Second Season of Monogatari Series retains all the things that made the first one great. That is honestly all the info you need about if you’re considering you’re considering whether to continue the series or not. As much as it applies, I will not waste your time by repeating by review for the First Season, so feel free to read that if you’re not sure what even makes the series good in the first place. Following is more of a bits of thoughts specifically about the Second Season. First of all, Second Season is the one with most variable narrators, and that is great. Suruga, Kaiki,Nadeko, the personalities of the various characters shine even more when they are given the opportunity to lead the story. And how wonderfully diverse cast it is, with temperaments all over the scale. It is quite astounding how the writing changes depending on the character that is the given point of view, yet it retains the main qualities and style of the author. 4th wall breaks are continuing, and for example the small detail of Nadeko’s narration having stylistic errors makes the volume memorable in yet another way.

Story-wise, there are multiple high end arcs covered here. The backstory for Tsubasa, a highlight of the psychological themes that made me finally fully appreciate the character and its depth. Time travel, element that is always highly risky to include in any story that wasn’t based around it from the time is there, starting a bit sketchy but ultimately delivering a nice look into what could have been but will not, with satisfying character drama and passing enough reason why time travel isn’t going to be used to solve problems anymore further into the story. And then, of course, the showdown, the grand finale of the season. I can’t go much into details in case this is being read by someone not yet familiar with the story, but let’s say that Nadeko’s development here is one of the prime examples while look essays could and are written about quality behind Monogatari Series writing, and how exhaustive analysis of characters can be made. Her reposition from "that sweet but uninteresting girl" is what I wouldn't be afaid to call genius, NisiOisiN again delivering delightful meta commentary. Truly, the characters are anything but shallow. Add to it Kaiki’s role and narration that delivers wonderful cynicism and curious life philosophy, making him my favourite character, and you could start anticipating that this part would be quite something.

Despite me singing praises, and despite me giving this a full score, there is however one tiny part that I have a bit of criticism towards to. It is the lolicon content. Now, I’m a regular guy, I don’t mind some lolis here and there, but the thing is, at some parts the loli-related rants are maybe a bit too much, to the point it starts to disrupt the pacing and could poison the reader’s impression that this is some major part of the volume’s story – it isn’t, but it might feel like it’s taking up more space than it actually is. Personally I can deal with it, which is why my score still remains 10 (though I have been switching between 9 and 10 indecisively), but it is exactly this what makes it hard to recommend Monogatari Series to more regular readers, as it could cause some massive culture shock. Which is very unfortunate, considering how the weiting is otherwise is top-notch. As a literature in general, not only among light novels.