Recap: Araragi and Shinobu return to the present, only to discover the horrible consequences of saving Mayoi.

Jel’s Thoughts: Perhaps the only thing nearly as overused as time travel is a zombie apocalypse, and yet once again Monogatari manages to pull it off. When you really think about it, their actual situation is unique. Araragi has a hard time grieving since he just leapt through time twice with an all powerful being that is probably capable of fixing things. How are you supposed to feel at that point? It’s kind of an interesting thought.

It helps too that the real focus is on the symbiotic relationship between the two characters, which in itself is pretty hard to describe. It’s an odd mix of affection and danger that makes for some pretty compelling conversation. They have no choice but to be brutally honest with each other because they ARE each other. Getting insight into Shinobu’s mind was also interesting. Seeing her struggle with the frustration of her current limitations really helps expand her character well beyond the silent little girl in the corner she started out as. The fireworks scene was an eerily touching juxtaposition of her forced childlike mentality and a world destroyed by her suppressed killer instinct. Forgive me if that sentence sounded pretentious, but that’s how I saw it.

In the bigger picture, I think it’s cool that we are getting a plot line working on a much grander scale than Monogatari usually works with. Granted the story is still thoughtfully plodding along with it’s slow and measured dialogue, but having the entire world at risk as opposed to the inner turmoil of a teenage girl is a big leap for the series to make. I would really like to see some action now that we’ve established the zombies are Antispirals irredeemable vampire husks, and I suspect we may finally run into Mayoi at some point as well. SOMETHING must happen considering the condition Araragi was in when we saw him return, so I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes down.