Holy shit, this Nisio+SHAFT teamup is literally my anime dream team

I felt the episode dragged a bit around the middle, but SHAFT's animation and Nisio's writing is suuuch a good combination. Both the opening, and the characterization of Ougi tied into mathematics, coupled with Ougi's weirdly doll-like/inhuman movements throughout, really hammer home the idea of natural or philosophical laws being muddled by human nature.

The "sacredness" of the mathematics exam (to borrow Ougi's language) being muddled by petty human motivations
The "purity" of Araragi's ideals of righteousness being muddled by mob rule/majority mentality

I really like how Nisio can parallel and overlap multiple complex themes in a way that they inform one another. As well as their ability to introduce two new characters in a 45 minute movie and fill them with complex and multi-faceted motivations.

The teacher, desiring to improve her own assessment scores, cheating on her own exam and then throwing a scapegoat under the bus -- and then making sure that, after that scapegoat stops attending school, the scapegoat still advances through the grades
The scapegoat, after attempting to cast everything on Araragi from her own jealousy and dislike, herself getting wrongfully accused, dropping out -- presumably, Araragi thinks, because of her dislike of him, but really because of that teacher (and once the teacher goes on maternity leave, the scapegoat starts coming back to school)
Implying that the scapegoat knew or had deduced that the teacher was the culprit, and stopped attending school not out of dislike of Araragi, but because her faith in the institution of the school/righteousness was, like Araragi's, completely shaken

And, of course, Ougi's incredible creepiness throughout, and her compulsion (probably as the order of the universe or what passes for God in the Monogatari universe) to right past wrongs, for the truth to come out, for everything to be in its proper role and place: for everything, ultimately, to balance out to zero.

And Araragi, this episode expanding on why he, like Senjougahara (was amused to see her topping the class lists effortlessly), was first described as a castle who didn't let people in, and the source of his isolation. Basically that his faith in humanity was shattered -- and that if morality is determined purely by majority rule, if he can not have any friends, then his sense of morality is purely decided by himself. So he has a personal sense of justice - and indeed, "what is justice, what is right" is kind of a long-running thing throughout the Monogatari series, as well as isolated individuals and the way they connect, or don't, with others

Even at the ending, though Hanekawa appeared for all of like a minute, it's interesting to see how she's still aware of herself sexually, and still making her advances on Araragi (despite how he tries to distance himself from her), while keeping her own "consideration of others" (aka, aware of the scapegoat's dislike of Araragi, and telling Araragi not to enter the room so as not to upset her).

I think there's a really nice unity and symmetry to the episode in a lot of ways. Ougi's use of metafiction and detective tropes, of course, is really interesting -- a good twist on the classic "locked room," and her appeals to the reader. It's like, insofar as Ougi embodies "order," the ways in which she plays with the fourth wall is really interesting.
Something else about Ougi I noticed, but she loves ending her statements with "jyanai desu ka?" aka "isn't it?" The subs of course translate it affirmatively, not phrased as a question (most of the time), but Ougi kind of inhabits that linguistic space of "zero" (like the opening), ambiguous meaning, that at the same time invites Araragi and the reader to "Save themselves"/figure out the meaning themselves

But of course, in reality Ougi is the one pulling all the strings and leading to an inevitable conclusion

speaking of, OP was hype as [radio edit], love the fourth-wall blurring and constant Ougi creepiness

speaking of Ougi, I just checked the kanji for it, it's "folding fan"
Something that reveals while concealing

Literally the perfect metaphor for Ougi's entire character

edit: Was talking about Ougi's design with a friend and how it reflects her character: the too-long sleeves always hanging from her hands pretty much reinforces the whole 'puppetmaster' thing, with sleeves as strings

and watching the OP, the way Ougi runs: keeping her legs more or less straight to the knees, then lots of motion below that - it's very eerie/inhuman and dolllike, moving only some parts at a time. And of course, it reinforces that ambiguity of moving/not moving

And of course, as we know from Hanamonogatari, her whole sex/gender itself is in flux
With that thing of her saying things that blatantly aren't true, but with such a conviction that people believe her. It's like she enforces reality itself by her will
(that Araragi said that earlier in the ep, that she was always a boy, etc)

That crabman had me laughing for so long and then that buttchin kid's expressionless face as Saitama reks him just finishes it. The fight against the "Earthlings" was a lot more intense than I expected from a show about a guy who can one-shot everything, and then it was just a dream. RIP Saitama's alarm clock

Tsubasa, Araragi, Sengoku, Araragi again (and Shinobu for one ep) and

LOL that ending, talk about out-of-left-field. I get that maybe the theme they were going for was "Oh, the swords ultimately can only hurt people and therefore they should be destroyed in the end," but I think that kind of contradicts a narrative that was developing over the series, wherein you see people who use the swords for good or for evil, swords that keep one upright, swords that show you the truth, etc. Of course in each case it's been "oh but ultimately I don't need the sword"...

But I think following that up with a really cheesy and anti-climatic sequential battle just went really formulaic-ally, to the point where I was actually laughing at the dramatic gouts of blood and so on. It was cool seeing Shichika point out some of the weaknesses, but ultimately it just reinforced that MC-kun was just 2cool4school and OP, and there wasn't even really any tension to any of the fights, nor reason to care about the outcome.

Ditto the Enzou fight, which just had hilariously copy-and-paste animation.

Episode 10 and 11 were definitely the highlight of the series, along with ep 3, but yeah...

Idk, after just randomly killing off Togame, I kind of lost my investment that was built up over the course of the adventure, and didn't really care about the outcome. Which true, mirrored Shichika's feelings, but I think they definitely dragged out Togame's "last words" way too much, and that random bit about "oh, everything was a lie, I was going to kill you."
I didn't believe Togame then at all, since there wasn't really anything either in the narrative up til that point or here. And all that bs about even her feelings and so on being subsumed as pawns in her plan was meaningless, since we never found out what her plan was, what her revenge was, or anything really about her. I was hoping that something about that would be resolved, but basically it wasn't.
So it's difficult to appreciate Togame's character, and the arc of the story, with that kind of conclusion to it. And the writing was waaay too wordy and drawn out there. I kept glancing at the clock and the episode timer, wondering how long they were going to drag it out for. It just felt tedious after awhile, plus the random white snake imagery was ???

It felt like a lot of things they should have been foreshadowing all along, and a lot of the complexities of the narrative, just kind of literally shoehorned into "rocks fall, everyone dies" kind of ending.

Even Shikizaki's history just gets kind of jossed offhand, along with that whole plotline...
The fight from the episode before with Houou was also kind of dumb and anticlimatic, but not that dumb.

Basically I guess the show/writing was kind of bad at carrying its plot (literally no point to the Maniwani, Habi killed offscreen, etc), having good character resolution in the end (since the development was okay and the romance plot was sweet, if ultimately dumb, but some of the individual swordspeople were cool enough), the music was catchy but nothing special (OP 1 was 2good, though), animation for fights was shit but the adventuring and different locales was really cool (dat water scenery porn in ep 11), etc...

I checked where in Nisio's chronology this was written, since it really feels underdeveloped as a narrative, and it looks like it was between Bakemonogatari and Nisemonogatari. Which explains some things, I guess. Though Bakemono was supplemented by glorious SHAFT and was more character-focused as well.

It feels like the story hinted at a lot of really cool things it could've done (what was up with Enzo? what was Togame's plan (have an audience with the shogun, kill him, declare herself shoguness??)? why does the princess randomly follow Shichika at the end? etc.
There was still some nice moments at the end, like Shichika fighting with a lock of Togame's hair and doing her mapping goal, but overall it was just supremely unsatisfying, and played ultimately for a lot of cheap drama and plot development.

I don't think that was quite Clannad-tier shit in terms of an ending shitting on everything the series stood for with handwavy plot resolution, but it was close. >_>