Monogatari Second Season - Episode 21

Now that my eyes are just about dry after last week's emotional farewell, we move forward into the final story arc of Monogatari Second Second season.

This time around, our tale is being told by Kaiki, meaning that - as he succinctly points out - we really don't know how much of it is the truth or how much of it is a lie.  Anyhow, the story begins on New Year's Day, where Kaiki's reverie (if you can call it that) is broken by a phone call from none other than Senjougahara... sorry, Senshougahara, who has a request for Kaiki... sorry, Suzuki - effectively, she wants to deceive somebody, and he is clearly the best suited man for the job.

Thanks to just such an attempt to deceive his would-be client, Kaiki finds himself flying all the way out to Okinawa to meet a cunningly disguised Senjougahara and find out what it is she requires of him.  In fact, her request is simple - following on from Nadeko's descent (or should that be ascent?) into the form of a snake God, Senjougahara requires that Kaiki deceive her so that he might save Hitagi and Koyomi from their fate at her hands.  Is it something Kaiki can do?  Perhaps, but is it something he even wants to do?  As he ponders the situation, it seems as if there's nothing in it for him, although of all people it's his consideration of Kanbaru that finally changes his mind.  Thus, the game is afoot...

It feels a little silly to even earmark an episode of Monogatari as dialogue-heavy, but after no shortage of long, drawn out conversations in its previous story arc Koimonogatari begins in a similar vein, giving us little respite from the constant dialogue of late.  Then again, I'm very much on-board with both seeing how the problems with Nadeko are going to be resolved as well as the prospect of spending some more time with Senjougahara, and even in this episode filled with talking heads there are still some wonderful moments to be hold - Hitagi losing her cool and cracking up at Kaiki's appearance, or the regular moments of drink-throwing the pair engage in add some fun slapstick to the engaging chit-chat to serve as a reminder that this can be a series of actions as well as words.  Either way, I'm very much ready to see what this show has to bring us next, as it's rarely let us down up to this point.