Well, not necessarily; my usage of superlative degree for describing anything’s quality should be taken with a grain of salt, really. Clickbait, you could say. Generally it means it’s one of the top in terms of the said superlative quality as far as the combination of my experience and judgement dictates. And for this article, the moment I’ve decided to hype shed light on is that moment with the talisman in episode 9 of Monogatari Series Second Season—the third episode of the second arc titled Mayoi Jiangshi. The more I think about it, the more impressed I get with the sheer genius of the nuance in how the talisman is different in the alternative universe.

If you haven’t seen the anime or read the novels up to Owarimonogatari yet, this is your last chance to turn back, for onii-chan is about to spoil you.



So a para of reminder: Koyomi and Shinobu time traveled for a trivial reason but the former had something else in mind while jumping into the time portal, leading to them landing eleven years back just the day before Mayoi died in the accident. After screwing around here and there, the two saved her for the day and headed back to their present; except, it wasn’t their present. Turns out, the present world where Koyomi was supposed to have a hard time for not doing his summer homework AT ALL was instead destroyed, with no sign of any human being. They found out the exact day when the world fell from the newspaper date and decided to visit there to see what the deal was. Unfortunately for them however, the shrine where they’d time travel had zero spiritual energy to fuel their time portal thing, and the cause was the talisman placed there which was different from the one Oshino entrusted Araragi to place earlier.

Now the question is, why was the talisman different? Well you see, that’s the question we’re here to answer. It was not on some random whim that Oshino did this just because the result would be the same anyway—that is, preventing an aberration war. It wasn’t just a plot device to trap them in that time period of that route.

Oshino explained that he’d met Hachikuji before Golden Week while gathering stories of aberrations, and he’d figured out it was none other than Araragi and his vampire loli who saved her in the past. He realized that they had to use the shrine to do that. But there was a reason why Shinobu shouldn’t have gone there. Yes, it was because the first minion of Kiss-shot was there. As Gaen explained in Shinobu Time from Owarimonogatari, her presence boosted his status as an aberration which would result in his faster regeneration like it happened in the said arc.

In the original universe he had Koyomi place a talisman which dispersed the spiritual energy in the shrine, leaving the minion starved. But in the alternative one where he’d realized and actually confirmed the probability of the duo time warping, he couldn’t just leave that be. That’s why he used a talisman that completely absorbed all those energy. It was a more effective measure. But there’s more to it.

After the two saved Mayoi on that day, they had to use the shrine’s spiritual energy to return to the present, be it a different one from theirs. They did show up at the shrine where the first Aberration Killer was regenerating. Seeing Shinobu should’ve boosted his powers but he didn’t appear, almost as if Nisio just thought of his story after writing this part. Well I don’t know if the palindrome did do that since reading into authors’ minds is impossible for me, but the story didn’t ignore it. When Gaen explained the moment The First laid his eyes on his master again, she specifically said this:



Eleven years ago, it had only been four year since his ashes gathered at the shrine and started to take nourishment. If it took him fifteen years to muster a bare “minimum of self-awareness”, four years wouldn’t have been enough for him to even understand the concept of understanding. So he couldn’t witness Shinobu even if she was there. While Gaen said having someone closely related present close-by was enough to take effect, I believe consciously seeing would add at least some enhancement. Still, Shinobu was near him so I can’t imagine it had no effect at all.

Now here’s what Shinobu said as she described the alternate talisman:



Perhaps, the little boost Shinobu’s presence caused led to a little better revitalized First minion. And to suppress his regeneration at this relatively superior state, Oshino likely needed a talisman several orders of magnitude more extreme. One that’d reduce his powers or at least his nutrition supply to zero. And it was the sort of talisman which aberrations couldn’t even touch, as if to prevent just in case The First tried removing it by himself.

And that, I believe is the detailed deal with the change of talisman, the full story behind the seemingly trivial difference. The nuance which was achieved through a big, complex process, and had just as great a consequence. I just can’t get over the massive intertwined set of incidents surrounding this one detail forming such a cohesive underlying narrative. I can’t really say NISIOISIN or the production team in Shaft thought all these through; as I said before, I only know what I know I can only interpret what I’ve seen. I also can’t guarantee that my interpretation is completely flawless since it’s possible for me to have overlooked an inconsistency.

That’s that, I suppose. I also have another interesting thing worth saying from this arc. Damn, it might actually be my most favorite arc in the series! If you liked reading this little article, motivate me to write more of its kind by clicking the like below, and/or commenting your thoughts on it, AND sharing it around with acquaintances who might be interested.

Also, let me know which details from the series impressed you the most.