Sengoku Nadeko
Page music
Started watching Nekomonogatari white.
Bigger lies are harder to catch.
When dealing with a Roomba, you might say good morning, but you would never say good night.
“Oh I get it, Senjougahara is of the type that likes to use dressing?” “—No. I wasn’t aware that people who didn’t use dressing existed until now.” “The type that enjoys ingredients’ natural flavors” “But isn’t food good even without flavor?” “They say secrets don’t come from questioning but slips of the tongue”
Finished the Kabukimonogatari arc. Not a very innovative take on time travel, I expected better.
Finished the Otorimonogatari arc. This one was pretty chilling. One thing I like most in the series is how much of the “evil” comes from the main characters themselves. Cat, monkey and bat cause almost everything from their own will, the kaii mostly being just a vehicle for it, if I understand correctly (and crab is perfectly psychotic without help from any kaii). The kaii changes the humans’ behavior a lot so that you could call them possessed, but the vibe I get is like the recurring point in this arc about “they are being the perpetrator rather than the victim”.
The author likes to subvert tropes, and one that caught my attention is the harem. Where normally MC is kept from getting too close to any of the girls, here Araragi immediately falls love with the first girl and dates her, while the other girls still love him all the same. I think it was mentioned/joked earlier that it might be some supernatural ability of his to make every girl fall in him, stemming from the vampirism. And then almost every story arc has its genesis in unrequited love towards Araragi (or caused by him in monkey’s case). It’s kind of funny that for all the heroism Araragi does, he often turns out to be the root cause of the conflict.
I like the trope where gods and supernatural beings gain their power from human belief. A god who has no followers has no power. Besides Monogatari, it’s quite common in anime and manga I think. Planescape also has a stronger version where reality itself is shaped by belief. That one urban fantasy mage pen and paper RPG also had a similar setting I think (Mage: The Ascension). The twist in this arc was that Nadeko resurrected a completely forgotten god by mistaking her delusions as the god communicating to her. It makes sense that each god has to have a first believer, and to do that you must invent the god.
Nice covers of the “page music” song Renai Circulation:
[uKxyLmbOc0Q] *namirin
[ayJdEzhqQ0I] Rie Kugimiya