#I want to glaze my art that’s the main reason I haven’t posted

[dragodoodlez]

Guys I’m cooking I promise🙏 new art soon

[timeagainreviews]

Vengence on Gallifrey

Welcome back, friends. We’re meeting up sooner than we usually do! I could get used to the idea of a new episode every Wednesday and Sunday. Wouldn’t that be swanky? In the time since part one of "Spyfall," there has been a lot of speculation and theories about what would be in store for part two. How many of your fan predictions came true? I know a couple of mine did. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Before part two aired, I revisited part one. I was curious to review O’s storyline in light of the big reveal. Would I notice any nods or giveaways to his being the Master a second time around? The answer is basically, no. Other than the Master’s reaction of "ridiculous," to the inside of the TARDIS, there’s not much telegraphing to be had. I did, however, notice some things that seem head-slappingly stupid upon a second viewing.

My pal Steve compared the episode to "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker," in that it moves so fast that you don’t have enough time to realise how stupid it actually is. One of those things I noticed the second time around was the big glass box in the middle of O’s home. My mind had kind of glazed over by that point that I never questioned how stupid it was that he would have a spring-loaded glass box in his ceiling. Now, I’m only human, but the Doctor isn’t. Why didn’t that seem weird to her that he would have a trap hanging from the ceiling? It made me think of Troll 2 when the dad walks over and grabs a fire extinguisher conveniently propped against the house. Why was it there? Because the plot demanded it.

Despite this, there is one thing I feel deserves saying. As much as I liked "Kerblam!" "The Witchfinders," or "It Takes You Away," I haven’t watched any of them since they first aired. I haven’t watched any of season 11 since my initial viewing. Regardless of any plotholes I found, I wanted to rewatch Spyfall. And I think that goes to show that despite various failings on Chris Chibnall’s behalf, he’s got me watching the show again! What then is different?

My first response would be that the stakes are higher this time around. A lot of that has to do with the fact that the Master is back. Regardless of how overused he may or may not be in the new series, their relationship has gravity. As an agent of chaos, the Master ups the tension as we have a history with him. Like with the Dalek in "Resolution," he lends a familiar element that this new era deeply needed. In these past few days, I was truly worried about how our friends were going to get out of this mess. I haven’t felt that way about Doctor Who in a long time.

When we last saw our heroes, the Doctor had been transported to the brain realm and the companions were about to crash on a plane. Through a bit of time travel, the Doctor saves the day via phone app, thus continuing the trend of the Doctor messing with Ryan’s phone. At least the dude got to keep his data this time. I found the whole sequence with the Doctor making plaques and laminating belaboured the point a bit, but it was cute.

We learn that the Doctor is walking around in some sort of synaptic realm. She meets Ada Lovelace who seems to think it's her own mind, but that was her best guess. I would complain that it was a weird design if it was a mind, but then I remember "The Invisible Enemy," and realise how much worse it could have looked! According to Ada, she’s been visiting this place since she was a wee bairn. She seems rather cool about the whole thing but is perplexed to see the Doctor.

The two flash into Ada’s timeline of 1834, where the Doctor has found herself at a steampunk convention. I found some of the steam-powered devices like the grenade to be a bit moronic. It was so unbelievable that my initial reaction was that she was in some sort of alternate history. But no, it’s just goofy. The Master discovers the Doctor survived and goes to finish the job. Before the episode, I was thinking "I hope they show the inside of his TARDIS." Turns out they already had. I guess it’s the same size on the inside. I had kind of expected it to be like Clara and Me’s TARDIS in that the diner was just part of the facade with the real bit hidden away. But no, his console is right there in the main room. Weird. Also, remember when chameleon circuits used to make TARDISes look inconspicuous? The biggest thing we ever saw it do was when the Master’s TARDIS became a truck. The coolest camouflage still goes to my man Professor Chronotis’ TARDIS in Shada. It was just a door along a wall. How cool is that? Not complaining, merely lamenting the loss of simplicity.

From within the Master’s TARDIS we see Barton confront the Master. The conversation between these two really only serves to show Barton as alive, and establish the power structure which is that the Master is in charge, which we already knew. It also establishes the existence of a sculpture that looks like something a third-year art student might have half-assed while hungover. Barton goes to intercept the companions, while the Master takes care of the Doctor. He makes a grand entrance with his tissue compression device doling out murder without reason. Did anyone else wonder why the device seemed not only to shrink people but also to turn them stiff like plastic or wood? I suppose compacting material like that could increase rigidity, but it was an odd choice.

To get the Master to stop killing people, the Doctor placates his ego by getting on her knees and calling him Master. It was, for lack of a better word- hot. Ada shoots the Master with a steam-powered gun and they get away. This was more of Chibnall’s weird relationship with guns. The Doctor says to Ada that she doesn’t approve, but the second Ada uses a grenade the Doctor is like "Hell yeah, this is my bad bitch Ada! Represent!" It’s like in "The Ghost Monument," when she hated the use of guns against a group of emotionless robots and then used a bomb to take out the same group of emotionless robots. It’s almost as though it’s not the killing the Doctor hates, it’s the inefficiency of the whole thing. "Mate, use bombs, way more effective!" Okay, Chris.

In the last five minutes of part one, I wasn’t sure if Sacha Dhawan was going to be a good Master or not. I was worried he was going to be too flamboyant, but the second he hits the screen in part two, it’s as though he had always been in the role. I really love him and Jodie Whittaker’s chemistry. It’s great to see her Doctor faced with someone truly evil, and I feel as though it’s given her a lot to work with. Watching the two of them verbally spar is nothing short of delightful.

Barton comes up empty-handed in his search for the companions, which is no sweat off his back as he is Mr Tech Empire. After a little bit of finagling with the internet, their faces are soon posted everywhere as wanted criminals. Exactly like in "The Sound of Drums," they’re going to have to go off the grid. They even take refuge in a construction site! Doing so gives them a bit of downtime to talk and regroup. In a moment of clarity, it dons on them that they don’t really know the Doctor all that well. They decide that after all is said and done, they’re going to have a talk with the Doctor. Like many people, I was hoping that they would visit this concept, as series eleven made them seem a little too keen. It was a welcome bit of character development.

Another thing I love about this scene is that Graham isn’t annoying in it. "But Natalie," you say, "I thought you loved Graham!" And you would be right, I do love Graham. But I feel like it’s worth pointing out that they didn’t ruin him. Usually with a lot of shows and movies, if something is good or popular with fans, the tendency is to overdo it. This is the same lovable dude from the previous series and I feel that should be acknowledged. One of the things I really admire about Chris Chibnall is that he really seems to know his own character’s voices. One of my biggest issues with Clara Oswald is that her personality was all over the board. We don’t get that here.

Having travelled with the Doctor for a while now, the companions decide to carry on like she would have them do. They still have their spy gear and like exploding cufflinks and Graham’s laser shoes, and their timing couldn’t have been more perfect as the baddies from part one show up. Sadly, they’re not the Voord as me and many others had hoped. They’re a species known as the Kasaavin. It’s a name that’s about as inspired as Ranskoor Av Kolos, and that is not a compliment. It’s simply a very forgettable name. I dunno what it is, but I really hate the way Chris Chibnall names stuff. He’s willing to do groan-inducing puns like "Arachnids in the UK," or "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship," but then decides to reign it in with "Resolution," despite the naming convention established in previous Dalek stories like "Revelation of the Daleks," or "Remembrance of the Daleks." Though I suppose in his defence, "Resolution," is about a singular Dalek. Either way, Graham’s laser shoes save the day. It’s ridiculous, but unlike the Master, it is a compliment when I say it.

The Doctor has now regrouped with Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage. After a bit of fangirling on her part, she goes into Doctor brain mode. She pieces together that the multiple maps of the earth are, like I had guessed, different points in time. The aliens are spying on important people throughout time, for some reason that still makes zero sense to me. Why would they care about the Earth’s technology? Wouldn’t their computers completely best our technology? What threat could humans pose to them? I thought their sights were set on taking over the universe, but now it appears their sites are set on one planet’s technology. I guess you’ve got to start somewhere.

The Doctor surmises that the Kasaavin must have difficulty keeping their form in our universe, thus a need for a machine that keeps them stable. This, of course, is the bad art student sculpture we saw in the Master’s TARDIS which has now found its way into Charles Babbage’s study. This must have been too close to the truth as at this moment a Kasaavin shows up. The Doctor uses this as an opportunity to hitch a ride off of the Kasaavin’s energy surge in hopes to end up back in the present day. As she does, Ada grabs her hand and is transported as well. Instead of 2020, they end up in the year 1943 during a Nazi blitz on Paris. Literally, the first person they encounter is another historical figure- Noor Inayat Khan. That’s gotta be some kind of record for the show- three historical figures in one episode.

After establishing that they aren’t Nazis, the Doctor and Ada hide in the safety of Noor’s home. However, it is then that the Master shows up in full Nazi regalia and orders a team of Nazi soldiers to fire into the floor and leaves. I, like many of you, was immediately confused. The Nazis weren’t known to ally themselves with people of the Master’s current complexion. However, we learn that by using a series of perception filters, the Master has disguised himself as white, which makes sense in relation to the show. We discover the Doctor and Ada narrowly averted death as they were, in fact, hiding in the floor.

On the other end of things, Graham, Ryan, and Yaz use being under surveillance to draw Barton’s people into a trap. Using Graham’s laser shoes, they steal a vehicle and head to stop Barton. Speaking of Barton, we’re treated to a deliciously dark scene between him and his mother. It was pretty obvious that the woman strapped to a chair in his bad guy lair had to be his mother, but that didn’t make it any less funny.  This guy is such a piece of work that not even his mother likes him. He tells her that she is to be the first person to be subjected to his grand scheme. After being taken over by blue electricity, she appears to die. What a dick.

Back in Paris, the Doctor realises Noor is a British spy. Using her telegraph, the Doctor baits the Master by tapping out four beats- the heartbeat of a Time Lord. Unable to resist, the Master taps four beats in response to the Doctor. What happened next was one of the coolest things I’ve seen on Doctor Who in a while. The Doctor and the Master make contact telepathically, something of which hasn’t been seen in the show for years. I quite literally threw my hands up into the air with joy. Kudos to Chris Chibnall for giving me the nerd feels.

The Doctor and the Master meet up atop the Eifel Tower where they have a rather intimate conversation. We find out it was the Master who killed C in the previous episode. So yes, they did waste Stephen Fry, which officially makes me a disappoint. The Doctor deduces that the Master isn’t actually in control of the Kasaavin. Instead, the Master has merely allied himself with them, claiming to have given them a broader scope of vision. I’m not exactly sure how going from wanting to take over the universe to taking over a small planet is a broadening in scope, but stop asking questions and watch the show.

Now, remember how I just gave kudos to Chris Chibnall? Well, I am going to have to take those back. In an attempt to delay the Master, the Doctor gives him away to the Nazis. She makes them think he is a British spy and directs them to their location. However, not only does she do this, but she also disables his perception filters. So effectively, the Doctor, a white woman, gives up a brown man to the Nazis. It wasn’t enough to make them think he’s a spy, they had to also see that he had brown skin. I was honestly a bit disgusted by this. How would they even recognise him as the same guy they were told was a spy? They’re going to arrive and find a person of colour in a Nazi uniform and not know who he was. Jesus Christ, Chibnall.

The Doctor uses the Master’s TARDIS to get back to the present time, just in time to find Barton unrolling his big plan. He goes on a long speech about how we give all of our information to corporations and how we should watch who we allow to pry into our privacy. It’s the social media equivalent of "Don’t blink." It’s a very effective bit of writing on par with one of Steven Moffat’s better speeches. It’s a shame it was preceded by the Doctor selling the Master out to Nazis.

So what’s the big plan? Well, remember the spy woman in part one whose DNA had been rewritten? And remember how Barton was only 93% human? It turns out that the Kasaavin plan to rewrite the DNA of the human race and turn us into hard drives by storing information within our DNA. They do so by using our smartphones and tablets against us. In the same arc of blue electricity as Mother Barton, people all over the world begin to be assimilated. During this entire press conference scene, I’m not sure if any of the actors in the audience were given proper direction as they have the most benign faces throughout most of this. Barton, whose speech went from zero to megalomaniacal in the first few seconds, should have sent up red flags across the room, but instead, they were as serene as cows. It was bizarre.

That was it, that was the big plan. Turn people into hard drives. I think? I had to ask a few of my friends what they thought it was supposed to be because I was worried I had missed something. Were they trying to take over the bodies of humans so they could have corporeal form? If so, then why say they wanted to store data in our DNA? Why do they need so much data storage anyway? Have they got a huge stash of hentai in their universe? Were they torrenting all of Doctor Who? Seriously, I do not understand their motivation or their methods. But honestly, I hardly care, because the real star of the show is the Master.

Having waited 77 years, the Master shows up just in time to be kind of late to the show. Like, he didn’t even buy a gun in that time. I do however look forward to the Big Finish audios pertaining to that era of his life. However, in the meantime, the Doctor took it upon herself to put a bug in the Kasaavin’s system which negates their mission and reverses the conversion. She informs the Kasaavin that the Master had planned to double-cross them. As they depart from our universe, they take the Master with them, but not before he mentions to the Doctor that Gallifrey was destroyed.

After getting Ada and Noor to their respective timelines, the Doctor goes to see Gallifrey for herself. Sure enough, the once-great Time Lord society has been raised to the ground. It’s a powerful bit of acting on Jodie Whittaker’s behalf. Devastated, the Doctor returns to the TARDIS only to be greeted by a hologram of the Master telling her it was him that did it, as a sort of act of punishment or vengeance. This is a much needed source of motivation for the Master’s current rage, considering how much of a departure it is from Missy’s redemption arc. Remember the timeless child storyline I’ve been dreading? Well, I’m genuinely surprised to be sitting here today to tell you that it has piqued my interest. Having something to do with the founders of Time Lord society, Rassilon and Omega, the implication is that their legend is based upon a lie, thus the Master’s final warning to the Doctor at the end of part one. 

So who is the timeless child? Well, I am relieved to say I don’t think it’s the Doctor. My wildest guess is that she was some sort of person that didn’t experience time like the rest of us and was killed to harness that power. Think Rusty Venture powering his dream machine with the heart of an orphan. Like I said, my wildest guess. The biggest takeaway from all of this is that I’m sitting here speculating about Doctor Who. With Moffat’s plotlines oftentimes leading nowhere interesting, I had grown wary of speculation. Why wonder what was next when it was most likely something disappointing? It’s nice to feel intrigued by Doctor Who again.

Upon returning to her fam, the Doctor is distant and quiet. The companions can tell something is up, but as they decided earlier, they needed to have a talk with the Doctor. The Doctor concedes and tells them the basics- she’s a Time Lord, she’s from Gallifrey, she can regenerate her body, the Master was her friend. This bit of truth on her behalf seems to please the trio as they don’t press the issue further. The Doctor throws the TARDIS into gear and we’re left lingering on her face for a moment before the episode ends.

Afterwards, my wife and boyfriend and I sat in silence. As the biggest Whovian in the house, I think they were waiting for my reaction. And in some ways, I think I was too. I really enjoyed the episode, I did. But I had my issues, which I’ve listed extensively above. My main qualms at that time were of structure. Much like the first episode, this one was clunky. The pacing was definitely better than last time, but still had issues. But otherwise, I needed to think about what I had just seen. I liked the anti-fascism angle, save for the Doctor selling out the Master to the Nazis. And there were a lot of great callbacks to classic Who. My wife had checked out at the DNA storage bit because she’s a giant nerd and was feeling nitpicky about the science in a science fiction show. But it was Duncan whose comments I think were the most on point. He told me that he, as a casual viewer, was lost throughout much of the episode. For him, a little bit of explanation peppered throughout the episode would have gone a long way.

One of the most persistent flaws in classic Doctor Who is that oftentimes they would explain what was happening within the final episode of a story, leaving you in the dark for the first few episodes. In the same way, Spyfall had left him feeling lost. I even said it recently that I am not the kind of fan Doctor Who needs to please. I will watch the show regardless of its quality. If someone as fanatical as myself was feeling confused, imagine how my boyfriend felt. It is, as he said, why people start tuning out. The show is on course to what may possibly be one of it’s best seasons in years. I’m hoping that the next few episodes give us a bit of breathing room before throwing us back into the deep end.

[sadiesavestheday]

Art Supply Review: Old Holland Watercolors

Old Holland is kind of a strange brand. There are not a lot of reviews of it because of its expensive price in many parts of the world. I’m lucky enough that my local art store has a full collection of this brand at fairly reasonable prices.

Handprint.com doesn’t think very much of this brand because of its lightfastness issues and its odd labeling practices. That’s totally understandable. I don’t think I would ever recommend this brand to a beginner.

The pigments are definitely pure. They claimed that they include twice as much pigment as other brands, and that might be true. However, the binder for these paints is what makes it different from all other paints, and calm cause problems for a new or experienced watercolor artist. The binder has been described as gummy and sticky. And the paints lift extremely easily.

Not normally something that you’d associate with a high-grade artist quality watercolor brand.

Despite all of that, I love these paints!

Background

Many artists don’t like Old Holland watercolors. They say that they are too gummy , too thick, and too difficult to rewet. And all of these things are true to a certain extent. The colors do not stay still on the page, and lift extremely easily. All of these things can easily be considered negative points.

But there is one thing that I think is important to realize about these watercolors. They are really gansai.

Pseudo-Gansai

Okay, or at least they are basically gansai or very similar to gansai.

At my local art store, I picked up this pamphlet talking about Old Holland watercolors that comes directly from the company. Here is what it says.

Old Holland Classic watercolour These watercolours combine the best qualities of the original colours as used by the Chinese masters. All 168 colours are lightfast. The old fashioned Chinese binder accepts more pigment. This binder is based on distilled water, bleeched cristal arable gums, pure glycerine 99.9% with various mixtures of different natural sugar syrups,special selected honey, rabbit skin glue, rosin varnish (made from roots), seaweed extract, mhyr, etc. The colours tend to be considerably stronger than normal artist’s watercolours, while retaining the transparency required to produce the most delicate hues. Due to the higher level of pigmentation the intensity and brilliance is superior, while less quantity of paint is required to make the artwork.

Pamphlet

Okay, so what does that sound like? If you have read my blog post about Gansai, this will all sound very familiar.

And it makes sense. The Dutch were one of the few countries that were able to trade with the Chinese and the Japanese in the 17th century. You have probably heard of the Dutch East India Company, haven’t you?

Gansai is a Japanese art medium, but many of Japanese traditional arts have their roots Chinese culture. I don’t know what the Chinese word for gansai is, but I’m pretty sure that is what is going on here with these Old Holland watercolors.

So the characteristics fit. They lift easily, they are extremely vibrant, and extremely pigmented. The only thing that seems to be different is that the colors also mix with absolutely no problems.

Also, it is important to note that this binder is the main reason why old Holland colors have a bit of a lightfastness problem in some formulations. Some of the binder combinations that Old Holland uses yellow over time.

Stats

Quality Where Does it Stand? Lightfastness varying lightfastness, I would not trust the lightfastness rating given by Old Holland Where Is It Made? Holland Identification (Color Labeling and Accuracy) No pigment number or other information on the tube, also the label does not match the color inside at all Tube size 6 mL Price US$6 - US$22

Colors Reviewed

GOLDEN BAROK RED – PO 65

SCHEVENINGEN YELLOW LIGHT – PY 174

ULTRAMARINE BLUE DEEP – PB 29

Swatches

These colors are all extremely vibrant. They are surprisingly transparent, and every single one of them is extremely lifting. I have never seen colors that lifted as easily as this. You could put a drop of water on the paint and it would completely come off the page.

This can actually be really frustrating when you’re painting because you can basically erase the entire thing depending on what paper you are using.

This Ultramarine Blue Deep is my favorite ultramarine. The granulation is absolutely gorgeous and unlike the granulation I have seen in any other brand. I will definitely be buying more of this.

Scheveningen Yellow Light is now my favorite warm yellow. It’s transparent, and just glows.

Mixing

The colors mixed together extremely well. They harmonize and have a lot of movement when used wet in wet. The painting that I did using these colors has a sort of gentle harmony to it.

Re-wetting

This is where these colors fall down. Because of the binder, it’s extremely difficult to rewet these pains in comparison to other artistry paints. You have to add water to them before the pigment will come off of the pan.

Glazing and Layering

I don’t use these paints when I am planning to do a lot of layers. Or at least I don’t use them on the bottom layers, particularly because of that issue with listing. These colors don’t stay down very well. They always want to come off the page if there is any sort of agitation on top.

So I normally only use these paints if I am going to be doing a painting that doesn’t require a lot of layers, or if I want to use them on top of already painted layers.

They glaze well, and are very vibrant.

Vibrancy

Extremely vibrant, obviously full of pigment. Beautiful. There are variations of tone within each color.

Pros and Cons

Pros Cons Extremely High Pigment Load No pigment information on the tube The Most Beautiful Granulation Difficult to Rewet Very Vibrant Lifts easily Unique Pigments Extremely Expensive Questionable Lightfastness Strange Names The line is full of overly complicated convenience mixes

Who is it for?

Obviously not a reasonable person.

Not for anyone who is a stickler about single pigment paints or lightfastness.

I will probably continue buying these pains, but I will attempt to be aware of the limitations of the paint and careful about the lightfastness.

This brand is definitely a “luxury” brand if you think about the price and the lack of functionality. This isn’t really a brand that you go to for consistency or predictable quality. This is a brand that you go to because there’s just something about it that you love, despite all of the negative aspects.

So this is for somebody who has already tried artist grade watercolors, and is already very comfortable with them, and wants to be a little silly with their paints.

The Last Word

Price: ★

Quality: ★★★

Overall: ★★

Official Website

Classic Watercolours | colour chart | Old Holland Classic Colours

Availability

Starting at $6.33 at Dick Blick

Around $20 on Amazon

In Europe

Starting at £5.30 on Jackson’s Art Supplies

Ab €4.15 bei Gerstaecker

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[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Owarimonogatari Season 2 [Mayoi Hell]

I was hoping at first that I’d get done with my rewatch of the whole series up to this point before this came out, but I guess that sure didn’t happen, lol. I’ll get back to it eventually, once I have the free time for it. But for now I’m just gonna watch this now that it’s out. I’m already kinda late for this as it is.

I’m going to try and do this in a semi-liveblog-y way where I’ll binge-watch each part while giving my thoughts after each individual episode and then post this once I’m done, but if that ends up being annoying I might switch to only writing up my thoughts after I’ve completed each arc. Which also applies to the main rewatch. Doing it like an actual liveblog where I keep pausing it to write about it got really annoying really fast, so yeah.

It’s good to be back with this series after waiting nearly a year and a half, after Koyomimonogatari came out. I feel like I’m not really as into it as I used to be, which is why the idea of doing an entire rewatch is sorta daunting and might potentially fall apart if I lose interest, but it’s still nice to finally get to see the conclusion of the main story.

Anyway, spoiler-y thoughts under the cut. [And for the record, I’ll try and make posts for Hitagi Rendezvous and Ougi Dark over the next two days or so]

PART ONE:

I’m glad I have a good memory for stuff I’m into, since even with the fairly intense recapping going on it’s still kinda vague and there’s still so much going on in the series as a whole that this is building upon. There’s probably stuff I’m forgetting, but I think I’m good. I’m at least aware that the whole premise here is that Araragi got murdered by Gaen in an attempt to restore the spiritual balance of the town, and now he’s stuck in Hell and has to get back out.

Seeing Hachikuji again is as wonderful as I expected, even if it immediately reminded me that the fanservice with her character is one of the many things I kinda have to glaze over and look past in order to enjoy this show. There’s no point denying that. This is definitely a guilty pleasure sort of show that I’d be hard-pressed to recommend to most people. But even so, Hachikuji is great. I’m clearly less enthusiastic about her character than other people are, but I still like her as a character.

It makes sense, but I wasn’t expecting to get a literal walk down memory lane. Huh. It’s a nice way to make the story feel all full circle in time for the final arc, I guess. It at least helps remind us all that Araragi is the sort of person who would have kept doing the things he chose to do even if he could go back and re-do them. For better or worse. I’m glad that Araragi acknowledged that he fucked up pretty bad with Nadeko in general. He really, really did.

I’ve been kinda thinking about this for a while, but this whole arc is making me remember that I’ve always kinda struggled to get an exact grasp on Araragi as a person. I’m not sure why. Maybe rewatching the series would help, but something about his personality and world-view, or at least how he articulates it, feels weirdly difficult to get. But there’s still parts to his character that are pretty incredibly obvious, like his incredibly low self-esteem and his self-destructive heroism. I feel like I probably understand him more than I don’t, there’s just this weird feeling of distance involved, especially when he monologues about justice and stuff.

Of all characters, I wasn’t really expecting Tadatsuru to come up again, given how short-lived his screen-time was. Huh. I’m intrigued by the idea that it’s part of Gaen’s whole plan to have Araragi return from Hell, and that him dying somehow erased his vampirism. Is that, like . . . a legit, permanent thing now? Is he just not a vampire anymore? I feel like he still was when we saw him again in Hana, but I forget.

I guess we’ll get to her properly later, but I’m glad that we’re finally going to address the topic of Ougi. She’s been such a huge part of the story for a while now, so finally getting an explanation of what she is will be nice. I think I’ve already been spoiled on it a bit, so I won’t get into it until the show does.

The art in this arc already is kinda off the charts. This definitely seems like one of the more exceptionally dialogue-heavy arcs, so I guess they had room to just go completely nuts and do what they want, especially since it’s literally set in Hell so they have an excuse to use some surreal visuals. I’m glad we got a whole section with Hajime Ueda’s character design style. It always looks really good. I also just love how incredibly different pretty much every scene looks. Though in an almost opposite direction, I really like how the scene with Kiss-Shot was done to intentionally look like the beginning of Bake when we get the flashback to Kizu. That was kinda trippy, in a cool way.

It’s at least immediately confirming what I’ve been thinking, that Zaregoto just feels way more lifeless than the Monogatari series in terms of artistic direction, but that’s a rant for another day.

Before I move onto the second half of the arc, I should also say that it’s nice to get another Mayoi OP, even though hers have always been low on the list of favourite Monogatari OPs. The visuals were really nice, though. I hope we get an OP for Hitagi Rendezvous, but I heard that we won’t, so that sucks. Unless we get one in the BD release. Thankfully we’ll at least get an Ougi OP for the last arc of this. I’m still hoping that we get an actual Araragi OP when Shaft eventually adapts Zoku.

Oh yeah, on that note, the fact that this is seven episodes long in all REALLY makes me sad that they couldn’t have just added a Zoku adaptation onto the end and aired this as a regular one-cour anime. That would have been so much more convenient in every way. OH WELL. Hopefully it won’t take them too long to adapt Zoku, even if it probably won’t happen until next year. And then we’ll have Off Season and Monster Season to worry about. I wonder how long they’ll keep the series going before they cut their losses.

PART TWO:

I was, uh, not expecting basically everything in this part. Wow. So we finally got proper backstory for Tadatsuru, and learned what the heck was going on in Tsuki. I didn’t think Nisioisin would bother ‘explaining’ Tsuki, I figured it’d just be left as a kinda weird and out of the blue part of the story. But now it makes sense. So the whole time Tadatsuru was operating under orders from Ougi to kill Araragi, while also operating under orders from Oshino and Gaen to get killed so he can go down to Hell in order to help revive Araragi once he gets murdered later on. Huh. I also wasn’t expecting the entire deal with Tadatsuru being some kinda puppet master who had already died and was living through his dolls. All the focus on doll imagery in that part was kinda disturbing.

I wonder if we’ll ever see Oshino in the flesh again, in the present day. It’d be great to see him again. I’ve kinda missed him.

Also in terms of mysteries I didn’t think would get solved, I didn’t expect that the park name would be resolved and turn out to be so important. Wow. I feel like they’re setting up a plot point there, or at least furthering an existing plot point, but it’s hard to tell. It’s probably just a cultural difference, but it’s kinda difficult sometimes to understand the importance and relevance of shrines in this series, and what happens when they get relocated/destroyed/renamed/etc.

For some reason I kinda didn’t remember that Tadatsuru always saw Araragi as an enemy because he works with an apparition, so I guess it was a good thing we got reminded of that. We spend so much time with apparitions that I kinda forget that the specialists are literally trained to kill them, pretty much.

It was nice to see Hachikuji try and give Araragi a motivational speech about how he deserves to be resurrected. Her line about how he ‘loved being alive’ kinda got to me for some reason. But then of course that scene also got unexpectedly weird and funny.

And of course the major twist was that Hachikuji got taken out of Hell as well, which I did not see coming at all. Huh. I’m also kinda surprised that nothing bad seems to have happened, and that it actually benefits Gaen’s entire plan of action. I kinda expected it to be something that’d have an obvious downside, but maybe that’ll come up later.

I’m not entirely sure what the deal is with Kiss-Shot being there at the end in some weird hologram-y way, but I guess it had to do with the Yume-Watari sword. Although there’s also the fact that it really does seem like Araragi’s vampire aspect literally got erased, so maybe that changed things with Shinobu. I forget exactly how their link works, though, so I’m not entirely sure if him losing his vampire nature would help or hurt her. I guess we’ll see how it goes.

I wasn’t exactly expecting this entire arc to end on the note it did, but I guess it makes sense. I kinda feel bad for Araragi, though, getting killed, literally sent to Hell, and revived along with a friend he thought was dead, all in like an hour or so. And now he has to immediately take entrance exams and worry about how he’s going to have to help Gaen in her whole war with Ougi that’s being set up. He deserves a break.

Which is probably why Hitagi Rendezvous is, apparently, about him and Senjougahara going on a date. That’ll be cute. People have been complaining that they haven’t gotten enough screen-time as a couple yet, and I kinda feel that way too, so this will be nice.

Also on the note of Senjougahara, it sounds like whatever subs I was using decided to adopt the Vertical translation and call her ‘Senjyogahara’ which still just looks so fucking weird to me. I really dislike that was of romanizing her name. It’s not a big deal or anything, but still.