More Errata

It’s probably some sort of bad omen to have to start the week off with a correction. Nevertheless, when one makes a mistake they must correct it.

It’s nothing major. I doubt it’s harmed anyone, effected anyone, or that the correction will change anything, but in my anime review I made a slight error.

It is a rare occurrence that a single cour (single season) anime doesn’t go 12 or 13 episodes. Occasionally, as happened with Fate/Kaleid, the show will end early at only 10 episodes or something like that. At other times, as sort of happened with Saki: Episode of Side A, the show goes to 15 or 16 episodes.

I don’t recall how the thought wound up in my head, but I was under the impression that Monogatari Second Season was like the latter case; single season at more than 13 episodes. I mentioned in my review that it would be ending at episode 15. And indeed episode 15 does align with the end of a story arc. However, the show itself isn’t over. It is a two cour series.

In other words, if you go back next week you’ll still catch another episode (and episode 16 showed on Saturday). The next arc will cover a story about the vampire that lives in our M.C Araragi’s shadow, Oshino Shinobu.

So that was my bad. I didn’t check my facts before finishing up the review. But I don’t anticipate that it will change my review much. I’ll be certain to note it in my review at the end of this season – whether my view of the show changed at all.

Ultimately I feel that the series suffers from the same problem I was afraid it would suffer all along. The show prides itself in sophism, with most if not all of its characters spouting complicated sounding rhetoric and theories regarding others and the events that are around each other. It is intended to reflect a sort of social commentary.

However, if you’re not blinded by the speed of which the dialogue blows by and take the time to listen (or read, as it were) what they’re saying, you quickly realize that a lot of it is half-logic or otherwise entirely circuitous logic.

That is a pet-peeve that turns me off. The show is beautifully done in all respects, and the characters themselves are interesting. But I get annoyed by stuff like faulty logic in a logic-based show. Its one thing to have a detective show where the circumstances are contrived enough to allow the detective to solve the crime, it’s another when the basic supposition is itself terribly flawed and there is no recognition of the fact.

For example, at one point in the broader series, as recapped in episode 16, Araragi argues with his sister that she isn’t the real thing, she’s a fake so good at being the real thing she’s better than the real thing. It is entirely pointless, circuitous logic that does nothing but take up time and gives Araragi an excuse to grandstand for a bit. It’s annoying. Or the bit about how he hates his sisters but is very proud of them and admires them. The two are not interchangeable. You cannot have both at the same time. For a show that takes to heart the intricacies of language so much to expect that such an oxymoronic statement pass without rebuke is a little insulting as a viewer. It’s… annoying.

I expressed these faults in my review, and my conclusion remains the same. If you don’t mind or believe in their logic as it is presented, then it doesn’t sound much like proselytizing or grandstanding and you’ll have a better chance of actually liking the show. If not, then the entertaining parts may not be enough to supplant how much the show might get to you. It, to me, is a middle of the road show. It’s not up there at the top with the great and entertaining anime, but it’s far from the bottom with the not good or terrible stuff.

So, again, sorry for the mix up about the length of the show. I’ll keep watching since its interesting enough and I’ll re-review it at season’s end… just not holding out much hope that it’ll change in so few episodes.

See you next time.