Early Access Nisemonogatari Ep.04 Full Reaction

Wow, you managed this episode quite well; it's one of the infamous episodes from Nisemonogatari. Araragi speaks harshly of his sisters but doesn't acknowledge he's being hypocritical, as Karen pointed out in Episode 2 when he criticized her for doing something he had done in Episode 1. Now, in this episode, Hanekawa tells him that what he tells his sisters is like talking to himself, a pattern he's been following since Bake to a lesser extent, but it's in Nise when they make us wonder if there's more to what Araragi tells us. The other thing I want to talk about is the bath scene. Most people get scandalized and solely focus on that, so I thought you might be one of them. However, you surprised me because you didn't get distracted and continued paying attention to what was truly important in the scene, as it's the first time Shinobu and Araragi speak after the events in Kizu. (What I'm about to say is related to my comment from Episode 2; if you haven't read it, I recommend doing so to better understand what I'm trying to say.) If we're going into my understanding of why I think this bath scene is appropriate, I'd have to refer back to my comment from Episode 2 where I analyzed the appearance of each character and how I understood that Nisemonogatari seems to be a work built on fanservice. Even though its story has nothing to do with that, they use it in a way that you can find meaning behind most of those scenes. In other words, Nise takes the "fanservice" trope and gives it a sense, whereas most works include it just because, without contributing anything more than that. So, one could say that the work itself, "Nisemonogatari," is an impostor because the work itself could convince you that all it has is just fanservice. The only character we see in a situation similar to Shinobu's (being naked) was Kanbaru in Episode 2, where Araragi finds her completely naked but depressed, saying, "Look long and well. This is who Kanbaru Suruga truly is." You can take this literally or interpret it as Kanbaru dressed being what we always see—energetic, perverted, and happy. But when she's naked, showing her true self, she's in a depressive state due to her backstory. If I analyze this bath scene in a similar way, I can understand that the fact that Araragi and Shinobu are naked is a way of saying, "This is who I really am, not hiding anything from you." Araragi also acknowledges that trying to lie to Shinobu is useless since she's a part of his shadow. This is something I personally think about in all the scenes featuring naked characters in the Monogatari series; it also happened in Kizu with Hanekawa. I also see the entire shower scene as a moment of privacy between Araragi and Shinobu to talk without being interrupted and to try to fix their problems a little and think clearly about the problems around them, like when you spend an hour in the shower thinking about your things and curiously only do it when you're showering. Btw, the reason Shinobu ate the handcuffs was because their shape resembled donuts. 🤣

Ry