owarimonogatari ge spoilers. rgu spoilers too i think
himemiya anthy and oshino ougi are both girls who exist for guys
and yeah i hear you thinking what, misogyny ?! toxic masculinity ?! thats not a big part of ougis arc and yeah it isnt and also other gender stuff BUT. the spirit is still there!! and i have to say it in that way first to do anthy's part justice
bc they Are both people who exist solely for others sake. their ability to define their own existences have been taken away from them. they have no agency! anthy obviously but also ougi has never had agency. ougi was created by araragi to do certain things he couldn't do himself, and this was literally the sole purpose of their existence. if ur in that situation what are you gonna do? not do it? and probably like, cease to exist bc the universe's internal coding is a total asshole? you don't have a choice, you just gotta accept the burden.
they're very silly and goofy and sinister and smiley about it of course but like. i'll say it now a lot of those smiles are not happy. i mean you look at the light novels oshino "ppl are so dumb i have to laugh at them but im crying when im laughing" ougi (edgelord ougi confirmed? LOL ok ok not really) oshino 'araragi theorizes her smile was poignant bc she knew how short her life would be' ougi like yeah ok. get a life, literally. lol
(note this is also. for those who have read it. what ougi stay is about. and what my next big thing is going to be about. this is what the significance. anyway)
and anthy does the same thing! all this fucked up shit happens around her and To her and she just watches it all with the same smile like nothing's wrong. the parallels are insane you guys you cant make this shit up. anthy smiling like nothing is wrong during the duels before slowly realizing she doesn't want to be separated from utena is the same as ougi smiling while about to be erased forever even though she doesnt want to die. its parallels!!!!!!
even where ougi's situation gets a little muddied with her being Literally araragi (even though she is still the part of him that he ejected and pushed all this work onto and still just exists for him at first so i wouldnt say this is a point against my analysis here), it still very much applies. and that part of 'being him' can loop back around and extend anthy if you want it to. she does whatever her fiancee wants her to, is molded to and reflects them. a reflection-- is that not, in a very big sense, what ougi is for araragi? you could even say that for anthy, the fiancee of the rose bride's attempted domination of her is a way to dominate the femininity within them, to quell and control it. (if this doesnt make sense my excuse is that i havent finished watching yet. but i think it does make sense, and a lot of it, actually)
theyve both got their Roles to play, and play them they do. anthy, the rose bride, and ougi, the culprit, the bad guy. i think about that 'bad guy' framing a lot too btw. when ougi is talking about her unfazed appearance when faced with Forever Death Via Black Hole, shes like 'don't you hate it when in mystery novels the bad guy is so calm in the face of their comeuppance? yeah that sucks so just letting you know im terrified 👍. gotta wonder what happens when your matter gets erased completely yk. like whats that gotta be like lol.' (not even exaggerating at all really) (also shes so funny she relates everything to mystery novels bc she loves them thats so sweet and real i love that :)) (and then she proceeded to say 'nah i think the culprit should kill themself instead' but i wont get into it)
theyve also both got those cute little interests come to think of it. anthy loves like animals and stuff and ougi loves their mysteries. are these two the Same Character (joking) (but really they should hang out)
theres a line in one of the short stories that summarizes it really well, describing ougi as 'a puppet who had come to life.' and yeah, basically. it's implied to be after the ougi dark resolution so there i have even more ✨textual evidence✨ but like fr. its an incredibly apt description for ougi. if yotsugi is a doll, then ougi is a puppet, who has gained agency (and thats the thing, rgu and monogatari are giving these agency-robbed characters agency, thats what ougi dark did, and im like p sure thats what rgu is going to do i havent finished it lol but i did get sorta spoiled on the ending so i think its gonna. in monogatari... its more rocky i feel. its not cut and dry, its not like whoops you have agency forever completely now. its like you Kinda have it. you Maybe Mostly have it. it's complicated i'm writing about it)... i wonder when yotsugi will get her agency, but part of me wonders if nisioisins plan is that she wont. because she's a doll, she's too stuck, she's fixed to what others need her for, she can't work by herself. she hasn't "come to life" yet like ougi has (being a corpse might do that to you)
starting from 5 well i guess i dont really have like a strict order except for maybe the top one i dont know i dont know i love all of them
actually im just gonna do it in chrono order
um spoilers of course dont read this if u havent finished the whole anime (the whole anime!) there will be screencaps...
okay if im going chronoogically i must give my hat to owarimonogtari part 1. wait FUCK theres so many scenes in that shit.......... im gonna be running out of space damnit.... well to summarize it BRIEFLY... (how the fuck do you even summarize it briefly my feelings are large and want to burst out of my chest)... ougis sinister leading araragi down dark paths and poking at his past and knowing the deal but playing-dumbery and antics are just amazing. and shes so cool as she does it how did she get to be that cool! evil and cool.... thats the summary but the scene i would want to talk about is of course the showdown with hanekawa (the first one i guess). uh bc its like really funny? the showdown is great its such a fun buildup of tension and they're like passive-aggressive/plain-aggressive-but-still-loosely-following-social-boundaries trying fighting each other... its great. i think in the light novels when hanekawa says 'but i would have done a better job' ougis smile freezes. you can hear the glass break. you can just hear her in her head shes going like ".......................bitch,? so that's how you wanna play it?" i wish that got animated sometimes. and also of course. it ends how it ends.
its an incredible moment because literally the moment she says this you're like ah. i see. so ougi loses. LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
LIKE GG NO RE 😭😭😭😭😭😭 SORRY OUGI YOU LOST.... DONMAI ITS OK DONT WORRY ABOUT IT.
YOU DONT EVEN HAVE TO SEE ANYTHING AFTER ITS LIKE AH. GOTCHA. i was rooting for her to win when i was watching but... this was just so funny. the best way for things to have gone i think.
its also so good how she stands there after like. fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.......... usually ougi is the one doing things to people and its funny but this is also just so hilarious its done so well.
i also want to talk about otori, because ougi in otori is very cool. my first time watching otori i was very in tune with nadeko so hearing ougi do a kinda takedown of her was a very interesting experience for me. she was very sinister and severe and foreboding...... very fun. and of course when it turns out she's been tugging at the strings..... heeheehee THATS SO COOL. i mean looking at these scenes like some of these shots are so cool.
^ the face of someone so evil......
ok going later
i never see people talking about this one but the scene in hitagi rendevous in owari ge that happens on the second episode after the ending is like. oogh. its like the big instance before the finale proper in ougi dark where the show starts fucking slapping you in the face screaming "PAY ATTENTION THERE'S SOMETHING IMPORTANT HAPPENING HERE"
like this shot this FUCKING SHOT. is it just me? is it just me am i the only one who feels acute pain at this? there's something about it thats just so............... like somethings wrong. like thats what i feel like something is wrong and im concerned for this person you feel me?
shes so tired trying to get his attention and do her job and all that shes pressing the doorbell laying down... and then she sees him and goes like 'im exhausted' and just keeps girlbossing like. and like asks araragi (from her perspective) not to kill her and hes just like no and shes just like damn that sucks oh well lol. like imagine being alive for 6 months having no home (shes laying on the god damn nameplate of his house augh...) and knowing full well you're about to die, the things youre seeing now will be some of the last things you ever experience before your consciousness is gone forever (bc she isnt going to hell shes being erased). that's so cool and awesome (horrifying). anyway ougi doesnt care shes got a job to do X) (shes so insane i love her)
also that home thing and the tiredness thing is one of the big things i wrote ougi stay about so ill just take the chance to plug it if ur still reading this go read my fic! i like it a lot i think its nice. its mostly funny but it also talks about this stuff too a bit. go read it
ok next.
dont know whether to count the different parts of this scene as separate or not but i think it shouldnt be separated bc its all important to the scene and that is OF COURSE: ougi dark
starting with ougi's convo with tsukihi (the build up… it's oddly calm so you feel somewhat reassured but you KNOW something's going to happen… the buildup of tension starts here and keeps rising). the contents of that conversation, near the end are like, really cool things to be included because up until that point we still dont have SO much insight as to who ougi is but she opens up a bit to tsukihi here and its kind of a paradigm shift to see.
there's something so poignant about this fraught mood...
such an ougi way of talking about one's feelings about oneself...
at least for me when i was watching i was already like, kinda rooting for ougi bc i wanted bad things to happen to araragi (lol) but also like. ougis just so insanely entertaining and fun that like, uh obviously i would root for her here. so when this fun silly funny little fun character starts bustin out the:
its like woah wait huh back up hold on a second there. i care you>???????
like literally the whole confrontation with ougi and araragi it is just like oh no since when did i care about this character so much oh no oh god oh fuck...
like how come they gotta hit me with all these gut punches what did i do to deserve this
like whats so cool about it is with how its directed and the score (and the voice acting!! the seiyuu did an INCREDIBLE job) and everything you can tell shes scared but like again shes actually insane so she's just gonna be like yeah this is the right way for things to happen
(it seems a lot like she did all this wanting the outcome of her losing to araragi, at least to me. hanekawa also says so in the commentary tracks of ougi dark. so thats another layer. theres so many layers... i dont know how many of these layers people pick up on but by golly do i pick up on them)
and of course he saves her (imagine if he didnt? id kill him. WAIT ACTUALLY THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO ARE LIKE "ARARAGI SHOULDNT HAVE SAVED HER" NEVER GO ON THE REDDIT DISCORD SERVER FOR MONOGATARI PEOPLE ACTUALLY THINK THIS WAY IM LITERALLY GOING TO KILL THEM ITS SO. ok i wont talk about it), and she gets mad and its like i KNEW you were putting up a bold front you had emotions this whole time and then its like. oh you had emotions this whole time and you were totally aware of everything and just kinda had to deal with it thats kinda fucked up (i think a lot about how being an oddity born of self-criticism necessarily means you have to be self-aware and how that leads to ougi being a kind of exceptional type of oddity and like how it ties into identity and like... all that stuff). but the emotional breakdown/outburst is so good... augggghhghhh its so good 😭😭😭
(like i think sometimes about how if they had done this wrong, it would feel out of place for ougis generally not-emotion-showing character/not emotional in general character, but they did it so well... its so good)
and of COURSE to cap off this perfect beautiful wonderful scene we get THE GWEH AKA THE PEAK OF FICTION. IT DOESNT GET BETTER THAN THIS. NO IM NOT JOKING. LITERALLY WHEN I SAW THIS I HAD AN EPIPHANY. NOT JUST BECAUSE ITS ADORABLE BUT BECAUSE ITS LIKE HOLY SHIT INTUITIVELY A PART OF ME UNDERSTANDS. THIS *IS* **THE** BEST CHARACTER. and i went to go pace around my room being hype about it. im not joking really bc the novel talks about it being like "an utterly unattractive true-to-life" groan or something that proves she has "substance" which is like... yeah! she's her own person! not just made of lies or w/e!! the gweh actually ties everything together in such a perfect way and i am physically incapable of remaining in bad mood after i see it. i saw it the first time and i was like :O -> :) -> :DDDDDDDDDD and that hasn't changed since it will always put a smile on my face 😌
also also ougi in zoku owari is incredible too so good. the TEEHEE THE TEEHEE IS SO AMAZING. like YEAH!!!! YOURE A LITTLE ROTTEN PRANKSTER TEEHEE!!!!!! YEAH!!!! TRICKSTER TIME TIME TO BE TRICKY A TRICKY LITTLE TRICKSTER YEAH!!!!!!!!!!! and we get more classic ougi exposition/explanation..... havent talked about this as much but their ideas are so interesting.... theyre so interesting and cool i would pay to hear them share ideas about things.............. anyway one other thing i really appreciate about this scene is the shared intimacy between ougi and araragi. it feels more personal yk. this sorta comfortable, natural, thoughtless intimacy is something i absolutely adore about their dynamic but it basically only happens right here in zoku owari, and not even so much in the light novel version. its interesting... i want to write about it. im GOING to write about it mark my words
also honorable mention to ougi in hanamonogatari. theres nothing like big enough about these scenes to mention in comparison with the rest of them bc theyre so short but. BOY OUGI YEAHHHHHHHHHHH HES TRANS WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO i saw that and i was like >:) yeah kanbaru wym hes been a boy this whole time >:)))) don't misgender him god...... >:)))))))))))))
(AND HE LOOKS SO COOL THEY ANIMATED HIM SO COOL BC HES IN BOYMODE HES SUCH A BOY FUCK YEAH)
also fuck i didnt talk about the whole planetarium dream scene. that was also good.
ummm yeah i could just talk about this forever and keep talking about scenes and stuff but ill leave it here bc u said 5 and ive already technically named like 7 at least so. yeah. but i dont really have like a ranking order necessarily, except for ougi dark bc its just so so so SO good.
thank you for enabling my derangement ive been writing this since u sent it to me im so ougipilled right now you wouldnt even believe. im ougi wired.
do you think any of the other characters from Monogatari would be able to beat Ougi in a bmx race, and which of them do you think would cheat in the most interesting manner while trying?
KALKDFALKFDA i love how you phrased it like it's already understood that people would have to cheat to do it
ok the objectively correct but also boring answer is tsukihi. but shes a shoo-in so i dont wanna talk about her. she doesnt count she's unbeatable! realistically, if ougi were to be doing a bmx race and be faced with her, they would simply Not Race lol
ok first i will talk about the people who wouldn't cheat. (spoilers up to nademonogatari under the cut meaning nademonogatari is included)
kanbaru would not cheat she would want to do it fair and square. she would train for the occasion but she doesnt know how to ride a bike (semi canonically? idk how canonical the audio commentaries are) so she’d probably struggle, and even though she’s athletic i can’t imagine she’d win or get close to it (rip).
karen would have the best chances of winning legitimately. i’d imagine she probably knows how to ride a bike bc shes got easy access since koyomi is always riding them. and her level of fitness is absolutely insane, so she could pull it off. but ougi has lots of bicycle experience, and does like tricks and stuff for it. and they can do crazy stunts without worrying about damage to the user. so its a toss up here, but karen could win.
hanekawa would not win. ougi would not allow it, their pride would not allow it. hanekawa would try to win, as part of her rivalry with them. but ougi would probably rather die than allow her to win especially when it concerns a hobby of theirs so they dont its as simple as that. i dont think hanekawa would be too much of a challenge, but she’s very powerful and unpredictable so ougi would take no chances. eliminate with extreme prejudice.
now for the last of the non-cheaters, koyomi (surprisingly). dont get me wrong he would absolutely cheat against like at least half of the other cast if he felt like he couldn’t win easily or if he started losing. but he would be way too terrified to cheat against ougi. and there’s absolutely no way he wins against ougi without cheating, i mean come on. ougi can do cool little tricks and knows all his weaknesses. i think he would keep up decently at first but ultimately be completely destroyed near the end of the race.
ok now for the cheaters 😈 (spoilers: none of them could win)
nadeko would cheat here because she would know that she has no chance of winning whatsoever if she doesnt, and she doesnt really like ougi all that much so she doesnt feel too bad about it. now the WAY she decides to cheat varies. nadeko would much rather rely on her own abilities instead of asking yotsugi or tsukihi for help, so she might draw a shikigami of anti-nadeko (or a more cooperative version with the same strength) to throw/boost her instead, which you could argue is technically not cheating because its still her own power moving the bmx.
senjougahara really cheats? no dignity! she would act like shes gonna do it fair and square and then totally shamelessly cheat bc she doesnt think she can win at all. i think she would race normally, and then once ougi got far ahead enough she would try to cut ahead by going off the tracks and taking a shortcut.
i think i can picture a universe where sodachi cheats so heres what she’d do. and she’s probably the most creative one about it. i think, given her penchant for careful and precise planning, she would add obstacles to the course. its hard to do and it would take a while, but its also hard to check for if you do it right. she wouldnt even necessarily have to buy materials either, assuming the race doesnt happen somewhere built for the purpose of bicycle racing. she could just move stuff from the general terrain around the course to make it look like it was something that happened by accident, while having knowledge of where the traps were and how to get past them. think like moving around rocks and boulders, small logs and dirt piles and stuff like that. stuff that could put the bicycle off balance, or would require slowing down or rerouting, especially stuff that looks deceptively harmless.
shinobu would cheat, but not intentionally, she just has no interest in the rules and doesnt intend to learn what they are. so the moment the race starts, in order to “get to the goal the fastest” she goes off track.
yotsugi ABSOLUTELY cheats, but probably not in an interesting way. she just uses unlimited rulebook to boost her bike into the air. i think she potentially maybe could use it to just speed up, but i think she wouldnt have the patience for that at all and would rather just skip the whole race asap.
mayoi is unable to ride the bmx. she just isn’t good at it. she’s small and its kinda big and unwieldy so its just hard to do. i think her cheat would be the kind of cheat that doesnt really have much practical chance of succeeding long term, like tying her bmx to ougi’s so she can get pulled along. i think she’d try to frame it as like a cooperative thing like let’s get to the finish line together type deal. but i cant see her having the heart to actually betray someone right at the finish line, so she would just lose. she probably wouldnt care that much anyway
but the reason why not just hachikuji but none of the cheaters would have a chance at winning is because while ougi could potentially be miffed at losing, there’s no way they’d let a cheater slip by. and they’d have a lot of fun catching the cheats and working around them. they would examine for possible cheats based on the opponent and prepare countermeasures far in advance-- all in all, cheating is bad against ougi because its like when you pirate a game and the final boss becomes impossible to beat on your copy. youre ramping up the difficulty to such an extreme level that its better to just do it legit. ougi’s ability and desire to win probably increases exponentially if their opponent is cheating, as well as their enjoyment of the race.
here’s how they would deploy the countermeasures:
ougi would definitely anticipate the shikigami move and have some countermeasures in mind. i imagine they might try to convince anti-nadeko she’s being used for a silly purpose (she is) and make her not want to help, OR the much more Fun way they would go to the drawing in the notebook right before nadeko brings it to life and erase the arms without nadeko noticing. so it has no arms and can’t help her. oops!
senjougahara’s move... it’s just kinda silly. i think it’s too silly for ougi to prepare anything really crazy. if anything they prolly just pick to do the race at a time + place where the shortcuts aren’t actually helpful at all. like construction blocking the way, rocky terrain, that sort of thing. and then they’d just do the race and win normally
sodachi’s planning is her own downfall as usual :( ougi is very cool and just uses the added obstacles as like ramps and shit. and uses the ramps to go over harder obstacles, or just fucking lifts the bmx up somehow like in otorimongatari. and sodachi just doesnt have that kinda technical prowess, or the ability to predict that someone would be able to do that (which is reasonable). rip
as for shinobu, she’s instantly disqualified so ougi just goes off track with her for the hell of it (and wins anyway, of course)
yotsugi’s impatience gets the best of her here-- she’d have had a lot easier time if she had just tried to speed herself up, but by attempting a leap she leaves herself wayy more open to counterattacks. i think ougi would choose the most slapstick way of going about this so i’d imagine that, understanding that unlimited rulebook involves a lot of explosive force, they would bring a slingshot to the race. and they’d wait till yotsugi tried to use the rulebook and then with one perfectly placed projectile, knock yotsugi’s foot to the side juuust so, so that the angle of the leap is altered, and she goes careening away at high speed. teehee shouldnt have cheated! of course yotsugi would be fine even after a crash bc shes a doll, so its okay to go for more dangerous counterattacks in ougi’s mind.
for hachikuji, she wouldnt have the opportunity to not betray ougi bc she wouldnt get to the finish line tow truck/three legged race style in the first place. she would be like “lets get there together” and ougi would just pull out a pair of scissors and be like “nope ✂” even though they know she probably wouldnt even try to win. they are just devious like that
so yeah none of the cheaters would win. ougi would want more of them to cheat so they could win anyway and have fun with it. like ooh youre cheating now i can be evil. honestly same
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
(Spoilers for Owarimonogatari Part 2! Don’t read this if you haven’t seen it yet.)
We’d found a restaurant that was miraculously open at midnight, dim lights flickering occasionally. After sitting down at the table for two, two full sushi platters were laid out for us on opposite sides.
“Thanks for the food!”
The girl across the table chowed down like it was her last meal.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bakemonogatari
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Araragi Koyomi & Oshino Ougi
Characters: Araragi Koyomi, Oshino Ougi
Additional Tags: Sushi, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Spoilers, Introspection, Character Development, Character Study, serious conversations
Summary:
Araragi and Ougi go to a sushi restaurant at midnight. It’s normal.
something cool i noticed in kabukimonogatari (owarimonogatari ge spoilers)
back when i was doing a monogatari rewatch with a few of friends, one of them kept getting annoyed that araragi did the eye blink camera thing so much. i wouldnt have noticed he did it so much until it was pointed out.
so then when i was rewatching the opening scene of kabuki the other day and i saw this.... (go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szct_ATyHPY&t=3m8s for the sound)
