If you’ve never read (the original novels have official translations now!) or watched Monogatari and have a high tolerance for anime bullshit, I wholeheartedly recommend it for Hitagi Senjougahara. She’s a fascinating and unique character, whose role very closely resembles that of a very traditional love-interest, and yet she herself subverts all the qualities and story beats normally associated with them.
We’re introduced to her as a damsel-in-distress for Koyomi Araragi, the hero of Monogatari, to save. Typical for the archetype, she takes a liking to him when he saves her, and the two get together soon after. The rest of her doings in the plot has her play a supporting role, to be a pillar for Araragi and to tell him what he needs to hear, but without much power over the direction of the plot herself. It’s very familiar territory, and on paper, she’s as standard a girlfriend as they come. It’s everything else about her that makes for all the fun and different stuff.
Due to her backstory where her mother was led astray by a cult and where she was almost raped by a cult member, Senjou has an extreme need to be in control. This lead to her initial relationship with Araragi looking terrifying from the outside since she was, well, a bully. A really bad one. She pressured Araragi into being her boyfriend and then spent most of Bakemonogatari terrorizing him. She constantly hurled verbal abuse and even threatened him with bodily harm, and if Araragi wasn’t such a dubious boy the audience would be demanding he get away from her abuse and get with the sweeter Hanekawa instead. Despite the little moments where she is legitimately kind or caring, their relationship is predominantly Senjou bullying him and it’s an overwhelmingly unhealthy relationship you think would end soon.
But then we have the stargazing scene, and it’s the scene that really turns around Bakemonogatari for a lot of people, as well as Araragi and Senjougahara’s relationship. She tells him honestly that she’s come to really like him, but her own issues prevent her from properly expressing that to him in a better way. She asks him to wait for her while she works on herself, and she promises he’ll be loved as he deserves when she’s ready.
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