How Snakes Phrase Favours

I'm a sucker for a gorgon so the new Monogatari episode, the first in a new arc, had me at Girl with Snakes for Hair. Though sadly it's called "Nadeko Medusa". I'd hoped it was just the translator's fault but the title card reads "なでこメドゥーサ" which is indeed pronounced "Nadeko Medusa." It's a shame, they had a good opportunity to continue their portmanteau scheme--like the original series, for example, which was "Bakemonogatari"--combining "Bakemono" and "monogatari" (化け物 and 物語)--that's "monster" and "story" respectively. This one could've been "ゴルゴ物語"--"Gorgomogatari". Oh, well.

This is a sequel to the "Nadeko Snake" arc from the original series, the arc I considered the weakest of that series though still not bad. It involved trouble Nadeko had with an invisible snake demon twisting around her body in a metaphor for her puberty and confused feelings about her friends' older brother Araragi. In the new episode, a snake demon possibly related to the first one shows up in Nadeko's life in the form of small white snakes she hallucinates seeing twisting on her hands, her shoes, and squirming out of a telephone. For some reason, this prompts in Nadeko's voiceover narrative a reminiscence of a boy at her school who'd recently conned various students out of revealing who they had crushes on. Since then, conversations in her class have been strained and artificial as everyone tries to ignore the fact that they all know who likes everyone else.

Nadeko hadn't been involved, but she starts thinking about the difference between an environment that's wrong and being wrong herself. The snake soon after starts speaking to her about how everyone in the world is either a victim or an aggressor and accuses her of being an aggressor who pretends to be a victim.

So far, the new series has mostly lacked the clever anti-moe material of the original series, instead outright indulging in the mainstream, popular fetishisation of girls. I'm cautiously hopeful things might get a little better with this arc, especially since the previous one had ended in such an interesting way.