Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card – 15 – A Phone Call, Daidouji Videos, and a Quake

After yet another ominous scene with Akiho, her (still motionless) rabbit, and Yuna D. Kaito reminding us that there’s Something Up With Those Three, we return to Sakura’s house where she’s braiding Meiling’s hair.

Talk turns to how Sakura’s dad has always cut her hair, Yukito cuts her brother’s and her brother cuts her father’s…but when Syaoran comes up, Sakura can’t mask her worry.

Meiling’s solution is to simply call him, and then hands the phone off so the two lovebirds can talk. Syaoran says he’s fine (or at least he says he is), so Sakura is able to continue her day without worrying about him.

That day consists of Sakura, Meiling, and Akiho meeting up to visit Tomoyo’s mansion, and are welcomed at the door by her mother,  who finished a bunch of phone calls early and cancelled her schedule just to be able to greet her beloved, adorable Sakura. Far from feeling hurt about this, Tomoyo is on the same page as her mom: Sakura IS adorable!

Tomoyo then drops a big surprise on Sakura: she’s invited them to try out her new super-deluxe home theater, where she proceeds to play the Nadeshiko festival play in which Sakura and Syaoran starred—another nice callback to older iterations of the series.

The chemistry between Sakura and Syaoran is apparent not just in their on-stage performance (which was interrupted by an earthquake) but behind-the-scenes footage of them learning their dance steps.

Sakura is mortified beyond belief by all this footage—she doesn’t like to be on display, despite her occupation—but Tomoyo is merciless, and Akiho and Meiling also get a kick out of all of the heartwarming film…as did I!

Sakura tries to get revenge by mentioning Tomoyo singing, and Tomoyo has no choice but to play it for Akiho, but their viewing party is suddenly interrupted…by another earthquake. Sakura hides behind a chair to release her staff, then puts Akiho, Tomoyo’s mom, and the house staff to sleep with Snooze lest too many learn her identity. With that, she uses Flight to sprout wings and survey shaky ground from a safe height.

Considering Akiho described exactly what happened last week as being a chapter from her white clock book, with Sakura in the role of “Alice”, it’s a good bet the next chapter involves an earthquake. We’ll have to wait until next week to learn how Alice manages to resolve the situation, as the episode ends on a bit of a cliffhanger.

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Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card – 14 – Forest of Illusion

CCS:CC is a show replete with beautiful pastels and idyllic scenes of Sakura’s lovely, happy life, but from its first moments this is an episode that throws a number of strange and even unsettling images into the mix, starting with Sakura waking up to find Meiling and Kero-chan right in her face, trying to compete to see who has the more intense face (it causes the first of ten Sakura “hoeees!” in the ep).

Sakura with her new ‘do and Meiling meet up with their friends at a shrine market, but Syaoran is running late because he’s doing some rather intense magical training, no doubt to be able to support Sakura when the going gets tough.

It’s a fun and pleasant day as usual, until Sakura and only Sakura starts seeing animal ears and tails on all of her friends. They even start “talking” like the animals they represent, until the very environment around them starts to blur and twist and Sakura finds herself in a great grassy valley with a planet in the purple sky.

This is one of the trippiest cards since the Escher-esque labyrinth, and Sakura doesn’t have a clue where she is and how to change her increasingly animal friends back. She can’t even catch up to them, as they scatter and run when she approaches, eventually settling down at the base of a massive baobab tree.

Sakura is scared, and things suddenly get scarier. A storm swoops in, and a lightning bolt splits the tree in pieces, causing it to burst into flames. As it begins to fall on her animalized friends, time suddenly stops, and Syaoran literally tears through the fabric of the environment to join Sakura.

The time magic he used has gassed him, and the magic won’t last long but he still manages to calm a panicking Sakura down with a big hug, urging her to control her breathing and think about the situation. Sakura realizes she wanted to go to the zoo, so the card turned her friends into animals. When she became scared, it made things scarier.

Once sufficiently calm, Sakura is able to break out of the illusion and secure the “Mirage” card that caused all of the trouble. Everyone ends up back at the shrine, none the worse for wear save Syaoran, who is still exhausted from his use of powerful magic.

Meiling acknowledges her cousin Syaoran doing his best for Sakura’s sake (and the fact he calls her “Sakura”), while expressing her aggravation that she has no magic with which to help out. Still, neither Meiling nor any of Sakura or Syaoran’s friends need magic to support them; their friendship is something worth becoming stronger to protect.

I imagine Sakura will have to grow stronger still in order to face whatever nefariousness Yuna D. Kaito is up to.

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card – 13 – Meiling It In

After cheerleading practice, Sakura gets a surprising phone call from Meiling announcing that she has arrived in Japan. Since this is my first foray into CCS such an arrival means less to me than those who’ve watched the franchise in its entirety, but despite not knowing much about her or her past exploits with the other characters, she’s still a welcome and refreshing (re-)addition to Sakura’s circle of friends.

Rather than stay with her cousin Syaoran, Meiling decides to stay at Sakura’s permission for which she receives from Sakura’s dad over the phone, using such polite and formal language she shocks her old friend.

While Sakura’s brother stays at Yukito’s, avoiding answering questions about whether his powers are returning, Meiling and Sakura make delectable homemade gyoza, while Meiling and Kero square off multiple times, requiring Sakura to play peacemaker.

After helping Sakura dry her hair (resulting in a slightly different, more refined look), Meiling gets Sakura (a “natural airhead”) to open up about Syaoran. Sakura knows that Syaoran is hiding something, but also trusts him enough to believe if it were something he should and could tell her, he would, or will when he’s ready. I hope her trust isn’t misplaced.

As for Akiho, she continues to read from the tome of stories, one of which depicts a girl who grew cat ears and a tail—which is precisely what Sakura sees Meiling growing at various moments before they go to bed. She and Meiling chalk it up to Sakura simply being half-asleep and seeing things, but it’s clear the ears and tail are not only real, but something being instigated by Akiho, seemingly at the behest of her watch-wearing butler.

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card – 10

Sakura is taking hands-free calls from Meiling and her dad whilst preparing for an afternoon visit from Akiho. For those who suspect Akiho of being somehow related to the dreams with the cloaked figure, this episode neither allays nor confirms those suspicions. All it confirms is that Akiho and Sakura get along like peaches and cream.

Akiho is almost too perfect a friend, proper, courteous, and self-effacing as she is. She even hates konjac…just like Sakura. But in the middle of a sumptuous meal lovingly prepared by Sakura, a strange glowing ball that originated in her room puts Akiho into a deep sleep. Assuming it’s a new Card, Sakura and Kero-chan spring into action, but the glowing ball eludes them and heads outside.

When Sakura follows, she finds herself in a trippy alternate dimension that resembles Escher’s Relativity. Sakura dons rollerblades, gloves, and kneepads to give chase, and instantly makes all of those things super-cool again for the duration of the episode. Kero points out that “they haven’t done this in a while”, so it’s clear the Sakura of previous iterations of the show have done this, back when rollerblading actually was cool.

Both the glowing ball and the labyrinth are seperate Cards: Sleep and Labyrinth, respectively, and Sakura manages to capture both. Akiho wakes up and Yuna D. Kaito takes her home. The rollerblade labyrinth is one of the cooler action sequences the show has done, and it’s executed pretty much flawlessly and with a cool, casual confidence. Not only that, but if this ep was meant to be part of the continuing Akiho charm offensive…well, it’s working!

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card – 09

“A lot happened, but today was a good day.” Sakura could say that about just about any day, considering how much she has going on in her life, but I’ll concede that this day was better than most because she got to finally go on a date with Syaoran.

Sakura arrives at the meeting spot early after a quick chat with Yue (during which Kero once again transforms for no reason other than ‘it’s cool’), but Syaoran is earlier still.

The date unfolds as one would expect, with the two periodically getting embarassed and blushing but also generally having a great time. Syaoran also gets to show off his encyclopedic knowledge of jellyfish—they’re poisonous…who knew?! ;)—as well as his fluency in English.

In an interesting scene, Touya appears as a waiter at the aquarium tea room, and Syaoran later feels bad for simply glaring at him (though Touya glared back!) Also, the height difference between Sakura/Syaoran and adults like Touya is a pretty weird quirk of the show. Look how low that table is!

It wouldn’t be a Sakura date without some kind of Card-related excitement, and Sakura almost seems to be expecting some, especially when she takes Syaoran to the same place where she secured the Watery Clow Card. That excitement takes the form of a cracked water tank, in which…something grabs hold of Sakura.

Touya hits the emergency drains and Syaoran plucks her from the water (interestingly, neither seems embarrassed by him carrying her). That tank burst occured just when Syaoran was going to tell Sakura he officially wanted to go out with her.

Instead, it’s a wash (pun intended), but there’s nothing saying they can’t go on another date in the near future. Indeed, when Sakura vows to return to the aquarium after dark to secure the Card there, Tomoyo dresses both her and Syaoran up and makes sure she has plenty of pics and footage taken.

Sakura uses Lucid to hide everyone from security, then goes through various Cards from Gravitation to Flight to Gale, and isn’t quite able to bring down the Card, which rather than watery, has the form of a kind of giant Slinky.

Syaoran comes through with an assist, freezing the Card with ice magic so Sakura can secure “Spiral.” While larger questions loom and few were answered, Sakura is still quite correct that a lot happened, but it was a good day. From the happy would-be couple’s priceless interactions to the gorgeous environs of the aquarium, to even Tomoyo’s next-level surveillance, it was a pretty good episode too.

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card – 08

CCS keeps on keeping on, with Sakura capturing another card and only the slightest movement made on her “clock dreamworld” situation. She also learns that yet another frined of hers is stinking rich, or at least gets to live in the house of someone stinking rich; namely Akiho living in the house Eriol used to live in.

Eriol may have been “very mature and a wonderful person”, but he still hasn’t replied to Sakura about the Clear Cards. Nevertheless, Akiho invites Sakura and Tomoyo over to see her collection of books from her travels.

Sakura invites Syaoran, who can’t go because he has unspecified “plans,” but Sakura, undiscouraged, and asks him if he’ll go out with her the Sunday after that, to which he agrees before trying to flick a petal off her shoulder. Their romantic scene is rudely interrupted by Kero, telling them “the world ain’t just for you two!” Speak for yourself, purse rat!

After another school day and a successful cheerleading practice, Sakura heads home and is greeted by her brother who seems like he wants to say something but doesn’t, and when she reaches for her closet, ends up in the clock world again. No matter how many questions she asks, the cloaked figure won’t answer her, and the clocks only multiply. Frustrating, right!

That Sunday, Sakura and Tomoyo show up to Eriol’s former, now Akiho’s current house, and it’s not only huge and stately, but comes with a dutiful butler named Tuxedo Mask Yuna D. Kaito, for whom Akiho used to cause “all kinds of trouble” when she was little. As guests in such a house, the girls mind their manners, and flowery formal pleasantries fly freely.

After tea and cake that tastes so good Sakura lets out an exhortation in some other language, the girls hit Akiho’s book collection, which is basically a damn library. The book Akiho is currently reading and considers a favorite is not there, and when she runs to get it, Sakura notices a group of numbered books missing, along with a section of shelving: this week, she doesn’t have to fight the card or become friends with it; she only had to find where it was hiding.

The card, “Lucid”, thus captured after the oh-so-brief hide-and-seek, Akiho returns with the book, the cover of which looks just like the clocks and gears in Sakura’s now waking dreams. It’s called Alice in Clock Land, not written by Lewis Carroll. Sakura wants to learn more, but Kaito interrupts their discussion asking if they want more refreshment.

Back in the UK, an impatient Akizuki Nakuru complains to the cat Spinel Sun about why they haven’t gone to Japan to help Sakura out. Eriol insists that there’s nothing they can do but wait “for the time to come.” Cut to Syaoran studying some kind of magical tablet in his room in the dark, and roll credits.

I’m encouraged that the aesthetic of Sakura’s dreams has finally shown up in the real world, and that Akiho is most definitely connected in some way. Her interactions with Syaoran continue to be adorable beyond compare, though I wonder if they’ll be able to go on an entire date without interruption from Kero, a Card, or something/one else.

As for still being mostly in the dark about everything going on around Sakura, well, at least we have good company, in that Sakura herself is just as in the dark! Nothing for it but to keep capturing Cards as they come, and living life in between.

ReLIFE – 11

Well, I guess even ReLIFE can have an off-day.

Perhaps it’s unfair to watch this episode on the heels of a terrific episode of Orange—or indeed, the momentous previous episode of ReLIFE—but I just wasn’t feeling this one. Which is a shame, because for all its momentum-killing flashbacks, it marked a significant leap forward for Kaizaki by the end.

This week Kaizaki asks Yoake for another pill to make him 28 again, so he can properly visit his senpai Saiki Michiru’s grave. She committed suicide after continued harassment from her peers, which only intensified when Kaizaki ignored her wish for him to “grow up” and not to involve himself.

I guess my main problem with this storyline—important as it is for how Kaizaki ended up with ReLIFE to begin with—is that I don’t buy that an office would be that awful. I’m not saying office jobs can’t be that awful, just that I didn’t feel that scenario was portrayed carefully, convincingly, or realistically enough here.

This show’s always better when working with shades of gray—everyone has selfish desires; that sort of thing—but Kaizaki’s former job seems like a ridiculously cartoonish hell; a “black company” not just full of sexist pricks, but borderline sociopaths.

Then there’s the two kohais from his company, who Yoake and An arrange to bump into Kaizaki. It’s good there are people who feel as he does, even if they didn’t have the courage to quit as soon as he did, and their admiration of what he did certainly lessens his regret somewhat and convinces him quitting was the right thing to do.

That’s all fine and dandy, but I’m still not sure why Yoake chose the anniversary of Saiki’s death to do this. It means for four months he kept information from Kaizaki that could have helped him deal with his trauma. But why so long? Was he simply waiting until a time when he knew Kaizaki would ask for a re-aging pill?

Finally, Kaizaki says he wants the pill so he won’t run into trouble if someone he knows shows up at Saiki’s grave. But that begs the question: how has he been able to avoid being spotted people he knows for four months? It’s a can of worms the episode presents that’s best left closed for the purposes of suspension of belief.

At any rate I’m glad Kaizaki is feeling better about the choices he made that led to his joining ReLIFE. Now I’d like to see him get back to that ReLIFE.

ReLIFE – 10

Both gifted and cursed by immense natural athletic talent that made her peers resent her and take her for granted, Honoka turned down all the powerhouses and sought refuge at Aoba High, a prep school not too serious about sports, where no one knew who she was.

But when she tried out for the team, someone knew who she was, and was angry she didn’t give it her all. She makes Honoka spike a ball at her as hard as she can, knocking her down, but she gets up laughing, her suspicions confirmed. Her name is Kariu Rena, and she wants to play volleyball with Honoka.

For three years they played and had fun, but one thing that goes unmentioned is that the rift caused by her ankle injury wasn’t helped by the fact she never really caught up to Honoka’s level, and trying to stand beside her on a still-tender ankle felt impossible.

So Kariu said some very mean things and retired from the team, two actions she felt she could not undo, no matter how much she wanted to. She didn’t realize just how genuinely worried her friends were, and how they’d let her undo whatever she said or did if she’d just…play and be friends with Honoka again. It’s what everyone wants.

Hishiro’s role in the talk with Honoka is masterful, chronicling all the times she transferred and introduced herself with less and less enthusiasm, “giving up on knowing people” as her heart gradually numbed. The bond between Kariu and Honoka makes her jealous. She won’t let it crumble needlessly.

Kariu is caught listening in on Honoka, and maintains her stubborn iron guard. Oga remains to assure Honoka she didn’t mean the things she said (again), and Honoka is in agreement. Kaizaki, basically acting as Hishiro’s backup thus far, surveys his friends and Honokas; they’re all of the same mind. They give Kariu time and space, trusting her to show up for the tournament.

When she doesn’t, Hishiro is pissed, and vows to drag Kariu there if she has to. Yoake helplfully provides Kaizaki with Kariu’s address. An points out to Yoake that he’s getting more involved these days, because he likes how things are changing. So does she. Kaizaki & Friends exploits are changing them too.

Hishiro almost makes the rookie mistake of stating her name after ringing Kariu’s bell. Kaizaki shushes her and pretends to be a delivery man, Kariu answers the door, and they barge in. She’s in her tracksuit, with her uniform on underneath. It would appear their trust in her was not misplaced, only their confidence in her ability take the step of going to the tournament on her own. She’s still stuck at home.

Kariu calls Hishiro dense, that she can’t possibly understand how she feels, but Hishiro doesn’t care. Kariu’s her friend; she’s allowed to be worried about her. She’s come to fulfill her own selfish desire: to make Kariu play with Honoka again. She takes Kariu’s head in her hands and ask her what her selfish desire is.

Turns out, it’s the same thing; Kariu was just afraid it was too late to achieve, but it wasn’t. All their selfish desires align. All that’s left is to act. Kariu accompanies Hishiro and Kaizaki back to school. Kariu enters the gym, and the match. Honoka stops looking, as Hishiro puts it, “ugly” and “dead.” They play, and have fun, like they’ve played for three years.

They also lose, and are eliminated, and are officially done with high school volleyball for good. But as they both share a good cry behind the gym (with Hishiro sitting between them, a choice she initially regrets), Honoka makes it clear that winning without Kariu would not have been fun or made her happy. Losing is fine if it means she has Kariu back. And Kariu points out they can still play volleyball in college. Duh!

They exchange apologies before turning their gratitude and affection on Hishiro, who couldn’t be happier herself. She’d only just become friends with these two, and she was going to be damned if she was going to let their bond crumble. So she worked her butt off and it paid off marvelously, to the joy and relief of all. Stellar stuff.

ReLIFE – 09

Much like the way Kariu fell on her ankle, things have gotten very awkward between her and Honoka post-spraining. Kariu has elected to keep her distance, partly because she’s ashamed for what she said to her friend. Honoka sits with Hishiro, who instantly notices she’s looking “uglier” (due to the crying).

Inukai hates to see Honoka like this, wants to force Kariu to apologize; the more diplomatic Asaji holds him back. When two people on ReLIFEare out of balance, everyone is affected adversely. The question is, what to do about it?

Someone I didn’t mention above is Kaizaki, who all but sat out last week, and is paying the price for not being more attuned to things. He knows something’s up with Kariu, however, and thinks the best thing for it is to leave Oga alone with her and let youth do the rest.

In addition to placating Oga x Kariu shippers, Kaizaki also taps into Oga’s chivilrous nature, sticking around specifically to help Kariu walk home, and not leaving even when she yells at him. She’s not surrendering to his kindness here so much as cutting him some slack. It’s difficult and scary to be honest with one’s feelings, and the truth is she does appreciate Oga.

Two really great things about ReLIFE: it always finds ways to involve characters who aren’t in the present spotlight. Take Kaizaki and Hishiro, united in their need to figure out what’s up with their friends and what to do about it. Or take Yoake and An, who monitor Kaizaki’s talk with Hishiro. An grows closer and closer to Yoake as the conversation grows more personal and, well, dark.

The fact is, both Hishiro and Kaizaki ended up heeding peers’ demands they stay out of a bullying situation. Hishiro’s friend left school; Kaizaki’s senpai…well, it sure looks like something awful happened that scarred Kaizaki emotionally. Suicide, I’m guessing.

In any case, the discussion triggers that memory, and for a moment Kaizaki mistakes Hishiro for his poor doomed senpai, and embraces her tightly. Before he does, Hishiro is very concerned for Kaizaki, and comes this close to touching his face before he hugs her.

True to character, Hishiro doesn’t freak out by the close contact. On the contrary, I daresay she probably enjoyed it, as yet another step toward growing closer to others. But she’s not going to sit back and let what happened to her friend and Kaizaki’s senpai happen again. She wants “revenge”, against the mistakes of her own past self.

Neither she nor Kaizaki would have been able to act were it not for each other and their united front. Taking that next step to actively help your friends, without being asked or even when they specifically tell you not to do anything, is scary as well. They’re essentially each other’s courage.

Hishiro’s friend and Kaizaki’s senpai put Hishiro and Kaizaki before their own well-being and happiness, successfully compelling them to stifle their instincts to act. No longer. Hishiro and Kaizaki corner Honoka and get her to tell them what’s up.

In an interesting assist by Inukai, he tracks down Kariu and brings her to the closed door of the locker room where Honoka is talking with Hishiro and Kaizaki. The first thing Kariu hears shocks her, but not so much me: Honoka never wanted to play volleyball to begin with.

Next episode: Kariu/Honoka flashback! Till then, glad to see Kaizaki’s finger back on the pulse of things, and working so well with Hishiro. It’s been a joy watching these two grow as friends—and as people—side by side.

Owarimonogatari – 06

When it’s time to solve the mystery of how Oikura’s mom disappeared from a locked room, it’s not surprise that Ougi shows up to cramp Hanekawa’s style. For someone whose face is essentially a mask, she sure doesn’t mask her contempt for Hanekawa and her large boobs, which she feels are exclusively responsible for stealing Araragi away from her.

As usual, I’m not sure how much of what Ougi says is serious and comes from her heart, because I’m still not sure she has a heart, and isn’t some kind of strange construct or apparition, in contrast to all the flesh-and-blood girls in Araragi’s life. She says all the things a jealous underclassmen who likes him would say…but does she really mean them?

I hope we’ll find out later. In the meantime, we have an arc to conclude! And conclude it does, with Hanekawa answering Ougi’s challenge and coming to the same conclusion as to what happened to Oikura’s mom. That leaves Araragi as the only one yet to realize the truth…and it’s a truth Hanekawa would rather Oikura never be told and never know for the rest of her days, not matter what immediate benefit could arise from telling her.

Still, she agrees with Ougi that it’s something Araragi must figure out for himself and make his own choice. They start offering subtle hints, and he keeps coming to the wrong conclusions, so they give him less subtle hints (over forty of them!) until he’s finally got it: Oikura’s mother starved herself to death, and for two years, Oikura took care of a corpse, until it eventually decomposed into nothing recognizable, giving the impression she disappeared, while she actually “evaporated”, like boiling water.

It is indeed an awful truth, and one Araragi and the other have no idea how Oikura will react to. But Araragi decides he’s going to tell her. He’s through looking past/overlooking Oikura, as he has for the last six years, as she overlooked her dead mother for two. He’s going to see her, look her straight in the eye, and tell her the truth. It’s a long walk back to his apartment, and the sequence of camera shots in the intensifying sunset make that walk a beautiful occasion.

Oikura takes the news far better than Araragi expected. More importantly, learning the truth (or perhaps, having it confirmed by someone else) made it that more real, and that much more releasing. Turns out Oikura is moving to a smaller municipal condo, and transferring out of Naoetsu High. But she went back to her class anyway when she knew Tetsujo was on leave, hoping something might change. In the end, Oikura is smiling, but not demonically, before the bright sunset. And the brightness isn’t hurting her.

Now that things avoided have been remembered, things at a standstill can move again. Because what was done with the truth was more important than discovering it, Ougi later concedes this particular case was her loss, also admitting she was wrong that Araragi would turn tail and run like he had in the past. But helping Oikura find change helped him to change too.

Oikura visited Senjougahara and they made up, and she left to start her new life. But not before taping an envelope under Araragi’s desk. This time, it had something in it: several pages. What exactly it was is kept a mystery (which I like), but whatever it is gives Araragi a laugh, so I like to think it’s a reversal of the message the earlier empty envelope sent.

Owarimonogatari – 05

Oikura knew Araragi’s parents were cops because they were the ones who got her out of her abusive home and had her live with them. Araragi can’t remember on his own, but that’s not entirely why Oikura despises him. As we learn during one of the more powerful sustained monologues in the Monogatari franchise, and a chance for Inoue Marina to remind us just how good she is when she sinks her teeth into a role.

As hostile as she is to both Araragi and Hanekawa (throwing tea at the former, which the latter catches with her cat-like reflexes), she still seems to get a lot off her chest and be better for it. She also comes off like never before like a deeply wounded individual; a lost soul who has given up hope.

It’s already the end for her; after all the punishment she’s endured in her still short life—physical and emotional—she believes she’s too frail for happiness, so she despises it along with herself and everything else in the world.

That punishment includes having to watch Araragi’s perfect family seem to “show off” in front of her. She’d glare at them in resentment, or for not knowing how different they regard “normal family life”; in other words, how much they take love for granted. Oikura was never given love. Her parents divorced, her mother became reclusive and never left her room, and Oikura had to take care of her, until one day she was just…gone.

After all that, Araragi forgetting all about her and giving her nothing in return for what she gave to him throughout their encounters, reveals itself as simply the tip of a very nasty, despairing iceberg. Inoue mixes dread and malice with tones of black humor and feigned happiness in Oikura’s delivery, heightening her aura of imbalance; a spinning top about to fall off a table.

She made Araragi a villain despite his relatively small contribution to her wholesale suffering because she needed to blame and despise someone other than her parents (which neither she chose nor who chose her) or herself just to keep going on. Whenever she got near the happiness Araragi seems to ooze, it felt either too bright or heavy for her frail, scarred self to survive.

Happiness, she believes, will kill her just as efficiently as the emotions on the other end of the spectrum. So she’s settled for something a little more moderate on that scale, and it’s slowly dissolving her heart. Araragi tell her happiness can’t do that, and there are many kinds that would work for her. But Oikura lacks the ability to access them.

What she needs now, more than anything else, is to continue being heard, and being in the presence of others. When she kicks them out, Hanekawa says both she and Araragi will keep coming back, because “troubling those we care about is how we do things.” It’s pushy, but it’s also something Oikura needs to hear: someone cares about her; is fond of her; and she’s several decades too early to be talking about endings. 

Owarimonogatari – 04

Having thoroughly explored his past with Oikura in Sodachi Riddle, Sodachi Lost begins with Araragi describing Oshino Ougi as “Oshino Ougi.” She is she, and cannot be expressed by nothing else. In other words, the detective is the ultimate mystery, at least to Araragi: he’s learning more about himself, and she’s learning beside him…but he continues to know nothing about Ougi, other than she’s Ougi…and has the guts to lock horns with Hanekawa Tsubasa.

Tsubasa plays a much larger role this week, as she, not Ougi, accompanies Araragi to Oikura’s present home. As we learn about the origin of such an arrangement, it becomes clear Tsubasa is concerned about Ougi’s influence on Araragi these last three days. And whenever Tsubasa is concerned, I’m concerned. She’s with Araragi far more out of a desire to isolate him from Ougi and take the measure of him than she is to make Oikura more comfortable with the visit.

It’s chilling how close she comes to losing Araragi to a day of non-revolving celebratory sushi with Ougi. From the way Tsubasa is acting, I couldn’t help but dread a scenario in which Araragi went with Ougi. This is partly because I know, like and trust Tsubasa a lot more than Ougi, and partly because I knew from the present events at the episode’s beginning that Tsubasa won this fight, which felt like a victory.

There’s also the fact that Tsubasa and I both see now that Ougi is influencing him in some way, and there’s a possessive predatory aura to her presence, like she’s the very “possessing spirit” she herself says she’ll be if she went to Oikura’s with him. When Tsubasa and Ougi face off, it’s like fire vs. water; warm vs. cool. And the close-ups are, as always, stupendous.

Ougi isn’t letting anything Tsubasa says get to her, and it seems effortless. Tsubasa receives a surgical salvo of barely-veiled insults from Ougi, and you can see her blood start to boil. When Ougi speaks, the traffic behind her (exclusively Datsun 2000s, naturally) is stopped. When Tsubasa returns fire, the cars flow freely. The refinery belches more and more smoke into the reddening sky as their “coversation” heats up.

Finally, once Tsubasa has offered to go with Araragi, she and Ougi turn to Araragi himself to choose. He’s bombarded with reasonable arguments on both sides, but finally chooses Tsubasa when she offers to let him touch her boobs. Mind you, there’s a few beats when that punchline that ends the battle so decisively simply hangs out there, as if Araragi is really that shallow.

Then Araragi dutifully clarifies in voiceover that he didn’t choose Tsubasa so he could touch her boobs, but because something was “highly unusual” about a situation in which Tsubasa would make such an offer. That he got that feeling, to me, means he hasn’t been totally “lost” to Ougi, whatever that entails. Though it’s funny that Tsubasa might’ve taken his choice of her as a literal sign he just wants to grope her.

Whatever Araragi’s motive(s) for picking her, I think he made the right choice, and this round goes to Tsubasa, while Ougi stands around alone (which would be sad if I was certain she wasn’t some kind of succubus). Also, Araragi has finally come to the door of the Oikura of today, who hasn’t come to school since their last encounter.

The door is open, only a crack, and within awaits darkness, and a girl who despises him so much she’d rather come to the door in pajamas—or naked—than bother dressing for him. Oh, and she knew about his parents’ job because as it turns out, they’ve known each other since grade school. I suspect this latest encounter is going to be very interesting.