Recap: Nadeko keeps her promise to the snake and sneaks out of her house to help him. She’s not very good at sneaking though, and it’s not long before Araragi is out to find her.

Jel’s Thoughts: I must say I was not really looking forward to spending too much time stuck in Nadeko’s boring inner monologue, but overall this ended up being a pretty good episode. The addition of the super talkative, omni-present snake helped quite a bit, as presenting Nadeko’s inner turmoil as a conversation made it much easier to watch. As this arc’s theme centers on the meaning of “victim”, NisioIsin does a great job teetering her character between sympathetic and simply pathetic.

The real show stealer though, perhaps to no one’s surprise at this point, is Shinobu. From her VAMPIRE PUNCH to the Tokyo Bill joke, her appearance to lay down the law was exactly what we needed at that potentially critical moment. Her verbal beat down of Nadeko may have felt a little unwarranted on the surface, but I suspect she’s a lot more discerning than the audience in this situation. I’d also like to throw a bonus shout out to Tsukihi, who has got your BACK should you find yourself outmaneuvering parental authority. She made an incredibly brief cameo, but I couldn’t help but chuckle at her total Bro move.

Two episodes in, I’ve been rather impressed with Otorimonogatari’s thematic strength and slightly more sinister vibe. It’s a perfect way to capitalize on Nadeko’s established character and a much better send off than Mayoi’s somewhat underwhelming conclusion last series. It’s going to be quite interesting seeing how they bridge the gap between our current point in the story and the events of the opening episode, so I’m really looking forward to that.