You can raise your hand if you had High Card and Mononogatari getting second seasons on your anime bingo card, but I doubt I’d believe you. At least it explains why the exposition with this one seemed glacially slow. As I noted several times I had an overwhelming sense Mononogatari was barely skimming the surface, giving us the merest taste of its premise in these 12 episodes. Knowing there’s another 12 (or so) to follow certainly makes that a lot easier to explain.
Especially given thee new reality, I’ve gotten to the point where I quite like what this show is doing. The last group of episodes was certainly better than the first. The Kadamori clan have added an interesting layer – there’s more to them individually than they appear to be at first glance. The background characters like Kai have gotten fleshed out a little, and likewise added something to the mix. Hyouma has grown somewhat as a person (an advantage of having a protagonist who starts out as unlikeable as he does) and Botan has become more a real person and less a plot point.
Kai’s M.O. continues to be that his existence revolves around boredom, and the never-ending quest to combat it. That’s all this Hyouma business is, a way for Kai to assuage his curiosity and kill some time. He taunts Hyouma with hints that he knows more about the paper umbrella, then declares Hyouma too weak to have the information shared with him. There is a certain saliency in his argument – if the paper umbrella was strong enough to take out Hyouma’s older brother and sister it’s certainly too strong for him to handle.
What follows next is the key to the episode, and it’s not as clear exactly what’s driving Kai here. His “revelation” that Botan was the one responsible for “activating” the paper umbrella that killed Hyouma’s brother and sister – with Botan eavesdropping – is a game-changer. If it’s true, that is. It could be Kai repeating a story whose veracity he has no idea of, or he could just be completely BS-ing as a means of trolling Hyouma (though there have apparently been these sorts of rumors about the paper umbrella and Botan for years).
Hyouma immediately asks for time off on hearing Kai’s explanation, and winds up at the Kadamori estate undergoing their training for three days. Eventually a concerned Botan comes to Taiju hoping to learn the truth about the paper umbrella only to find out Hyouma has been hiding out there. Kadamori-san actually senses the underlying dynamics and does the right thing – kicks Hyouma out and back into Botan’s arms. And she explains a dark part of her past, which has made it so difficult for her to let anyone get close to her. But soon after, an uninvited visitor turns up outside the Nagatsuki house…
That would have been a truly vile way to end the series, but as a cliffhanger it works fine. There are lots of chips for Mononogatari to play in its second season (this summer), and a lot of characters to play them. This being effectively a split cour works fine for me – summer looks a lot weaker than spring from this distance. The overall trend supports the notion that this series gets better the deeper it explores, which would certainly bode well for its second cour.
Nicc
March 30, 2023 at 7:13 amI certainly wasn’t expecting “High Card” to be getting a 2nd season, but this one always seemed more likely to me. It was part of a slew of other shows getting new seasons. It certainly explains the leisurely pacing, as you said, if it was part of a split-cour.
If the show was to end here with an anime-original ending, I would have expected a battle like this, except with the umbrella tsukumogami instead of Kai. Speaking of that, the battle didn’t end the way I expected. Hyouma manages to land a hit, but otherwise is on the back foot for the entire battle. Nagi and Suzuri, who were nearby, join the fray and toting along Itsuki. It turns out that Itsuki is a complete pushover when it comes to fighting, but is able to easily subdue Kai with a power that resembles a shock collar.
The bits of humor coming from unusual places seems to be trademark, like the Kadamori men modeling for fashion magazines. The story regarding Botan and the umbrella tsukumogami could all be heresay, but it could be related to the incident with her relatives during the flashback later on. It’s implied that she may have unwittingly unleashed her powers before.
Hyouma disappears for a few days. I think it shows just how close he’s gotten to the Nagatsuki household by now when even Yuu doesn’t show any glee that he’s not around. It turns out that he’s just been hanging around with the Kamadori’s to get some more training. Far from being discouraged, it seems that Kai’s words drove him to get stronger. Tsubaki certainly missed an opportunity to try to get closer to Hyouma with Botan not being around.
It ends with Botan and Hyouma getting a heart-to-heart about her past and why she can’t get close to anybody. Well, lucky for her, Hyouma is just too awkward and straightforward to betray her. Oh, and there’s Haori listening in. She’s already measuring the shiromuku, isn’t she? This series certainly did get better as it went on and I’ll be back when the 2nd cour comes this summer.
Guardian Enzo
March 30, 2023 at 7:50 amSomehow, in an unlikely way, those two are kind of a good match.