Nisemonogatari Episode 6 – Let’s Slow it Down
This show is really starting to feel like a two-episode arc of Bakemonogatari being drawn out to eleven episodes. I think I should go ahead and give up on any delusions of this show moving faster than a crippled slug, then maybe I wouldn’t be as frustrated with it’s pacing. At this point, I’m also seeing almost no point to that three episode long character reintroduction, which slowed down the show’s progression even more. Neither of Hachikuji’s appearances have really had anything to do with the story, and Kanbaru and Sengoku’s appearances only provided very minute details to the plot. Sure, they’re all enjoyable, but if they aren’t going to serve a purpose then why include them in this series? Say, for instance, some random character was introduced in Sengoku’s arc during Bakemonogatari, served no purpose during that time and then disappeared as soon as it was over; what would the point of it be?
There is some plot progression, if you could call it that, in this episode, though it basically boils down to Karen being gone and Senjougahara wanting to go find Kaiki. We don’t even get to see the conclusion to the cliffhanger from last week; all we get is Araragi summarizing that he did indeed kiss his sister, but it only took some of the poison away. That’s such bullshit, what a giant middle finger to everybody. I mean, it’s not as if they’re rushed for time and they just had to skip over that to get to Araragi and Hachikuji walking around and talking. It’s not like it was due to censorship either; this show has already had a naked eight-year-old girl taking a bath with a teenage boy. Finally Senjougahara had a little more screen-time this episode, and thankfully didn’t occupy it by kidnapping Araragi. Though her motives are understandable, it seems like she’s being just as reckless as Karen. I don’t really understand exactly what she plans to do to Kaiki, or how she plans to stop him, seeing as how she has no supernatural powers of her own. She even admitted herself that, although he is a con man, he may be more powerful than what he’s supposed to be impersonating, so what does she plan to do without Araragi?
Karen’s motives are equally idiotic. Kaiki has already cursed her, yet she continues to go out after him even though she’s sick and may or may not know where he is? I know being reckless is in her character, but that’s pretty damn stupid. At least her being an idiot gave Shinobu a reason to come back out again and get back into the show. Though with her being as large a character as she has been, it seems as if Araragi will eventually have to explain to his sisters about his vampirism, and her as well (but it would probably be a good a good idea to not tell Tsukihi about her).
Though I’ve already said it, the progression of this series is getting very annoying. I know that Bakemonogatari never really had a straight linear story-line, but there was still always something happening in that series. Even conversations that didn’t really have any purpose were only fillers in between the separate arcs of the show. Seeing as how the novel only contains Karen and Tsukihi’s arcs, it’s understandable why this series is moving so slow, but I haven’t read enough of it to know if all of these other random seemingly pointless scenes actually serve as little purpose as I think they do. I really hope that the second half of the show picks up, because it’s actually more than halfway through right now, and almost nothing has happened at present. How about this, let’s look at the official generic copy-pasta plot summary of this series.
“The black swindler Kaiki Deishu, who once deceived Hitagi, returns to town and spreads the incantation which cursed Nadeko before. Koyomi’s sisters Karen and Tsukihi try to capture Deishu but…” (Plot summary from MAL)
You could literally add the line “… he curses Karen” to the end of that and it would be the summary for the entire show thus far. That’s what you call a slow-as-Christmas show if I’ve ever seen one. The show is halfway finished, it has five episodes left, step it up a little. What about Tsukihi? Please, God, don’t tell me we’re going to have to wait for months and months on end to see the end of her arc too. If we do, it better be ten thousand times as awesome as the end of Hanekawa’s arc, which is a pretty tall order to fill.
Posted on February 11, 2012, in Nisemonogatari and tagged Anime, Episode 6, Nisemonogatari, Review, Shinobu. Bookmark the permalink. 10 Comments.
The Notaku Blog 
Not as great as last week, but still a solid episode.
Even when it wrong-foots or lollygags, Nisemonogatari remains heads & shoulders above the other shows from winter due to superior animation and dialogue and characterization.
Exactly; when judged on it’s own standards it wasn’t that good, but compared to everything else, it’s still great, though as of right now, not as memorable as the original.
The main reason Nisemonogatari cannot surpass Bakemonogatari is due to the original’s trailblazing aesthetics. Nisemonogatari can only amplify the aesthetics, take advantage of a larger budget for a more fluid animation, more scenes, and better background style.
So your criticism is more about the original material (if the adaptation is rather faithful) and the lack of anime-original material to add to the slow plot.
Actually, I’ll say that Kizumonogatari will be better than Bakemonogatari, because it’s story combined with Shaft’s production will equal complete awesomeness. So you’re right, in the same way, I’m criticizing this show for being slow paced, though the original novel is to blame for that.
I would say that it probably should have been combined with another novel from the Monogatari series to make it’s overall plot more fast paced, but if the decision was made to make an adaptation based solely on this novel, then maybe they plan to make more anime for the novels, which I have no problems with.
Fanboi logic/
Well, on second thought since Kizumonogatari is a feature film or some 50 minute OVA it won’t come anywhere near the sustained brilliance across 15 episodes of Bakemonogatari.
Kinda like how 80 hours of the Sopranos blow the Godfather clean out of the water.
/End Fanboi logic
😉
True, but by my fanboy logic:
Movie about Shinobu > Series where she’s pouting the entire time. Hopefully, that is; I hope it’s a movie and not some rushed OVA.
That said, the presence of Shinobu alleviates any and all perceived problems. 🙂
I kinda like the pacing of the show, it’s always a pleasure listening to the sharp dialogues and watching the dazzling animation without having to keep up with a fast plot or action scenes like most anime do. Still the best show of the season. Or the year. Or the last five years (on par with few others..).
I sure hope its not going to take all that time to complete Tsukihi’s arc…:|
Well, they wasted about three episodes reintroducing unnecessary characters, so hopefully, her’s won’t end up being too rushed. but even if Karen’s is finished next week (which I don’t really think it will be) then Tsukihi’s arc will only have four episodes.