The voters have spoken, and this time around it’s Mononogatari that gets the nod.  I would have been fine with any of the four nominees, though I’m not enraptured with any of them.  Would this have been the one I picked if I’d let things run their course?  Maybe – when we’re talking about series on the periphery, potential counts for a lot.  It is rather a shame about Kubo-san and its delay, because that was probably going to be the favorite to pop the bubble.  And the way spring is looking, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where I’ll have time to resume it.

Again, that “P” word – it can be a curse, as any kid who’s been labeled with it could attest.  But it is a compliment – there’s stuff here that interests me.  A Kyoto setting, a seemingly quite intricate mythology, Japanese folklore.  And one of the advantages of a jerk for a protagonist is they have a lot of potential to grow (as I suspect Hyouma will).  This was an episode that focused on the details pretty hard, so it’s not surprising that it was among Mononogatari’s more interesting so far.

Increasingly it’s clear that Botan is the key to everything in this plot, and not just a love interest and moeblob.  She sits at the center of an uneasy truce between the humans and tsukumogami of Kyoto, with neutrality towards her (or at least her family) a condition applied to both sides.  As such, Hyouma – as the air to the Saenome – moving into the Nagatsuki compound raises a lot of suspicions on both sides.  It also raises the curiosity of Kai, one of the “Three Great Tsukumogami of Kyoto”, who calls in Zouhei, Kushige, and Haori for a chat surrounding the matter.

Kai is an interesting one.  Apparently he’s been sealed with his own permission, with the condition that he can summon anyone he likes and they have to stay as long as he wants.  As you’d expect boredom seems to be his biggest problem and rather than calling the trio on the carpet for a breach of the old agreement, he mostly just wants to catch up on all the gossip and drink sake.  It’s kind of a “country club prison”, to use a term you often hear in the States, but I get the feeling Kai would happily take the opportunity to bust out should the conditions of his incarceration be voided.

Meanwhile, Hyouma has been putting up talismans around the neighborhood after Botan was attacked, much to the great irritation of the household tsukumogami (they say it‘s unnecessary, and I see no reason to doubt them).  That brings yet more unwanted attention onto the whole situation, and eventually Hyouma is accosted on the street by Aogi and Ushiki, a pair of tsukumogami who specialize in investigations.  Hyouma at least seems to be half heartedly trying to avoid conflict here, though if Yu hadn’t showed I suspect he’d have gotten it anyway.  Aogi refers to the “Yorimashi” power Botan (or her clan) possesses, and I expect we’re going to be hearing much, much more about that.