Bakemonogatari E4: “Mayoi Snail, part 2”

Araragi and Mayoi are on the bench (not sure where Senjyo has gotten off to), and Araragi is giving Oshino a call to inform him that they have a case. When explained about the situation, Oshino concludes that rather than a snail, Mayoi must in fact be a lost cow. The reason for this being that the kanji spelling of "snail" includes the word "cow" within it, so yes, clearly what we are dealing with is a lost cow.

He goes on to say that there are many curses and spirits that can cause a human to lose their way, but if she said snail, then they are specifically looking at a cow problem, 100%.

Still getting those parody-Touko vibes from Oshino. The irony being that, while we're only a few episodes in, he already has a much better track record than her of his nonsensical-sounding explanations *actually being right.*

Araragi stares in bafflement into his phone, and the Mayoi Snail OP returns. God, I love this intro. I'm almost sorry that the snail arc is only going to be three episodes, and that the next OP after it will most likely not be as glorious. Maybe it will be, but it's not likely. This really is a hard act to follow.

The rapid text shuffle that follows the OP this time is sliiiiightly slower than usual. Enough so that I'm able to distinguish a few sentence fragments. Apparently, it's talking about Araragi's time as a vampire, including how he was attacked and forcibly turned by one during a spring break. Okay, this ep might have some backstory segments for our protagonist in it. Makes sense, given that the previous one put his own emotionally damaged state in greater focus than the patient-of-the-week. Then we see Araragi and Senjyo leading Mayoi off to her neighborhood to see if they can solve her problem through mundane means first.

Senjyo is walking a little bit ahead of the other two, and not really looking over her shoulder at them with any frequency, so I'm not sure if "protecting Mayoi from Araragi" is actually her priority here after all. She was definitely disgusted with Araragi after the end of last episode. Maybe she's just interpreting his request to help Mayoi find her way home as her favor to him, so that she can then just put the disappointing boy behind her.

At some point along the way, Senjyo stops and looks morosely at where her old house used to be. Ah, it wasn't covered up by the playground specifically; just a newer residential section nearby. Either way, it's been bulldozed and built over with surprising speed, given it was less than two years ago that her father sold it. She only muses a short while before apologizing for her digression and continuing to guide them along their way.

For some reason, at this point, Mayoi starts acting as if she's afraid of Senjyo. Actually hiding behind Araragi to avoid her gaze, which is a quick change.

She also, after this point, starts clinging to Araragi's leg like her life depends on it, making it hard for him to walk. He asks her to stop, and she just insults him and tells him he's evil filth again. And also that she won't stop clinging on to his leg, even though his leg is horrible and she hates it; she just has no choice. Uh-huh.

When Araragi tries to pull Mayoi off, she threatens to report him to the PTA. Araragi asks her what the actual fuck she means by that. Senjyo helpfully chimes in to inform him that PTA stands for the English term "Parent-Teacher Association." As an aside, her English is flawless. If that's not what Mayoi means, then Senjyo supposes she could be threatening Araragi with percutaneous transluminal angioplasty, but that that's less likely.

Araragi compliments Senjyo on her great breadth of knowledge. Senjyo tells him that her breadth of knowledge is unremarkable, and only seems impressive to him because he's an idiot.

What even is this show.

Mayoi also refuses to clarify which "PTA" she's talking about. It could be an acronym for the snailcow military or something for all I know.

Araragi also tries to ask her, again, where this place she's trying to get to even is, and she only insults him. While still clamping obstructively onto his leg and/or torso.

Finally, he tries offering her some pocket change in exchange for answering his questions, and her tune changes completely. Araragi supposes that whoever and whatever Mayoi is, she's at least *partly* a normal kid after all.

She explains that there's a relative of hers named Tsunade living at that address. That name sounds familiar, but I can't think of where it could have been dropped in this show. Maybe I'm just thinking of a character from another anime. Anyway, Mayoi doesn't specify how Tsunade is related to her, just that she is. Araragi projects a little and asks her why she isn't home with her parents on mothers' day, but even a bribed Mayoi won't put up with being judged by the likes of him. She also calls him out on the fairly obvious hypocrisy of his judgement there:

He deflects by saying that he was just out on a short bike ride, not that that at all explains what gives him the right to judge Mayoi for not being at home at the moment. What follows is a truly bizarre bit of bi-lingual wordplay involving "touring," "two-ring," and bicycles, and the impossibility of touring in a car due to it having four rings instead of two.

This conversation does seem to cheer Mayoi up and distract her from what she was irritated about though, so yay Araragi I guess?

They continue going on along the way, but the new roads that have been built in this neighborhood are incredibly confusing. At once point, Senjyo declares that they must have overshot their destination, and that they need to turn back the way they came. Mayoi claims to have visited Tsunade here at least once before, and isn't sure why she's having trouble so much trouble navigating this time. Also, she reacts in fear again when Senjyo turns to speak to her and Araragi. And the camera is calling a lot of attention to how big of a distance she's leading them by, as if unwilling to let either of them get too close. Araragi finally asks Mayoi why she's afraid of Senjyo, and she answers thusly:

Hmm. I was starting to have suspicions along these lines before, but now I'm feeling the hunch more strongly. The address Mayoi is looking for is the same one that Senjyo used to live at, and no longer exists. I think it may turn out that Mayoi is actually a fragment of Senjyo's soul or emotional being or something like that that's still trying to reunite with the rest of her, and Senjyo still feels ambivalence about letting that childlike aspect of herself back in. Finding the site of the old house and having Senjyo acknowledge what this all was, I suspect, might have the equivalent effect of dropping Mayoi in an incinerator and having Senjyo drink her. So, let's do that!

They walk on a little bit more, and Araragi thinks to ask Senjyo a question that might shed some light on the bad vibes Mayoi is getting from her. He asks her if she dislikes children. Senjyo replies that yes, she absolutely despises children, and she wishes every single last one of them would die. Mayoi cringes and hides behind Araragi again, fearing Senjyo even more than she feels contempt for him.

Yeah, this is jiving pretty well with my hypothesis.

Senjyo then gives an unsolicited and entirely unconvincing backstory for why she supposedly hates children so much. Back in middle school (so, riiiight around the time of the crab incident, if I'm remembering the timeline correctly) Senjyo bumped into a seven year old girl at the mall. She hastily apologized to the child and properly asked her forgiveness, only to realize moments later that the girl was too young to even really understand concepts like shame, propriety, and forgiveness. Meaning that Senjyo had humiliated herself begging forgiveness for no reason. From that day onward, she has hated all children.

Yeah, Mayoi has got to be something that's missing from Senjyo. Symbolically if not literally. That crab really did do a sloppy job of putting her back together, didn't it?

Mayoi reacts to hearing this in despair and horror, seemingly taking this very personally. Which might just be down to her being a kid, but might also actually *be* personal if my theory is literally rather than just thematically correct.

Also, after walking back a ways, Senjyo shamefacedly declares that they've overshot their target a second time going back the other way. Araragi notices some subtle changes in her wording and delivery since the first time that seem to hint at more than just mounting frustration, but whatever he's getting at it doesn't translate into English in a form I can interpret. Senjyo says that the road she's been following *wasn't* changed during the rezoning, so she shouldn't be getting confused or lost trying to follow it. She takes out her phone and tries to check her GPS, only to discover - to her surprise, but really not to the audience's at this point - that there's no service here. Despite them being in the middle of the city, in a neighborhood with brand new electrical and radio infrastructure.

Mayoi just whispers that it's probably impossible. No matter how many times she tries, she can never find her way home. She can never reach her mother. Araragi turns his head and stares appraisingly as she says that last bit.

I think he's starting to figure it out.

Mayoi then follows that up with the explanation "because I'm a lost snail." Araragi's eyes get all funky in response to this. Then cut to a helpfully labeled commercial break. Afterward, the three of them are back at the playground bench, and Araragi is proposing that they consult Oshino about Mayoi's situation.

I guess the teaser was an in media res flashforward thing, since it doesn't sound like they've spoken to him about her yet. It's pretty clear that there's something supernatural going on at this point, and (though Araragi doesn't say it aloud) that it more likely than not has to do with the aftermath of Senjyo's procedure. Oshino asked for one of them to come over and speak with him personally, as he hates talking over the phone, and Senjyo took Araragi's bike to ride to his place. Araragi would have done it himself, but Senjyo fearfully whispered to him that she "doesn't want to be alone with that child." Figured.

As Araragi and Mayoi wait to hear back from Senjyo and/or Oshino, Araragi tries asking Mayoi for more details about her family situation. Mayoi has clammed up (or snailed up, perhaps) tight again, though. Araragi muses that ever since they told her that they'd encountered magic before, Mayoi seems to have become more wary and guarded toward them again. Hmm, curious. Araragi manages to get her talking again by bribing her with the promise of ice cream, though. For all her prickliness, Mayoi is very susceptible to bribery. She tells him - as a new kind of creepy, almost carnival-esque, music starts to play - that she wasn't specific when telling him that "Tsunade" was her mother because she isn't legally her mother anymore. Of course. Her parents divorced when she was in third grade, and her father got custody of her, which is when her surname was changed from Tsunade to Hachikuji.

She changed her last name due to her father getting custody? Odd. But then, if Mayoi is really just a construct made of symbolism from Senjyo's life story, this detail might be a thematic abstraction of something else. Likewise, I'm not sure if her having been in "third grade," specifically, has any particular meaning behind it.

Araragi apologizes to her for being all judgmental about her not caring about Mothers' Day. Mayoi simply tells him that the day has nothing to do with it. She just visits her ex-mother Tsunade sometimes, and today happened to be one of the times that she tried to do it, only to be a lost snail who can't find her way to the house.

She goes on to say that "no matter how many times I try, I can never get there." Making it sound like it's actually been a very long time since she made a *successful* attempt.

Araragi asks her if she happened to encounter a snail at some point during her attempts to find her mother's house. Mayoi just tells him that she didn't exactly *encounter* the snail, so much as...well, she already answered this. Heh, Araragi, at this point I would just take her at face value when she tells you that she *is* the snail.

And, speaking of Araragi making poor judgement calls, he then reaches out to sympathetically pat her on the head. Despite knowing full well Senjyo's aversion to being touched unsolicitedly by men, and seemingly at least suspecting that Mayoi is a part of her. So, it's kind of hard to say that what happens next isn't ultimately on him:

She clamps down on his fingers hard enough to draw blood, and keeps biting down and refusing to let go. Seemingly trying to actually worry his fingers off. Blinded by pain and desperate to get her off of him, Araragi does something he didn't even do during their first altercation, and straight up *punches* her full force with his free hand to get her off.

It doesn't work. She's dazed, and reacts in pain, but she doesn't release her jaws. He's forced to punch her repeatedly and knock her unconscious before he can get his fingers out of her mouth and let his healing factor start repairing the (significant!) damage.

...

Something I noticed is that when she bit him, his eyes turned red before he started fighting back. This could just be a cartoony pain effect (there were plenty of cartoony visuals throughout this fight as well, though unlike in the previous one they made this scene MORE disturbing rather than less), but it could also have to do with those other latent vampire traits I previously suspected he still has. Some sort of battle frenzy triggered by pain?

Or...wait, no, he didn't go all red-eyed and aggressive after getting a staple in the mouth, so probably not that. Never mind, forget that thought.

...

After getting his hand free, he stands over the unconscious elementary school maybe-soul-fragment and celebrates his victory in...well, it's about as pathetic as it sounds.

If he'd been musing over just how determined and violent that little girl was, that would be one thing. But no, he's trying to be macho over having beaten up a kid, not for having beaten up this specifically unnatural kid.

And, once again, he have a voiceover from future!Araragi musing over what a pathetic scumbag he was back in high school. So, again, good to know that he gets better from here eventually.

Just as Araragi's fingers have finished healing, he's surprised by the arrival of Tsubasa, the straight laced student council president who he and Oshino apparently saved from a nymphomaniac cat a while ago. She's also just wandering around and happened to end up at this playground, coincidentally (or perhaps not!). She comments on the "fierce expression" on his face, but fortunately for him doesn't put that together with the unconscious grade schooler on the pavement beside him.

She mentions that she also has reasons to not want to be at home on this particular Sunday, but doesn't seem to want to go into them. Araragi doesn't pry, either out of consideration or (more likely) because he already knows at least part of whatever she's referring to. Tsubasa then makes the same mistake that I initially did, and asks Araragi if the kid laid out on the ground is one of his sisters. He tells her that no, this is just a very strange lost kid who he's trying to figure out how to help by the name of Mayoi Hachikuji.

Upon hearing that name, Tsubasa looks thoughtful, and says that that surname reminds her of something, but she's not sure exactly what. She thinks it has to do with the name of a temple or something (it sounds like she might be talking about a temple from a fictional work, but I wasn't able to confirm this via google). Hmm. Just like with Senjyo, Araragi compliments Tsubasa on her vast knowledge base, and naturally Tsubasa is much humbler about it.

As they talk, Mayoi starts waking up again. As she gets back to her feet, Tsubasa crouches down and greets her in a cool babysitter-ish way. Mayoi responds to this the same way she initially did to Araragi.

Unlike Araragi (or Senjyo, really), Tsubasa responds to this by explaining patiently to Mayoi how saying things like that can hurt people's feelings, and exhibits implacable patience. And, when approached this way, Mayoi actually opens up to her pretty quickly. Tsubasa has a way with children, it seems!

She also...oh, HUH.

She also scolds Mayoi for biting Araragi's hand, and makes her apologize to him. Which Mayoi does. And then Tsubasa scolds Araragi for retaliating to her biting by punching, which he also does. She goes on to tell him that striking a child might be justifiable in some circumstances, but if you're going to do that you need to explain to them what exactly they did wrong.

-_-

So, Tsubasa was actually watching that entire sequence of events happen. Araragi never told her about it. She saw all that play out, and then calmly strode in after the fact and acted totally oblivious until now.

And she also isn't judging Araragi any differently than she judges a literal ten year old.

Is this just because he's Araragi, or is Tsubasa like this with everyone.

Either way, this chick is a hell of a lot weirder than she initially came across.

Tsubasa offers to help find Mayoi's way to where she needs to go, since she lives around this area herself. Araragi quickly shuts that down, seemingly wanting to keep Tsubasa from getting involved in this newest bit of weirdness. When he tells her that he just sent Senjyo to go get someone who can help Mayoi, Tsubasa seems to take this (along with his curiosity about Senjyo a few days ago) to mean that he and her are a thing now, and that she should leave before Senjyo gets back so that there are no misunderstandings.

Araragi tells her that her shipper-goggles would put a yaoi fangirl's to shame. Tsubasa asks him what "yaoi" is, and then declares that she'll google it herself and won't let him persuade her not to.

...

She's tooooootally fucking with him.

I wouldn't have thought so had it not been for the whole "pretend to have not seen the whole fight" thing she just pulled, but in light of that, yeah.

...

She then abruptly takes off, and tells Araragi to tell Senjyo she said hi.

So, that was a thing.

...hang on, didn't it say in the pilot that Araragi was the student council VP? I could have sworn it said that, but since then it's been framing him as more of a "weird kid" who's seen as an underachiever, and who people like Tsubasa sort of take pity on. Was it a translation hiccup back in the pilot? Maybe.

As she leaves, he calls after her if she happens to know of anyone in the neighborhood with the last name of Tsunade. Tsubasa says that she doesn't, but she gets a funny look in her eyes when she says it that makes the veracity of her answer a little dubious. When he presses her a little on this, she just repeats her catchphrase "I don't know everything. I only know what I know."

That line of hers feels like it's going to become very significant in the not too distant future.

Tsubasa leaves. Mayoi just sits back down and waits. A moment later, Araragi gets a call from Oshino, using Senjyo's phone for some reason. Maybe oshino doesn't have one at all? I had assumed they'd already called him offscreen to get the instruction for someone to come over, but it seems like that wasn't actually the case now. Well, he lives in a literal ruin, so I guess that's not too surprising. Anyway, the significance of this is that Araragi marks it in his memory that this precise moment is when he got Senjyo's number.

...

Dude. What.

She just offered it to you.

It's like Araragi feels like he HAS to scavenge and sneak in order to get what he wants from women. Even after one was almost literally throwing herself at him.

Vampire thinking, or just self-hating teenaged douche thinking? Could be either.

...

Oshino's ridiculous cowboy-esque theme music kicks in as Araragi answers the call. Oshino is not happy with either Araragi or with "Tsundere" for interrupting his lazy sunday.

He isn't calling Senjyo anything other than "Tsundere." I forget, did she make that self-diagnosis in front of Oshino at some point in Hitagi Crab? I can't recall. Either that, or he came to the same description independently.

Oshino also tells Araragi that its weird that he's running into so many spiritual phenomena in such a short period of time. He sounds...almost accusatory. Hmm. Araragi points out that it's technically Mayoi who had the run-in, not himself. Sounds like Araragi still is under the impression that Mayoi "encountered a snail" despite that not being what she told him, and her having said that's not accurate when he asked her to clarify. I get the impression that Araragi thinks he knows much more than he actually does about the supernatural, and is doctoring the testimony of this "mere child who doesn't know what she's talking about" about her own experiences because it doesn't fit with his preconceptions. Well, his future self already admitted he was cringe at this time, so.

Oshino mentions the same story concerning a temple that Tsubasa brought up earlier and its connection to Mayoi's surname, then responds to something Senjyo is telling him that we can't hear by making loud, pensive humming noises. Okay then. Then he starts scolding Araragi for getting Tsundere so worried about this situation. Araragi doesn't really know how to respond to this. It's not like he CHOSE to involve her in the Mayoi mystery. Oshino also scolds him for sending a vulnerable young woman like her into the realm of a deviant old man like himself, but at that point Senjyo herself starts taking issue with the angle of his criticism.

I guess she's still carrying some or all of those sharp office supplies around with her, then. Did her weight actually change again after the crab ritual? I thiiiiink not, due to Araragi having gotten it instead of her, but it's starting to seem like she'd keep her anti-rape stapler even if she no longer needed the anchoring weight of the rest. Anyway, she threatens Oshino into moving away from that topic and returning to the issue at hand.

Oshino hates talking on the phone, and also he's scared of Senjyo now, so he's just going to tell her how to deal with their lost snailcow and then have her leave his place immediately to go relay it to Araragi. This should be something Araragi and Senjyo can handle on their own with just his instructions; snails are much easier to deal with than crabs, because crabs are gods and snails are now. And neither are cows for that matter. Informative.

Also, Araragi's phone is doing the weirdest things while he talks on it. I don't know if it's supposed to always be doing that, or only when Oshino is on the line, or only when Senjyo's phone is on the other end.

Also, despite not being god-related, Mayoi's problem is temple-related. She is, according to Oshino, a shinto shrine. Also, something about misfortune. And numbers. Anyway, he instructs Araragi to think about Mayoi Hachikuji's name some more while he hates for Senjyo to get back to him, and hangs up.

...

Well, I think I've got this all figured out now. What they're going to need to do is find an ant.

Think about it. What is a Shinto shrine, after all, but a place of refuge? A housing for an entity? Mayoi, from what google translate can tell me, means "lost" or "confused." Lost place of refuge, lost vessel that contains life. And Oshino said that the problem involves a lost cow as well as a lost snail. So, to bridge the gap, they need an ant. Why?

Well, because Oshino also pointed out that it's very odd for Araragi to have run into so many supernatural incidents in such a short period of time, with this last encounter in particular being really random. What do we call a random, improbable event? A fluke. What else does the word fluke mean?

The lancet liver fluke is a parasite that goes through multiple hosts over the course of its life cycle. It grows to maturity in cows. Its eggs come out in the cow's dung. The dung is eaten by snails, who are infected and sickened by the hatching larvae, allowing it to be killed and eaten by ants. The mature larvae then trip the nervous systems of the ants in a similar manner to the better known Cordyceps spp. fungus, causing them to climb up onto grass blades and cling on to their tops so that they'll be eaten by a cow.

Cow. What else is called a cow, pejoratively? A woman with unlikeable qualities. Which is exactly how Oshino thinks of Senjyo at this point. So he's describing her as such. On top of that, lancet flukes sometimes infect sheep as their primary hosts instead of cows, and Oshino is "fleecing" her for money, so she's the ur-host archetype for the mature parasite.

Negative emotional weight is like a parasite, but it also needs to be reconciled with in this case. We need to find an ant that will carry the emotional weight parasite from the apparition known as "Mayoi" back into Senjyo, the primary host in which it originally matured. Since Mayoi is a shrine as well as a snail, her purpose for existing will end when her spiritual occupant is subsumed back into Senjyo, ending her pained existence and reconstructing Senjyo as a complete being.

Do I win Boko Haram yet?

...

Araragi sits back down after the conversation and tells Mayoi that everything will be worked out shortly. She doesn't seem optimistic.

On a brighter note, though, he did promise her ice cream earlier, and she's starting to get hungry now.

Hopefully she can wait until Senjyo gets back with the instructions. End episode.


I think I'm going to have a real lot to say at the end of this three parter, but pretty much nothing until then.