Review: Nisemonogatari (偽物語)

The main male protagonist, still escaping the full wrath of Japanese law!

The audition for this blog’s ‘Anime of the Year 2012’ ends with the only sequel in the line-up, titled Nisemonogatari. This anime is the only sequel in the audition, being the follow-up of Bakemonogatari, which I have reviewed here before. This sequel has to be better than its flawed ‘8-out-of-10’ predecessor to prevent Another from becoming the first winner of the audition today. Read on to see if this sequel can actually achieve that feat or not.

Story:-
In this new season, the sex predator that is our main male protagonist now has chosen to expand his horizons from targeting underage ghost girls to include more underage girls with ‘blood’ relations, such as his own little sisters and that blond loli. Of course, to avoid detection and subsequent arrest, he is doing those crimes in the pretext of ‘helping’ them goes through their troubles, in the name of ‘justice’ and ‘goody older brother’s name’. All of these happens while he is doing the bare minimum (UNENTHUSIASTICALLY to say the least) to keep his girlfriend of legal age satisfied on bed. Under duress to say the least.

Before you continue reading this review, I have a public service announcement to make. If you have watched Bakemonogatari, but not yet watched this sequel, you should stop any plans to watch this sequel in the near future. From my observation, this sequel is best watched only after you watched not only Bakemonogatari, but also the prequel movie OVA that should come out in the theatres later this year. This is mainly because some of the peripheral characters in the first season has made their grand entrances in this sequel, and I feel that it is better to watch this second season after knowing more about the background of a certain character here.

This 11-episode sequel still keep the same multi-arc format seen in the first season, but there are only two of them here. Overall, the quality of the arcs in this sequel is inferior than the ones in the first season. As a recap, the first season has 4 arcs, with the last one being the weakest of them all. Then the second season continues from where the first season left, but unfortunately, the first arc of the second season is even worse than the first season’s final arc. The second arc in this anime improves considerably from its predecessor, but not achieving the high attained by the best arc in the first season (which is the second arc). If you expect that this anime will outperform its predecessor story-wise, then you will be in for a disappointment.

But this sequel almost compensates for the loss of storyline quality by putting more emphasis on character interactions and developments, heavily aided by the two best characters from the first season; the main male protagonist and also his original sex assault victim, the snail girl. The scenes where these (still) two best characters interacts are the best moments of this anime. The interactions between the main male protagonist and some of the other characters is also noteworthy. As mentioned before, some of the peripheral characters in the first season also has huge amount of meaningful airtime in this sequel, allowing them to have significant amount of character development. A couple of the more mainstream characters in the first season has their airtime cut severely in this sequel though, probably because of the lower episode count compared to the first season. If this regression doesn’t happen, the loss of quality in the storyline could have been compensated fully.

My only complaint about the main male protagonist is that he is inching toward a certain character type best embodied by the main male protagonist of Index.

The presentation method, pacing and the flow of the storyline in this sequel is relatively trouble-free, unchanged from what you can see in the first season. Just like in the first season, this sequel also make external references, but none of this sequel’s references is as good as the first season’s ‘reaction guys’ parody. The ending indicates that a third season will come out in the future, although I have not seen any news about one for now. You have to settle with the prequel OVA movie them for the time being.

A truly apt description for the main male protagonist.

Character Design:-
My comment from the same section of the first season’s review still applies.

Voice Acting:-
In general, the quality of the voice acting gigs for the mainstream characters from the first season is practically the same in the second season (the two best characters are still outstanding in this regard). Surprisingly, there are no regression at all in this regard. As for the first season’s peripheral characters that has suddenly found their voices in this sequel, only the loli blond, the first arc’s main antagonist and the main male protagonist’s younger sister who wears that Bruce Lee suit has managed to keep the high standard set in the first season. The rest of the new characters are average at best, especially that wannabe poser familiar whose voice actress failed hard to actually bring her character to life.

Music:-
You can definitely hear improvements in the sequel when compared to the first season in this aspect. The good quality of the first season’s OST has been carried forward to this sequel, and the OP/ED themes are actually good, except for the 2nd arc’s OP theme.

Animation/Direction:-
Unbelieveably, my comment from the same section of the first season’s review still applies. Every single word of it.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. The sequel regressed slightly when compared to its predecessor. With this, the horror thriller anime series ‘Another’ will become the inaugural winner of this blog ‘Anime of the Year 2012’ title. At only 9 out of 10 score, the chances for other 2012 titles that is in my queue, such as Accel World, Hyouka, Nazo no Kanojo X et. al., to actually win the title in the future can be considered high, but thene again the 9-out-of-10 Katanagatari has been this blog’s ‘Anime of the Year 2010’ holder for over a year already and still haven’t been replaced.

The main male protagonist, with his rape face on the moment before he indulges on one of his underage victims.