Ok, the reason why I extended this to 2 ep is because ep 6 is a recap of Nekomonogatari kuro. So if you’ve seen the 4 Nekomonogatari Kuro OVAs, there really is no need to watch these unless you like hearing Araragi talk some more(to which i say, just re-watch Bakemonogatari).
As for ep 7, most of this episode is focused on what the Monogatari series does best;”bullshitting”. We get introduced to a new girl named Oshino Oumi who talks to Araragi about the 3 seconds of sight before blinking and how it connects to people’s emotional scales through life. Then we see him holding Hachikuji’s bag (explains why she had no bag in ep 1) when he suddenly meets up with Ononoki from Nisemonogatari(the posed-look girl) who explains her oddity identity before leaving. And other than some insight on how an oddity is born(particularly Hachikuji), all of this mostly pointless banter takes up half the ep.
But if i’m still writing a post about it considering i skipped last week, there must be something else going on. Well, it turns out that Araragi is behind in his summer homework and jokes with Shinobu about her being Doraemon, wishing to her for a time machine. While she says she can’t make a time machine, she CAN take him one day back through time. After repeating an old-fashioned magic chant, she opens a gate of the shrine from the Nadeko Snake arc.
Everything seems fine until they get to the other side. First, it turns out they can only get back to their own time if they reach that gate, as much of the power for time travel was stored in that area. And two, they went back in time FAR more than they bargained for. While they meant to just go back one day, they actually went back 11 years in the past. Couple this with issues of time paradoxes and their existence at risk, and you can pretty much tell these two are skrewed.
Overall this ep was slow throughout, but that final twist has me interested at what they can pull off. Lately time travel scenarios seem to be hot (Rozen Maiden 2013), but it seems kind of suspsicious to have what is primarily part of sci-fi in a supernatural series. Nevertheless, I’m going to love seeing how Araragi and Shinobu will mess(or not mess) with time.
