Bakemonogatari E10: “Nadeko Snake, part 2”

Open on Oshino's ruin, night. The "creepy/intense revelation" theme is playing as Oshino explains to Araragi what they're dealing with. The jagirinawa (apparently a pun on the Japanese words for "snake" and "rope," or something like that) is an artificial demon made from its creator's malice toward a specific person. This fits with something that Nadeko told Araragi offscreen between last episode and this one, about a friend of a classmate of hers having put a curse on her.

Is it just me, or does it feel like a lot of scenes are missing from this arc? This feels like the sort of information that we'd normally hear from the patient's own mouth in this show.

Anyway, "a friend of a classmate." We know that Nadeko is classmates with one of Araragi's sisters, so I'm guessing she's the classmate being referred to, and that the culprit is someone she (and possibly he) knows. Oshino is skeptical about this entire story, though. The jagirinawa creation spell is a powerful one, and he very much doubts that a mere child could cast it.

I think Oshino might be overlooking a critical detail in the wording here. Nadeko said that a friend OF a classmate put the curse on her. She didn't specify that that friend was anywhere near the same age as them. Given the way magic in this world works, this seems like a surprising thing for Oshino to miss. Hmm.

Anyway, it apparently started as just a stupid middle school spat over a boy that Nadeko and the classmate both had a crush on. The boy chose Nadeko over her rival, and apparently said rival went to this mysterious sorcerer friend of hers to get revenge, and they inflicted something extremely disproportionate. Since then, Nadeko has researched snake-related curses, and attempted to perform the counterspells by sacrificing all those snakes up at the temple. Oshino says that she actually did find the correct solution, with the snake-slaughtering ritual, but that she's been performing it incorrectly. It's rather impressive how close she came to getting it right, given her youth and inexperience, but no cigar.

Hmm. Wonder if Nadeko has magician potential herself? While I'm not at all happy about the prospect of another preteen being added to the longterm cast, due to the obvious, seeing Oshino take on an apprentice could be interesting.

Anyway, Oshino mentions that aside from doing the countercurse wrong, she's also been unlucky. Roll OP before he can explain what he means. I'm guessing something related to her choice of ritual sites, and Oshino's reason for wanting to place a talisman at that same location.

After the OP, Araragi returns to his room to relay Oshino's instructions to Nadeko and Suruga, who have apparently just been sitting around waiting for him there.

-_-

The caption in the screenshot pretty much summarizes my own thoughts. But, to unpack them:

Why didn't they just go straight to Oshino's in the first place? Bringing strangers to Oshino with little warning has never been a problem before, so why is it a problem now?

Even after they decided to go to Araragi's (for whatever reason), why the hell would Araragi go to Oshino alone and leave the two of them behind? Especially considering that one of them is the damned patient, and the other is someone who's just demonstrated that she can't be trusted with Araragi's embarrassing porn collection?

What are they telling Araragi's family about this whole situation?

This makes no sense, except as the story contorting itself to allow for Nadeko to be alone with Araragi and Suruga where they can creep on her as much as possible.

Fuck this show.

Araragi comes back into the room with some ribbon type thing that Oshino gave him. Apparently they can use this to free Nadeko of the jagirinawa, but they'll have to act quickly. Quickly as in tonight. At the rate at which the scale marks have been growing, it's likely that they'll reach Nadeko's face within the next day or two, and once the jagirinawa reaches your face you just drop dead. So, they'll need to go back to that shrine and do the ritual properly tonight.

To make sure we know how serious this situation is, Araragi gives us that exposition in voiceover while Nadeko changes and the camera clings to her thirteen year old body (and no, the focus of the camera isn't on the scales for most of it). Why is she changing into new clothes, when they're going back to the same place she just came from? So that we can see her naked. Duh. Like I said, this is a tensa and serious situation, it needs the right kind of cinematography to help convey that.

Nadeko tells them that she'll call her mother and say she's staying over at a friend's tonight. Araragi and Suruga pack some other things they'll need for the spell. As they gather the stuff, Suruga raises the subject of whoever put the curse on Nadeko, and says the most hilariously hypocritical thing in the history of Japanese animation:

It's really kind of amazing. Once again, I can't tell if the irony is intentional or not.

Araragi explains that the person who placed the curse may not have intended to do something nearly so severe. And, here we get back to the story with that shrine and why Oshino was sending his debtors to place mystical wards on it. Ever since Shinobu the pint-sized vampire queen came to the city, evil spirits have been flocking to the area. It isn't stated explicitly, but the way Araragi says this sort of implies that the defeat and partial de-vampification of Shinobu will eventually cause these demons to disperse again, but for now there are still a lot of them lingering around. Some of the most likely places for demons to nest in are abandoned Shinto shrines, since they were purpose-built to house a spirit and have been left unoccupied since their worshippers abandoned them. And, as we saw in the Suruga Monkey arc, demons are fond of corrupting wishes and subverting attempts at magic.

If a much more minor curse was placed on Nadeko, she might have accidentally made it much worse by attempting the anti-jagirinawa spell at that shrine. The demons infesting the place may have corrupted her botched ritual and used it to INFLICT a jagirinawa on her, essentially upgrading the minor curse into a much more powerful one.

Complicated, but more or less logical I guess.

As they leave, Araragi also reveals that wherever the scale marks are appearing on Nadeko's body, she's feeling as if a constrictor snake is crushing her to death. According to Oshino, she's probably in immense pain at every moment, and just doing a good job of hiding it. When asked if this is true, Nadeko just assures them that she can handle it.

This isn't feeling right. Something about Nadeko's tone of voice and expressions in that exchange, and also earlier when Araragi said they were going back to the shrine tonight...it doesn't fit.

I'm starting to suspect she might have done this to herself on purpose or something.

Then Suruga starts talking about bondage, because of course she does.

Still talking about the body of the thirteen year old she and Araragi were just leering at a few minutes ago. With her right there and listening.

...

Just shoot me with a fucking bullet already, it won't be any worse for me than watching this shit and it'll be over faster.

...

They get to the mountain and start climbing the trail. Very long, slow sequence of them walking while creepy music plays. Come to think of it, there's been quite a LOT of time spent showing people silently walking or doing slow scenery pans, even by Bakemonogatari standards. In the previous episode, I said that this arc feels like it's trying to fill space. It still does feel that way. But, as I've also already mentioned, it seems like there are important dialogue scenes being skipped over. So, if this is trying to fill up space, it's doing a really inefficient job of it. No clue what was going on with the production here. Anyway, they get to the weird tunnel leading to the main temple complex, and Araragi asks Nadeko for more details about the love triangle that ended up starting this whole mess. Apparently, Nadeko actually turned the boy down when he asked her out. Which makes it seem more like he's the one with motives to have put a curse on her, rather than the rival. Then, apropos of literally nothing as far as I can tell, Araragi asks her why she turned the boy down, as if that's really relevant right now. She sheepishly says that it was because...

...

......

..........

...because she has a crush on someone else.

Oh. Oh no. We're doing this. Why are we doing this.

...

I shouldn't have to clarify this, but I just know that if I don't do it some definitely-not-pedophile in the peanut gallery is going to "WELL AKCHULLY" me about it, so here. Yeah, a seventh grader having a crush on a high school senior is realistic. No, there's nothing wrong with depicting that in a story. But, on the other hand, fuck you, she's not crushing on Araragi because sometimes kids do that, she's crushing on him because she's a female in a piece of shit harem show. And continuing to do so after the scene in the bedroom where...

...nah, never mind. I don't need to explain myself to you. If you don't understand what's wrong with this in context given everything I've described about the story so far, then I don't want you in my community. Bye.

...

Nadeko starts asking Araragi how much he remembers about how she used to come over and visit his sister when they were younger. And then gives him a creepy smile while saying she wishes she had an older brother and always envied his sister for that. And then this shot happens:

If this wasn't Bakemonogatari, I might be saying that this is effective creeping, psychological horror. The implications, what with the topic of jealousy toward romantic rivals having been raised, her specifying that she *envies* the protagonist's sister, the gradually increasing off-ness of Nadeko in general...this is actually good buildup for a psycho 13 year old villain reveal. But it is Bakemonogatari, so this is all ruined by Araragi being 1) a harem protagonist, and 2) a pedophile.

They reach the summit. According to Oshino, Suruga's sudden illness last time they were up here might have been brought on by demonic influence from being so close to the shrine, so they'd best be prepared for possible repeats of that.

Tsubasa had the exact same symptoms as Suruga, but she wasn't on the mountaintop. She was at the bookstore at the time. The common thread isn't the shrine, it's Nadeko.

...god, this would have me on the edge of my seat if it weren't for the everything.

They comment that they'll have to check to make sure the scales are really all gone after they perform the proper ritual. Suruga brought a school swimsuit for Nadeko to wear for this purpose, since she figured that that would be to Araragi's taste. That's me directly quoting the show, not paraphrasing. Araragi shouts that appealing to his tastes is not their priority right now, and Suruga smugly giggles about how he didn't deny that this is, in fact, to his taste. Listening from behind them, Nadeko chuckles too.


...I can't do any more of this.

I'm not going to be doing any more Bakemonogatari. Or any of the _____-monogatari sequels.

For one thing, while I pretty routinely hyperbolize about how this show or that show is so bad that it gave me leukemia or whatever, Bakemonogatari is the only, single thing I've ever reviewed that actually caused me genuine distress just by watching.

For another, I'm not at all sure that watching this shit isn't in violation of my country's child pornography laws. I could check the legislation and make sure, but as soon as that thought occurred to me I sort of zoned out and stared up at the ceiling in existential anxiety as I realized that, somehow, my path through life has led me to having to even ask that question.

So, I've axed the rest of the queued episodes from the itinerary. The next review to go up will be another Fullmetal Alchemist episode. The next time someone sends me softcore child porn to review, I will be permanently and unceremoniously banning them from my community.