Impression
Hey look, it’s a sexy grown-up Hachikuji!
The backpack’s still there though. Seems like some things never change 😀 She’s grown up nicely (and you can sorta tell she’s received a helping of life wisdom along the way) but there’s still enough of the loli Hachikuji there to make it heartwarming all the same. Of all people, I’m surprised she was the one who contacted Araragi, saving him from the zombie jiangshi in the process. I mean, given that Araragi saved her life, it’s fitting and all, but I’d have liked to see Oshino again, wherever he is with Yozuru and Kaiki. Luckily, we got the next best thing – a letter! As expected of Oshino, he somehow knew everything immediately (or made some very, very good guesses at least). If Araragi was originally situated in Route A, upon his time jump he did not warp to 11 years ago in Route A. He instead warped to 11 years ago in another route, Route X. I think the key that something was wrong was the time discrepancy – the fact they overshot by over a decade should have set off warning bells that not all was right, but all of us overlooked it. A perfect warp with no errors after saving Hachikuji thus put Araragi in modern day Route X, where Kiss-shot was wrecking havoc.
Speaking of Kiss-shot, it seems like she never managed to commit suicide. Shinobu noted she tried to burn herself to death – which is exactly how she tried to die near the end of Kizumonogatari, by throwing herself into the sun. Note that vampires in this series die when exposed to sunlight (its better than sparkling). Anyway, it seems that Oshino never expected them to kill Kiss-shot – a half-assed human and a half-assed vampire stand no chance against a full vampire in her prime. It was much nicer of them (and much more viable) to just let her die in the way she wants, lending them a helping hand in the process. After all, she’s seen that her other self got what she never did – a reunion with Araragi, who was killed by Black Hanekawa in this timeline. While it’s true that the survivors can now start restoring the world in Route X with Kiss-shot dead…solving the whole zombie issue doesn’t look easy. Sure, they’re imperfect minions – but there’s so many of them! It’s too bad we never got to see the aftermath.
The meeting with ghost, loli Hachikuji implies that the arc is finished – everything has a sense of closure about it. But even after school starts, when Hanekawa meets Kako for the first time, Araragi’s still gone. Does that mean the arc…isn’t finished? Or will he be thrown into another adventure almost immediately?