I actually quite liked how the the Shinobu’s flashback in episode 18 was basically just a moving scroll with some narration. As is clear from my love of Monogatari in the first place, characters doing nothing but talking for large amounts of time doesn’t bother me at so long as the dialogue is interesting and well-written, and I loved the fantastic art they were able to supplement the lack of animation with. I figured that the episode was done like this because of the nested egg framework of the story, and apparently I was right—the light novel had entire chapters enveloped in quotation marks and everything. It certainly could have been better if Shaft took some creative liberties and actually animated Shinobu’s flashback, but how they handled was perfectly done and had its own impact. And of course, it’s always nice to see studios experiment like this.
Good to get more insight on what Shinobu was like in the past; Kabukimonogatari already gave us a good idea of just how powerful she was, whereas this mainly explained the origin of her Apparition Slaying Sword—a replica of the “original Apparation Slayer’s” sword—and tied into more on her issues concerning isolation. That was interesting although it was awfully anti-climatic, albeit deliberately so, and didn’t seem to have any immediate relevance to the dilemma with the “Darkness.” Although I’m sure it’ll all come together in the next episode.
Aside from the characters figuring out how to deal with the “darkness” and escaping from it, episode 19 is pretty much just an endless stream of lolicon jokes. It’s like this whole story arc was set up precisely so Araragi would be stuck in a room with the three loli girls of the series, and mine out all the comedy from that situation for what it’s worth. Since the best parts of Monogatari are obviously the loli humor which is just a bit too uncomfortably close to seeming actually pedophilic, this is truly the pinnacle of Monogatari.
Anime Is (Not) Dead 