Izuko Gaen

Owarimonogatari Second Season is one of the last chapters of the long Monogatari series. The studio Shaft made it, with Akiyuki Shinbo and Tomoyuki Itamura among its directors. It aired in a special way: all seven episodes were shown on Japanese TV over just two days, August 12 and 13, 2017. Each episode is about 22 minutes long. The story comes from a light novel by the writer Nisio Isin. In the anime timeline it comes after Koyomimonogatari, and it is followed by Zoku Owarimonogatari. The word "Owari" means "end," and this season really feels like the end of an era. It belongs to the Final Season part of the franchise, which wraps up the high school years of the hero, Koyomi Araragi. Koyomi is a third-year student who once became partly a vampire. Since then, he keeps getting pulled into cases about "apparitions," which are ghosts, spirits, and strange beings that grow out of people's worries and feelings. He tries to help everyone he meets, even when it puts him in danger. The season is made of three stories. The first is "Mayoi Hell." After a meeting with Izuko Gaen, a woman who says she knows everything, Koyomi wakes up in an empty and strange place. There he meets an old friend he never expected to see again: Mayoi Hachikuji, the ghost girl with a big backpack from earlier seasons. Their talks have always been funny and warm, and fans are happy to see them together on a new adventure. The second story is "Hitagi Rendezvous." It is much calmer. Koyomi spends time with his girlfriend, Hitagi Senjougahara, who is sharp, honest, and sometimes scary. Many viewers think of this part as a sweet break, because for a while it is mostly a date. But the time they spend together also helps Koyomi look back at his past and his present. The third story is "Ougi Dark." It centers on Ougi Oshino, a mysterious student who says she is related to Meme Oshino, the expert on apparitions from earlier stories. Ougi is calm, polite, and very hard to read. She seems to know things about Koyomi that even he does not know. In this arc, Ougi makes Koyomi an offer, and his search leads him toward a truth about himself that was kept hidden. This is where many long mysteries of the series come together, so it is best to avoid spoilers before watching. Like all of Monogatari, this season is driven by talking. Characters have long, clever conversations full of word games and ideas about life, love, and who we really are. The art is bold and stylish, with sharp colors, unusual camera angles, and flashes of text on the screen. The story is also told out of order, jumping between times, which fans enjoy putting together. It mixes comedy, mystery, romance, and the supernatural. The season is one of the best-rated parts of the franchise. On MyAnimeList it holds a score of about 8.86 from over 200,000 users, and the Ougi Dark episodes got the highest episode ratings. Many fans see it as the true finish of Koyomi's teenage story. It is made for viewers who already know the earlier seasons.