I never thought I’d get so emotional over a loli kissing the male protagonist. Seriously, this was such a beautiful episode and heartbreaking episode it’s actually kind of shocking; it pains me to see Hachikuji pass away, since she was one of my favorite characters of the series.
And Monogatari is just offing off all the girls all of a sudden now, isn’t it? First we have Nadeko turning into a snake apparition and nearly killing Araragi, and now we have Hachikuji passing away. And apparently by the time of the ‘Four Months Later’ epilogue Hanekawa’s moved to another town, and something maybe happened to Kanbaru too. I feel your pain Araragi; I’d feel pretty down too if my harem of cute girls was dwindling away.
There’s something awfully surprising about Monogatari taking this direction. Ever since Nisemonogatari the show has always had this pretense of being a bunch of otaku pandering, so the fact that all the girls are getting written out almost seems like a sort of subversion to the reputation that it’s made for itself. The epilogue at the end is pretty intriguing too, since here Koyomi is much more cynical and less enthusiastic. This might just be because he was just recounting a traumatic experience, but I would bet him failing to satisfy his savior complex is a big part of it too.
I’m not sure if I really like the explanation given for the “darkness,” since I tend to dislike stories that get deterministic with their message. Apparitions appear because of emotional strife within the individual, whereas if anything this non-apparition appears because of the apparitions living better because of “straying from the path.” I guess it’s just an inversion of how the regular apparitions work though, and according to Gaen it isn’t a logical or rational entity anyways.
There’s something very intimidating and terrifying about Gaen. All of the elite four ghostbusters always have this aura of knowing more about the situation than any of the other teen-aged characters, among other off-putting quirks, but that seems to be doubly true for Gaen. It’s as if she knows everything and is just toying with Araragi, talking in a condescendingly casual tone and treating him like a child. Also awfully suspicious how she wants Kanbaru’s arm; I’m not completely sold on the idea that she actually is Kanbaru’s aunt (though she could be.)
This is probably just because I’ve been slacking off a bit with my aniblog reading lately, but I’m a little confused why people dislike this story arc so much. Only reasons I can think of is that non-animated flashback of Shinobu’s past (which I loved) and the higher quantity of pedo humor (which I also loved.) Which I would just assume is the reason why, but then I’ve seen at least one person who disliked the arc despite liking the flashback episode, so there might be something I’m missing here. Either way though, I don’t really see what about this story arc is notably lesser than the other arcs, since it’s still a great mystery story surrounded by the usual excess of banter that we all know and love Monogatari for. Well, then again this arc also didn’t have any OP, so that must have added flame to the fire too.
Anime Is (Not) Dead 
As far as a reason why people may have disliked the arc, it was reaaaaly drawn out. They could have done it in 2 episodes tops. The non-animated flashback was good, but I wish it would have gone the whole episode. It lost me when it went back to the present. The ending worked for me when it eventually got to the point of the whole arc.
Yeah, I can sort of see that. Seems like an odd complaint though after how drawn out Nisemonogatari was, but I guess that was a pretty controversial entry in the series as well.