Review of Zoku Owarimonogatari

I mean, if you're going to write what is, essentially, an epilogue to the Monogatari series, this is a pretty genius way to do it. The presentation of this final push into Araragi's adulthood was, I thought, pretty amazing. The concept of this film (Araragi getting trapped in an inverted world) is such a powerful medium to explain Araragi's feelings about his past and his future, and within that, every character gets a tiny bit of development. In fact, Araragi's relationship with himself and Senjougahara also get a bit of development throughout this story. As a bookend to this massive series (even considering the post-series,like the Off and Monster seasons), I don't think Zoku Owarimonogatari could have done much better than touching on everything that Araragi went through throughout his adolescence.

I won't get too into the message of this film because that's not really what a review is supposed to do, but I will say that I was impressed with how Araragi was made to realize what was going on with himself by the end of it. The structure of Monogatari is usually good for revealing new or shocking information, and Zoku Owarimonogatari was no exception. The breakdown of the phenomena and what that meant for Araragi was, for whatever reason, especially engaging for this specific storyline. Maybe that's because this is an epilogue of sorts or maybe it's because I've come to love Monogatari that much--I don't know. The bottom line is: this final (but not really) story was told brilliantly. If you want a better review of each element of this film, you won't find it here--I'm not a good enough reviewer for that--but I definitely felt like Owarimonogatari as a whole (and Zoku Owarimonogatari especially) brought a special quality to Monogatari. This film solidified it for me: I couldn't help but love this series in the end.