Bakemonogatari E7: “Suruga Monkey, part 2”

Araragi is on his back on the train tracks, covered in his own blood, with the alarms warning of a train approaching. Senjyo is standing over him, coldly informing him that she expected him to take the envelope as she asked. Forgetting to do what she asks is like forgetting about her. Forgetting about her is a crime punishable by execution for someone in a relationship with her.

I really don't know which of these two freaks me out more at this point.

Well, she doesn't move to kill him. And a moment later, she expresses curiosity in what reduced him to his current state, suggesting that it wasn't her in a monkey costume or the like. Either because he's having real second thoughts about opening up to her, or for mysterious reasons of his own that the audience isn't privy to, he tells the dumbest lie possible.

Uh. Huh.

She points out that the street nearby is cratered, a concrete wall has been obliterated as if struck by a cannonball, and the twisted wreck of his bike is embedded into the side of a wooden telephone pole six feet above the ground. Is he sure that he just fell down, rather than getting hit by an unusually aggressive semitruck? He insists that yes, he's sure.

Uh huh.

She finally asks him if he needs an ambulance. He assures her that his regeneration will take care of this in a few minutes, he just needs to lay still and rest for a bit. She says that in that case, she might as well do what she can to make the regeneration session more pleasant for him, and stands directly over him. The forewarned train arrives, and there's a fakeout where it seems like its about to run them over, but no, it's just moving down the tracks next to the ones they're on. Explains why Araragi wasn't panicking about it more from when the alarms started, assuming he saw where it was coming from. Senjyo just positions herself so that the draft from the passing train lifts her skirt as she stands right over him, and smiles.

Senjyo, you're being kind of a slacker right now. If you want to go this route, do it properly and sit on his damned face. Kids these days, I swear. Or actually, come to think of it, don't, because whatever deep-seated and violent psychological issues you have you're at least not a child molester, and should therefore find worthier faces to sit on. Roll OP.

A couple of things that didn't stand out to me the last time I saw this OP that now seem relevant. For one, there's a part where Suruga, Araragi, and Senjyo are in a basketball court and being surrounded by a crowd of hooded, apelike figures similar to the one that attacked Araragi. Also, at the very end, after Suruga glides through the storm of giant lily blossoms, Senjyo glides passed her on a hovering polyp made of giant gunmetal gray pens, scissors, and staplers. And then the final shot, during the title drop, is a silhouette of Senjyo cutting Suruga's chest open with a giant pair of scissors.

So that's a thing.

The flashes of superfast text that follow the OP this time have the words "monkey's paw" repeated often enough that I was able to catch them. So, this arc's supernatural problem that needs solving is probably going to be another Faustian-bargain-adjacent thing.

Open on what looks like the next day, with Araragi following Suruga into a large, palatial-looking house. She's honored and flattered and excited and stuff for him to have asked to come over, as is her way. Guess her family is as rich as Senjyo's used to be. Maybe her dad leads a cult or something? She also, as she leads him into her room, appreciates his hesitance before entering another girl's private chambers.

Her room is a gymmasium, basically. And it, um, has stuff in it.

Is she the queen-mother of a eusocial colony of tankies or something, that she needs all those little red books? Or maybe her father runs a Maoist cult instead of just the normal kind?

Araragi notices indentations in the piles of authoritarian communism that look like they're sized for Suruga to sit, study, and sleep in.

After an awkward moment, Araragi asks her if she minds letting him tidy things up in here a little before they talk. It shouldn't take him more than thirty minutes or so. She gratefully accepts his help. Then they do this:

And then there's a jumpcut to everything being neatly stacked in piles of arbitrary height, but perfect arrangement. Impressive work, assuming that was only actually 30 minutes. Then, Suruga apologizes for what she did to him last night, and Araragi murmurs about how his hunch was correct after all and asks her why she did it.

And also, like, how she did it. That was some seriously superhuman strength and agility she displayed while in weremonkey mode.

She asks him how he already knew it was her. He said that he didn't KNOW, he just suspected. The attack on him seemed targeted, and there was only a short list of people who knew he'd be coming back from Senjyo's that night, and the figure's silhouette - aside from its apelike posture - seemed to more or less match her overall body proportions.

...

Araragi really has a high tolerance for people inflicting physical violence on him. Even taking the healing factor into account. Don't know if this is just intended as a weird slapstick-adjacent thing, or if this is supposed to be symptomatic of his low self-esteem.

...

She compliments his observational skills, and comments that she heard he was one of those guys who could recognize women just by the shape of their hips. Guess Senjyo has at least one other friend, if that rumor is actually A Thing now. Unless it predates him and her, of course.

Anyway, she tells him that she isn't sure how or where to begin her story, but first she wants to know if he's the kind of person who will believe things even if they sound crazy or impossible. If he will trust his eyes if he sees something "impossible" instead of assuming he's crazy. He tells her that yes, he is the sort of person who can take anomalous or paranormal events in stride now that she asks. His inner thoughts flash the words "snail," "cat," and the images of a bunch of staplers, and he decides to mention that he knows about Senjyo's crab weightlessness thing that she's only just recovered from. Right, he knows that she knows about that herself, and it's a good way of communicating to her that he's clued in to the supernatural.

Then for some reason he brings up the "Valhalla Combo," and Suruga tells him that she was the one who made that name for the two of them up. Which makes him feel insecure, somehow. Like the idea that a middle schooler could come up with Norse mythology related wordplay while he can't is a blow to his ego or something. Because that's an enviable and coveted skill I guess.

She tells him that she's about to show him something that seems very improper, because she's a girl, but she'll need to show him it anyway. Her reluctance is understandable, as it's more improper for girls to have demonic monkey arms than it is for boys in Japanese culture, but Araragi did ask. So, she unwraps the arm and reveals that the reason she's really strong and fast while in weremonkey form is because she is a weremonkey. Aha, now it's all coming together!

She explains that this mutant arm isn't just a monkey paw, but THE monkey paw. From the short story by WW Jacobs. The wish-corrupter.

I'm guessing she wished for great athletic prowess, and the paw responded by fusing itself to her arm and granting her ape athleticism but also random therianthrope rages. Or something.

Also, Araragi says (with a little aside glance that suggests he's just testing her here) he's never heard of that story, which just makes her even more impressed with his miraculous ability to identify her arm as a monkey's paw. Even though he just literally saw that her hand was the paw of a monkey, and said as much. She insists that he must be divinely empowered with clairvoyance or something.

Well, if he was testing her there then he's now confirmed that she'll praise everything he says and does no matter what. Let her watch him with a ten year old, and she'd probably compliment his hunter's poise and regal display of dominance.

He asks her if it's safe for him to touch it, and she assures him that it is. Nonetheless, there's slow, ominous music as he reaches out and lays his hand on her hairy wrist.

He's surprised when it feels like a tangible, living monkey arm. Not a ghostly shell with a normal arm underneath it. Not cold and mummified. It just feels like one of her arms is a monkey arm.

At his touch, she makes an alarming yelping noise and pulls her arm away, making a rather monkey-ish face as she scolds him for "touching her weird." He insists that he didn't do anything weird at all. And, while I'd normally hesitate to believe Araragi when he says he didn't touch someone inappropriately, it really didn't appear that he did anything strange. Just touched her wrist, and she reacted like that, which she apparently *doesn't* when other people touch the arm.

So there's something about him specifically that it reacts to. Curious. Probably related to her weird feelings toward him and/or Senjyo. Or else just that latent vampire/therianthrope rivalry that pop culture's been obsessed with ever since people first started ripping it off from World of Darkness and never stopped. I'm not Salty that Underworld has been getting the credit for this, you're salty that Underworld has been getting the credit for this.

Recovering from that weird flinch, she tells him that she can normally control this arm just fine, but every once in a while it gets numb and paralytic. And, once every slightly longer while, it moves of its own accord. Very occasionally, she has sleepwalking incidents in which it plays a starring role, with her recent attack on Araragi being a very extreme instance. Araragi tells her that this periodic trance state fits what he knows about possession by spirits, and naturally tells her about Oshino. She thanks him, compliments him once again on his knowledgeability and openmindedness, and says that since he didn't freak out at the weirdest part of the story, she now feels safe telling him about the next relevant data point.

Araragi, who had been surprised but not shocked at the monkey arm, freaks out considerably more at this revelation. Um. Bruh. Didn't Senjyo tell you that Suruga had a crush on her back before she started acting all crabby? Maybe she wasn't explicit enough. Or maybe Araragi had been assuming Suruga was bi, and the discovery that she isn't is...shocking? For some reason?

...this is a recurring issue for Araragi, isn't it? He also totally ignored and willfully misinterpreted Mayoi when she told him she was a lost snail. There's something up with this.

I also don't know if the show itself is framing being gay as something shocking, or if Araragi is just overreacting to it and we're supposed to judge him for it. Either way, Araragi, I don't think that *you* of all people get to be shocked by anyone else's sexual proclivities.

He seems flabbergasted and panicked by the possibility that Senjyo and Suruga might have actually been dating at one point. For some reason. He remembers that Senjyo specified that she'd never dated or broken up with a boy before, and begins to suspect that her violent rebuff of Suruga when she found out about the weight situation may have actually been a violent breakup. Regardless of *why* he's so shaken up about this, Suruga clarifies that no, her infatuation with Senjyo was one sided.

She idolized Senjyo. Looked up to her as a role model as well as crushing on her. Then she got sick, and when she came back from the hospital she was...different. In a bad way. Cold. Vicious. Violent. Still, Suruga tried to cling to her. When she found out about the weightlessness, she was determined to - even if she couldn't help with that - at least be there as a friend and emotional supporter for Senjyo as she dealt with it. But, well...she doesn't go into specifics, but just says that she was rebuffed in no uncertain terms while ghostly staplers chase each other across the screen. Senjyo said she doesn't want anything to do with her, never actually did want anything to do with her, and never will want to have anything to do with her again.

And, though hurt by this, Suruga complied not out of pain or resentment, but out of respect for Senjyo's wishes. Because if her leaving Senjyo alone was what Senjyo wanted and would make her happier, then she would just have to do it.

Her voice takes on a creepy, stalker-y whisper sort of vibe as she explains that she never stopped being in love with Senjyo. She's just been doing her best to make her happy for the last few years, without losing any of her obsession.

...

The fact that she's still "in love" with Senjyo even after her personality change that lasted for years suggests that she only ever loved the idea of her, rather than the actual person. Typical teenager, though more persistent than most.

Being (mostly) closeted probably made it harder for her to grow past this, for want of people to talk to about it. Sadly convincing.

...

However, recently, she saw Senjyo and Araragi. She saw Senjyo having a relationship. Being happy with someone. Praising someone, and taking comfort and pleasure in their presence. And she's gone into a spiral of envy, rage, and self-loathing because of it. Someone else was good enough for Senjyo. Was it just because Araragi is a man? Would Suruga have ever been good enough, if she were a boy herself, perhaps?

And meanwhile, Suruga is still waiting for Senjyo to just show some sign of their old friendship to her again, some kind of warmth, some kind of acknowledgement, anything at all. And she has no one to even talk to about it for fear of having to deal with stigma when her sexuality ends up getting out.

She was super up-front and matter of fact with the "I'm a lesbian" thing a few minutes ago, but that seems to have taken some effort and courage on her part.

...

Wuh...

But...

This show is supposed to be BAD! What the hell is even going on now?

I know I said that there would probably be more good parts going forward, but this is clearly too good for the series. I object to this.

...

So, she made a wish on a monkey paw that she...found...somehow...that she would get to be at Senjyo's side. And in response, it fused to her arm and is now trying to make her kill Araragi among other things.

I'm guessing that "where the hell did she get the paw from" will be the (or one of the) big twist of the next episode. With another, more predictable, twist being that the paw granted her wish in a pointlessly circuitous and traumatic way by setting this very chain of events in motion that will lead to Senjyo being - if not her lover - than at least her friend again.

Cut to Araragi escorting Suruga to Oshino's ruin. Suruga assures him that the arm is only able to exert serious influence over her at night, so as long as they get there before dark there should be little risk to Araragi. As they walk, Suruga asks Araragi a predictable teenaged question:

Araragi tells her that he's not going to discuss that with just anyone. Suruga tells him that if it's just her body he's into, she offers her own in substitution. Subsiprostitution. Prosubstitition? All of the above. She starts pointing out her various body features to him and trying to convince him that they'd be just as enjoyable for him as Senjyo's.

Is she trying to prove to herself that he's not worthy of Senjyo, as some kind of emotional consolation prize? Is she trying to break them up and just doing the most stilted possible job of it? I think it's one or both of those things, but I'm not sure.

Then she starts trying to ask Araragi to consider the possibility that he might be gay. And, despite being lesbian herself, everything she thinks she knows about male homosexuality seems to come from hentai.

Hmm. If she consumes yaoi media, then I guess she's probably at least somewhat bi? Probably? I think? I don't even know how to start dissecting these characters' sexualities at this point.

Araragi expresses irritation at this, but not much surprise. When he was straightening her room, he found some yaoi material floating around within the sea of Maoism.

Then, when he shuts down the attempts to convince him he'd rather date boys, she starts talking about underwear. And teasingly hinting that she's not wearing any. Or whether her running shorts technically count as underwear, in which case she goes around in her undies in public all the time. And then...um...Araragi freaks out about this for some reason, and the audiovisual medium breaks down in a maelstrom of screaming, superdeformed gibberish.

"Don't play word games" hahaha right.​

It's funny, but more because it's inane than because it's clever. Well, maybe it is clever as well, but if so it requires some cultural context to get the intended jokes and/or leans on Japanese wordplay that doesn't translate. Probably that last one; this would hardly be the first Boko Haram comedy sequence that felt lost in translation, though it's easily the most bizarre.

As they arrive at Oshino's residence, Araragi ends the madness and gives Suruga some real talk.

In this case, I don't think the whole WTF tangent of Suruga trying to "replace" Senjyo with herself to make Araragi leave her (or...whatever the hell she was thinking) is what's really being talked about. Rather, whether or not Araragi himself realizes it, what he's saying is more applicable to the idealized Senjyo that exists in Suruga's head and may well have only ever existed there. The person she's in love with either never existed, or else stopped existing years ago. There's no trying to force someone else to fill that role, it's time to just forget her and move on.

As they ascend the stairs to Oshino's rooftop postapocalyptic throne room, they see Shinobu, the little adopted girl who is actually Satan or whatever, crouched morosely in a corner. Suruga comments on what a cute kid she is. Araragi warns her not to go near her, and absolutely not to touch her no matter how cute she appears.

Hmm.

They put the alleged ex-demoness behind them, and reach Oshino's lair on the rooftop. He calls attention to Araragi's harem protagonist status.

The show is pointing out that it's doing the thing. That means that it's doing the thing ironically and can't be judged for it.

How did we go back from "empathetic exploration of gay frustration in a story written in the freaking early 2000's" to this shit, again?

And...how did we get to the former from Lolita Snail? Or to that from...ow. My head. Why did someone have to take a giant otaku shit in the soup pot that this otherwise excellent story was simmering in?

Anyway.

After griping at each other for a bit, Araragi asks Oshino what Shinobu is doing outside on the stairs. Oshino explains that she's been sulking ever since he took one more donut than she got yesterday. Araragi shakes his head, and wonders at how this mighty vampire queen could have truly fallen so far.

Hmmm.

...

So, Oshino can turn vampires back into people. And he's "adopted" this little girl who Araragi apparently fears and also kinda sorta seems to borderline worship, based on his inner monologues about her.

If I'm right about how this status quo came about, then I have to wonder. Is Araragi a pedophile because of the time he spend being supernaturally enamored with the little girl vampire who turned him, or was he a pedophile who tried to grope the wrong little girl's chest and ended up being turned for his trouble?

Or maybe it's coincidence, and Araragi's pedo-ness is just to make him relatable to the pedophiles in the audience with no bearing on his history with Shinobu.

...

Suruga is introduced to Oshino. Oshino muses about various wordplay games he can make from her name, all much weirder than the Valhalla thing that Suruga came up with herself, and seems to be thinking deeply about their implications. Right, he has name-divination or whatever, I forgot about that particularly WTF detail of his displayed powerset in the pilot. As he thinks through the implications of her being named what she's named while also being Araragi and "Tsundere's" underclassman, Araragi hands him the money Senjyo gave him. Oshino is quite pleased by this.

We're going to be doing a proper exorcism this time, and it's going to be a rough one. End episode.


Like I said last time. Analysis comes at the end of the arc for Boko Haram.