HeHeldarth
December 19, 2018
Recommended
Warning: spoilers. Let's start saying that i really liked Hanamogatari, of course i watched the full movie version in one go. Visuals are above average for monogatari stardards, and the feeling of a movie as a whole arc was really great. Some of my friends said that this is a bit of a plot heavy arc. I don't think it was boring tough, it caught my attention and curiosity for it's whole duration, i've even watched it a second time to write a better comment. As usual, i especially like to speak of the "food for thoughts" this series give, so lets begin. The arc starts with Kanbarumentally speaking with her dead mother, which is considered a bad person. In "being the poison" i think she mean that it's better to crush others than to be crushed, but Kanbaru refuses this reasoning and wants to be different from her. Her mothers warns her that it will be hard: if you want too many things, you may obtaing nothing.
Kanbaru soon meets Numachi the Demon in this arc, and find her similiar to Araragi-senpai. This encounter officially stop the operate of the demon, which lasted for 3 years.
She did this "profession" for herself only, by meeting persons with bigger problems than her, she feels better. She just listen to them seriously, but on the inside she may laugh at them. After that, she do absolutely nothing. That's because, apart for extreme cases where she advices to contact autorities, she is avare that time heals every wound, and committing to face all your problems in one time only brings you damnation. This is her thought.
Suruga actually had a big price to pay for deciding to face her problems right away, not enduring for a better situation. Her demonic arm caused her a whole hell of problems.
After she hoped that someday, the arm will disappear, Numachi made that happen by stealing the demonic piece from her while she was groping her breast.
After this encounter, we have another moment of conversation with suruga's mother. This time i find it really accurate and true: to put a serious face while pondering things, is to be stupid, real winners face things as they come, directly. To worry is to waste time, and if you actually got that time, then you can use it to ACT. It's no use crying over spilled milk.
Man, SO TRUE YET HARD.
Suruga wakes up without her demonic arm, and is overjoyed. After school she will meet Kaiki, who was looking for her. Kaiki sees immediately through her and knows how she thinks: Some thing can never resolved by running away, and there are wounds that time will not heal (numachi physical wound for example).
Suruga has been warned against Kaiki, and tries to hate him, but she can't, he is really too kind with her, you could say even affectionate! After all suruga is the daughter of Kaiki's best friend and tutor. In the past, she asked to him to look after her child if something happened to her.
Kaiki brings something interesting to us: not always love is given back, and not always hate is responded with hate. Nobody and nothing is pure evil, every personality is totally different, and nobody is always coherent. We will find more of this later with our friend Numachi.
Kaiki is really affectionate with Suruga in many ways, this reveal his true face. I really like him, he is a great character!
Second encounter with Numachi: she still insist that running away is not always wrong, to face your problems is to jump right in to them, while avoiding them may not take away your happiness, on the contrary it can help you to accept your destiny and circumstances. She suffered from the hate that talent differences brings, she tried to hide her it as much as she could by starting a sport difficult for her. From soccer where she would use her foots, to basket where arms are used. She also played in defense to hide even more her incredible skill. She then hurted herself and was hospitalized.
After she got to hospital, a girl pretending to be her friend came to her, and asked her for advices. Both of them thought the condition of the other was worse than their personal one. Anyway, Numachi was delighted of her misfortunes since this reminded her she was not the only one to be suffering, she was not alone.
She then explain why her method works: the important thing is the relief she gave to that person by listening to her, by doing that, one stops to worry about his problems and goes on with their life, making those "obstacles" disappear quickly. A tombstone is mentioned, this may be a hint telling you that Numachi is already dead.
After this explanation, we talk again about absolute evil. It does not exist, and every baleful event is (often) needed to help something or someone. Also, every act of justice may hurt someone. So in the end, evil or good extremes may not exist at all.
Another interesting thing to mention is that Kaiki says that he do not believe on anomalies, even if they were clearly there in the series. Is this a hint too about the fact that they only exist in the characters psyche?
Suruga leaves Numachi, then proceeds to run until exahusted in the middle of the night.
She meets the now grown Araragi-Senpai.
He talks about how often we change ourselves to be liked by others, after all social acceptance is SO IMPORTANT for us. But beware, by adapting too much we risk to loose sight of many things.
Then they start talking about helping someone which is in a bad situation. Let's say this person is happy, even if she lives in misfortune. Suruga wonders if it is right to act just to tell that person how bad their situation is, potentially causing more problems.
Araragi has a simple yet effective solution: you must act if it bothers at least YOU.
To commit to something because you are worried is always a good thing.
As oshino said (and this IS the setting stone of the series)
Only You can help yourself. Suruga decides to act for her friend.
In their last encounter Numachi says she prefers to regret something she did not do. Well here i can answer thanks to my personal experience: it's usually better to regret something you did, rather than regret something you did not do, because you will never know what consequences your effort would have brought, you would not like to miss new opportunities and new happiness for yourself, right?
In the end Suruga meets her senpai again, and boy we talk of some deep shit here.
One of the most powerful yet simple truth in this arc lies near the end:
It does not matter to make a wish real, but what really matters is the fact itself to have a wish, a desire. Whatever it is a realistic one or not, we really need wishes, we can use them to know ourselves better and focus on what we truly desire. If you do not know what you want, what you want to be, or who you are, you will always loose the way on your life. This important point can make the difference between a life which has been lived and one where someone only survived.
This is a lesson essential for your life.
