The astonishing return of the queen, Senjougahara

She was away for far too long. People have com­plained, people have wondered, I have built the­or­ies… Now she’s back, bring­ing another nerve-stressing ses­sion of sharp mono­logue, eyes cur­ing beau­ti­ful­ness, heart-twitching romantism and a pun­ful post title. Hitagi.

To tell you the truth, when think­ing in ret­ro­spect about the 12^th epis­ode, what comes to mind first is the con­fu­sion about her name. Before, I thought Sen­jou­ga­hara were her first and Hitagi her last name. I’m pretty accus­tomed to the anib­lo­go­sphere call­ing char­ac­ters by their first name as if they’d know them per­son­ally. But it seems that the Sen­jou­ga­hara Fas­cin­a­tion move­ment is not only, um, fas­cin­ated by the mov­ing office equip­ment, but her father as well, and in addi­tion to the whole is very polite, too. At least now I know that to be traditions-friendly I should call her Hitagi.

Then there would be Araragi’s reac­tion to their first date. And the red back­ground we got to see the avant­gard­ist ele­ment on. He’s whole­freak­ingly afraid of it, and I can totally under­stand it! The oddity of their rela­tion­ship becomes ever clearer: When Hitagi says what she loves about Arar­agi she lists his kind­ness, cute­ness, and that he saved her; When Arar­agi is being asked, he doesn’t know what to answer first, and then picks an easy reply, ‘everything.’ She teases him, she slags him, and he avoids her. Not like your nor­mal couple behaves, I think.

For the first, we’re not watch­ing them find­ing each other like for example Ryuji and Taiga in the unfor­get­table Tor­adora, or Nia and Simon in Gur­ren Lagann. It’s about how they cut their edges to match each other. Or that’s how it seems the pro­du­cers wanted it to be, because in real­ity, Arar­agi doesn’t really change. Hitagi is still mean, she didn’t change either… OK, until this epis­ode, where she tries to behave prop­erly. Even so, the devel­op­ment is really slowly.

Arar­agi, you are a brave man. Every moment with her is like lying on hot nails on a sunny day in a desert, and our cam­era will soon look a hole through your shak­ing eye.

I find her too cruel. Yes, I of course am um, fas­cin­ated by her as every­body else with few excep­tions. This time she appeared even more beau­ti­ful then ever, with that hair­cut, dress,.. even blush­ing! (So much about people telling me my recent art­work of her were unreal­istic). But giv­ing that she and Horo from Spice and Wolf are a little sim­ilar in their kind, if I would be given choice between the both, Hitagi would lose. And it’s not about how Hitagi’s tongue staples me to my seat. Every fan needs his room for ima­gin­a­tions based on real plot, and let’s be hon­est, Hitagi is scary as hell. That just marginal.

Still, even if she con­sciously puts Arar­agi in a very uncom­fort­able situ­ation, their first date is romantic enough. I innerly d’awwed. She puts much effort into show­ing her love for him, and it seems like the teas­ing part is just a rem­nant, or to tell it simply, she just can’t get a hold of her­self. Her father, whom I was sur­prised to see since the sur­real­is­mic budget hid­ing only showed the most import­ant char­ac­ters before, is an inter­est­ing per­son. He didn’t acted as if there would be nobody there while Hitagi made the puns about her name and her father, what I’d call unnor­mally. On the other hand, I already said that Bake­monogatari is sur­real­istic, and we can’t expect the char­ac­ters to do what they should. Because they will do what the scene needs them to do, not more not less. And the end… it was really good. Your very love story moment, after which you nor­mally make the credit screen roll, leav­ing the viewer in a nice, con­tent con­di­tion with a good after­taste for the rest of the day. Moreover, if Bake­monogatari wouldn’t be that great before, just this very scene could make people rate the series with a bold ten.

She is back again on our screens, even if just for another three epis­odes. I’m glad to observe her quietly from the safe dis­tance of real­ity and be um, fas­cin­ated by her a bit longer.

P. S. I don’t really like the film adapt­a­tion of Lord of the Rings, too much pathos.

Fur­ther Reading

• A bit more on Arar­agi and Hitagi’s relationship
• Still pro­tect­ing her from trolls
• My fan art­work where Hitagi is blushing