Lies in Bakemonogatari (Mayoi Mai Mai)

Just in time for Mother’s Day, I started working on this Mayoi Mai Mai post. And now it’s here. Late.

Mayoi Mai Mai is perhaps most interesting for its relation to the overarching story of Bakemonogatari, and thus what it reveals about Nisio Isin’s storytelling (and storytelling as a whole). The first thing that comes to mind when I think of this arc is the twist that Araragi is in fact the character who encounters an apparition. We can say that the mystery of the arc relies almost entirely on one “lie”: that Hachikuji is alive. Of course, this brings about a bunch of secondary lies like Senjougahara pretending she can see Hachikuji, but the story pivots on that one main lie.

Every arc in Bakemonogatari is set up this way. There is a “lie” in the timeline of Senjougahara’s childhood, a lie in the conditions of Araragi’s fight with Kanbaru, a lie in the number of snakes affecting Nadeko, and even a lie about Oshino’s actions in the Tsubasa Cat arc. These lies make each mystery unsolvable until they’re discovered—at least from Araragi’s/the audience’s perspective. And this is the arc where Araragi’s perspective really starts to take over. He colors both our expectations and our moods. When he reflects that the park is empty and he feels like the only person on the planet, that gives us a great sense of his current headspace, as well as a subtle motivation for his attachment to Hachikuji. Or, actually, “evidence” may be a more accurate term than “motivation”.Read More »