing is yes the world is turning around, cause new generations will like different things. We may call it craptastic, but the new generations every year may think otherwise, hence I tend to keep my mind open rather then close.
I love the dialog and intricate wordplay, I also love the character design and interaction, I hate the daft angles, and placement of things on screen, hey there’s a conversation there lets look at the light bulb kind of thing that ruined ef.
But the dialog is awsome. Writing wise this is a master piece, character design is delicious, but the visual noise is a blah lsd trip that reminds me of that 15 minutes at the end of 2001 space odyssey.
rofl yeah so seriously like what the hell is this anime? they talk SO FAST it makes me want to slap all these mother****ers in the face. makes my head hurt. can’t understand anything they say. and is this like some sick dudes idea of a cross between idealistic nonsense and ecchi? I mean what the hell is going on here?
@Matt_D
I think those “visual noise” was necessary to keep the viewer interested. Yes, it can be distracting to some but without them this episode would be so bland even it is accompanied by masterpiece writing. It’s a matter of annoyed 20% of the viewers or bored 95% of the viewers.
@Sore no Kaze
good animation? are you kidding me? It’s done in the same style as mariaxholic with several still frames in different layers, or close up face shots with only the face moving and lots of far away shots without detail or movement, sure it looks crisp and nice, but obviously they cut down on production and actual animation.
@tehfox
Maybe you shouldn’t want zetsubou then. Shits even worse.
It wasn’t a bad episode, but I wish that they had advanced the plot a bit more. On another note, are there any announcements about plans to translate the books?
haha I actually hate this style of animation it use random images as symbolism which I don’t really like, but I seem to like the story but I mean a majority of the people would probably dislike this kind of animation since simplicity is best…
Hitagi’s the ultimate tsundere… she messes with your head!
@keywin
Yeah, seriously, frickin’ women dude.
I swear if most of us could project ourselves out of
our bodies and watch our own interactions with them
from a 3rd person perspective, it’d be a hell of a lot
easier.
The first episode was one thing, but, episodes two and three…
I wasn’t sure if I could finish either one of them because
I damn near got distracted from reading the damn subtitles
let alone the word-play in between.
Lets be honest here, anyone else just watching this series for the insanely hot slutty purple haired chick? Another useless protagonist and the rest of the anime is so boring and random I just wanna tear my head off.
@Zee
Watching it out of boredom, its still one of the better anime series this season though
Hi all! What’s the password “PARK” all about?
Anyone able to tell me why it keeps flashing akai (red) and kuro (black)?
hmmmmmmm seems like a lotta ppl dont like this series….. i think i like it tho… i think…… the really fit 2d girls isnt really a pull factor for this. I like how they manage to keep me awake despite the fact that it is filled with just conversation, something lucky star episode 1 (when they talk about bread) failed to do so.
That’s got to be the coolest park I’ve ever seen. The bicycles that look like steaks riding on the rails is quite the fascinating idea. o_o