Cut to some minutes later, with Araragi having apparently told Senjyo whatever there is for him to tell her. Which may or may not include stuff the audience doesn't know, since we have no idea what sort of interactions Araragi and Suruga have had up until today. Hopefully nothing plot critical; that would just be the laziest kind of fake mystery building. Senjyo muses over what he told her, and then asks him a riddle. "There is a raging flood above me, and a blazing fire below. What am I?"
Araragi guesses a hot tub. Sounds like a decent answer to that riddle. I'd have guessed the Earth's crust, but still, not a bad answer. However, neither my nor Araragi's answers were the one Senjyo was thinking of.
...I can't tell if this is Senjyo telling him about a catastrophe that happened in the past, speaking in riddles about some supernatural ailment of Suruga's, or saying that she's going to burn her house down out of jealousy.
Araragi interprets it as the latter, and tells Senjyo she'd better not destroy the house of one of their school's star athletes. Ah, okay, so if Suruga was bad at basketball it would be okay then, got it. Senjyo assures him that she was just joking (I have no idea whether or not I should believe her, at this point...), and then goes on to tell him a little more of her history with Suruga. They HAD been friends in middle school, or at least friendly. However, a couple years after the crab incident, when Senjyo was a high school sophom*ore and Suruga was a freshman, Suruga found out about her weightlessness, and made the mistake of trying to help.
Senjyo discouraged her in her habitual manner. There's a fuzzy background image of an exacto-knife as she says this.
O...kay. And Suruga didn't have a healing factor. Yikes.
Also, so much for that whole "no one ever tried to help me before you did, Araragi" thing lol.
...
Senjyo clarifies a moment later that Suruga stopped trying to help her and cut all ties with her after she did whatever terrible knife-related thing she did to her. Calling attention back to how Araragi was the only one to help her even AFTER she reacted that way, which is what I said *should* have been the focus when she was verbally fellating him for this in the previous episode. But, even so, again:
1. Araragi has a healing factor. Most people don't.
2. Araragi knows a magician who specializes in removing curses. Most people don't.
So, while it's still admirable that he was willing to help Senjyo even after she did that, I don't think it's remotely fair to judge him by the same standards as other people who were both at greater risk from Senjyo's reactions and less able to even guess how they could start trying to help her. So, yeah. It's not as bad as some "harem f*ckboi getting lionized for literally nothing" bits in other shows, since he actually did do something remarkable, but it's still kind of close to that.
...except. Well. IS he still paying off his debt to Oshino for curing his vampirism? If so, then there was literally no altruism in what he did for Senjyo at all. And that's before factoring in the whole "wanting to f*ck her" aspect that plagues attempts at displaying the "altruism" or "good nature" of these otaku-insert twat protagonists. IS he paying off his debt to Oshino by bringing him customers? It was sort of implied in Hitagi Crab, but not explicitly stated.
If that's the case, then sure, Senjyo had no way of knowing that when she told him what a selfless hero he is at the end of Mayoi Snail. She could have been earnestly mistaken due to limited knowledge. But the way that scene was framed, all sensitive and dramatic like, made it seem like her words were meant to be taken at face value and actually say something positive about Araragi.
So, yeah. Really depends on what's going on with him and Oshino. This could be "annoying, but still better in this aspect than a lot of similar anime," or "just total sh*t," depending.
Well, I mean. Araragi is also a child molester, so it's sh*t regardless. This is all academic.
...
Senjyo does appear wistful as she recounts how Suruga hasn't spoken to her since then. Remorseful, even. Even moreso than when she apologized to Araragi at the end of Hitagi Crab (though the Joker Magic Trick she just threatened him with for very shaky reasons sooort of puts the lie to how much she's actually changed her perspective on the appropriateness of office supply based mutilation in response to imagined slights). She says that she's putting Suruga behind her now, and not going to try to mend their friendship, or the many others she's lost. There's no point in trying, and she doesn't really think she deserves to be forgiven anyway. Better to just look forward to a new life with new people after graduation.
As for Suruga's semi-stalkerish behavior toward Araragi, she has two guesses. The first is that she's curious about what kind of guy would actually be interested in a psycho like Senjyo, let alone would be actually able to date her for more than a day or two without having his flayed skin mounted over the school entrance. Araragi points out that if that were all, there'd probably be others besides Suruga snooping around after him, since her reputation isn't limited to just a couple of individuals who she personally threatened or attacked by this point. That leads her to the other possible explanation; that Suruga, even after what she did to her, even after the three years and change since then, still has a crush on Senjyo, and is either jealous of Araragi or just hopeful that Senjyo is finally becoming approachable again.
Hmm. We've been introduced to three other high school students at this point, and all of them have directly or otherwise been shown to have the hots for Stapler Meido.
After leaving Senjyo's house, Araragi gives Tsubasa a call as he starts his walking his bike home. For some reason, Tsubasa is sitting alone on a swing in that creepy surrealist playground alone in the dead of night, though she seems as cheerful as ever when she answers.
She also tells him that she was doing some "light studying" when he called. Uh huh. Her home life and refusal to be honest about it is seeming more and more ominous.
Also, for some reason instead of hearing Araragi's side of the conversation and seeing him, we just see garbled text captions from him and are shown some random telephone wires silhouetted against the sun. Despite them being in the same city, where it is night.
There's probably some symbolism here that I'm not getting. Maybe.
When asked about Suruga and Senjyo, Tsubasa informs him that back in middle school they were known as the "Valhalla combo" due to them both being star athletes and having some weird multilingual wordplay going on with their names that gives you Valhalla.
She also remarks that Senjyo was particularly popular among female underclasswomen, with Suruga just being an exceptional case. Well, I guess that's where the new OP is getting the Utena-ish imagery from, with Senjyo apparently being the "school prince back when she was that age."
Araragi thanks Tsubasa for the information, and compliments her on having such good retention for details. I don't think she said anything that any of their other classmates from middle school wouldn't likely remember, but okay. She responds with her catchphrase.
Tsubasa volunteers some opinions of her own about Araragi's apparent line of questioning. Telling him to not worry about Senjyo's past and just appreciate her for who she is and what could lay ahead. So, domestic cohabitation and possibly murder, gotcha. As she speaks, Tsubasa wanders across busy streets and through other hazardous environments, seemingly unperturbed and untouched.
I can't tell if she's actually oblivious and just keeps getting lucky, or if she has perfect situational awareness and has calculated everything.
Also, she tells Araragi that he shouldn't let his relationship with Senjyo get "sordid" or "improper." Uh huh.
She then rambles a little about how Araragi and Senjyo are both not "people persons," but that that doesn't mean they necessarily dislike people, just that they dislike social interaction. Not sure what that was apropos of. Then she repeats her opinion that he shouldn't dig too deeply into Senjyo's past (I wonder if Tsubasa has a self-interested reason for repeating this so many times...) before bidding him goodnight and hanging up.
Araragi has his first really unambiguously altruistic and heroic thought of the show so far. He might not be able to get his old, pre-vampire life back, but he'd like to at least see if he can help Senjyo get hers.
Okay, see? This makes me think he might have actually, earnestly just wanted to help for its own sake, even after the stapling.
I mean, it doesn't matter because he's still a child molester, but still.
As he continues on home, he realizes he forgot something back at Senjyo's. She'd given him an envelope full of cash she'd saved up working part-time at her father's unspecified small business, and told him to give it to Oshino. Presumably, Oshino doesn't want her coming back in person after she menaced him with the stapler last ep.
He turns around in the middle of the train track he's crossing to head back, but sees an eerie figure standing behind him, barring his path. Cloaked and hooded, and either wearing crimson gloves or with hands covered in blood, it has a vaguely simian posture.
I'm guessing this is Suruga in her weremonkey form, or something
Before Araragi can ask questions, it attacks with blinding speed and literally ground-tearing force, ripping his body open and hurling him down the tracks in a trail of his own blood.
He tries to get away, but the creature repeatedly catches up and beats and tears him more, its blows both calculated and savage. It's actually kind of nightmarish to watch. Regardless of one's feelings about Araragi, this thing attacking him is animated and framed like a real terror. A normal human would have very clearly been dead after the first lunge, and even Araragi's regeneration is being taxed past its limits. Overwhelmed, he collapses, bleeding heavily, in the middle of the tracks, as the alarm bells warn of a train approaching. In his blood-loss delirium, he has a vision of Suruga's bandaged arm revealed from its wrappings, and appearing gray, wiry, and inhuman.
Then Senjyo is standing over him telling him he forgot the envelope.
End episode.
I think there's going to be a pattern with Boko Haram where I'm just going to save any post-episode analysis for the end of the arc. That'll just be the status quo going forward with this show.
