#orokamonogatari

[superchat]

[senjo]

[ikuhara]

Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011) x Monogatari Series: Off & Monster Season(2024)

[keyserelric]

Monogatari Series: Off & Monster Season - Episode 1 “Tsukihi Undo” OP 1 (Icecream Degrees)

[ostensiblyanimated]

[justintaco]

[amiya-shirou]

Getting into Sodachi's perspective and seeing first hand how much overthinking goes into every single thing she does, taking multiple pages just for her to go to class, and the way her mind keeps wandering (most of the time in a self-loathing direction) is an incredible experience; another great example of how good Nisioisin's narration can be in making you hear a specific character's voice. Especially thinking about how Araragi also overthinks and wastes a lot of time, but he often does it because he's being dragged along or getting lost in conversations with other characters, giving them the spotlight rather than getting it for himself as the protagonist, reflecting his relative lack of self worth and readiness to sacrifice himself; meanwhile Sodachi yes, she also has low self worth, but specifically a lot of self loathing, so all her overthinking and wasting pages are directed towards making sure to tell the reader (and herself) how much worse she's than everyone else, rather than giving the idea implicitly like Araragi does by exalting others so much and always sacrificing himself.

Also her constantly killing and insulting Araragi in her mind is very good because it offers a very clear example of what she said in Owari, how she needs to cling to that hate to go forward, and we see it happening in real time here - she uses it both to calm down and to give herself the strength to act by convincing herself she's proving him that he's wrong about her. She's slowly getting back up again from the bottom so even when helping other people she needs to cling to her worst thoughts and impulses to do it rather than positive ones, which would be too much for her to accept right now. Hell, the moment she shows the most confidence and does a very Araragi-like action is when she came out of a trash can.

It's kind of a heavy novel to read due to how much of it is like reading a very long and elaborated vent post, and it feels especially bad for her when things don't go her away even when she's trying (the classmate running away from her when muster the courage to try to interact with her, having bad luck and failing even to take that one simple photo the idea of which was making her happy for the first time in the novel) but also that's precisely why it works. She'd doing the smallest of steps yet it somehow feels like she's really making progress, like how when you've been depressed you take solace in the little things you manage do to after you start getting back up.

Why the hell did the anime cut this arc...

[freusan]

Preview of the Tsukihi Undo OP icecream° featuring Yuka Iguchi (Tsukihi) and Saori Hayami (Yotsugi)