no im just joking imagine if that was the only thing i wrote for this after four and a half months of this sitting in my inbox wouldnt that be so funny like actually
anyway, better late than never!
tsubasa tiger is the ultimate culmination of tsubasa's initial arc. its her finally learning to protect herself, to take responsibility for herself, rejecting her angelic perfection for just being a person.
one of the things i really appreciate about it is that it's from her perspective, not from araragis. her growth is something she has to see through herself, and araragis (probably lessened at this point but id imagine still definitely present) idolization of her isnt the lens we need to see her from. we need to see her humanized and you can't do that so much through his pov, or at least you can't do it as much as you need to. cough cough nisioisin stop writing araragi pov so much cough cough
the OP has an uplifting, inspiring, "i'm going to take charge of my life" vibe. but im absolutely in love with the ED. i'm a sucker for those bittersweet songs that feel like they've captured something so pretty and painful about life and don't shy away from it. and what is tsubasa tiger if not that, taking on everything
the letter scene is wonderful, moving, and i love the visuals for it. there's an extended version (wow!) here, with subtitles and voice acting. it might make you cry be careful! i teared up a little bit
a scene i want to talk about in more detail is at the end, where araragi comes and saves her at the last second. i say saves her but. the series hammers in again and again that no one can really "save" another person. if the person being "saved" doesn't let someone else in, doesn't accept their help, then there's no way for them to be saved. the hanekawa who accepted and sat in everything that came her way just couldn't be saved. it's only because hanekawa fought with kako and decided to save herself first, that she was able to get araragi to save her, that she was able to buy enough time for him to come and save her. it's beautiful, and it makes it more beautiful when she returns the favor later :)
unfortunately this is an anime only discussion of it, and a brief one because its been a while since i wrote that post about neko kuro. i havent read the light novels... id like to read them someday because i'm told theyre very good. did you know she's bisexual. woah she's bisexual i didn't know that. sucks they cut that part out of the anime
