Monogatari Series - Volume 23 - Chapter Aft

Hint: To Play after pausing the player, use this button

Add to favorites

Afterword

There is a suggestion to those so-called mystery novels that says that “Stories about murder are imprudent and really disgraceful”, but it is really fundamentally just the case that they are imprudent and disgraceful, so if I am confronted with such a complaint head-on, I tend to lose the will to argue back. I can think of various rebuttals like, “They’re just (friendly) mind games between author and reader” or “It’s just fiction, so you should just enjoy it” or “It’s a tradition that needs to be passed on”, but basically those are just superficial vindications that were thought up after the fact, and it is quite doubtful that there is a reason to read a mystery novel other than “because it is interesting.” In this work, Araragi-kun who has become a college student and Suicidemaster discuss this point, but even if we eat food to live, we eat meals because they taste good—or something like that. If the only reason we eat is to live, then the question would become why we add condiments to our food (putting aside Hanekawa-san, who doesn’t use condiments), not to mention I can’t help but think that anyone who says “Thanks for the meal” is enjoying themselves. Returning to the topic of mystery novels, a suitable rebuttal to someone criticizing them as “imprudent” could be to say, “Why do I need to be prudent?” (there have been many periods in time where being prudent was a necessity, so this rebuttal may not exactly be correct), but it’s complicated by the fact that the sound criticism of them being “imprudent” is also a superficial criticism. If you dig deeper, you’ll find that “imprudent” and “disgraceful” are reasons they think of after the fact, and their first impression is often “I don’t like how interesting it looks”. Like this, it would be like arguing with your cards face down, and you might end up suspecting each other’s true intentions—perhaps it may be groundless suspicion, or perhaps it may be entirely justified.

Anyway, this was the new season of the Monogatari series, featuring Araragi-kun in his first year of college. I was wondering what it would be like, but since I’d already written about Araragi-kun when he had come of age and found a job, I was able to write this surprisingly smoothly. For Araragi-kun, it seems that his campus life is not going to be as smooth, considering he suddenly has to work with Gaen-san, but I’m glad to hear that he was able to make some new friends. But, well, despite calling it a new season, I’d like to maintain the usual feeling of tension that this is already the final volume. With that, this was the twenty-third installment of the Monogatari Series, “Shinobumonogatari—Chapter One: Shinobu Mustard”.

The cover was drawn by VOFAN-san, showing Oshino Shinobu with her sword drawn. Thank you very much. If possible, the next volume will feature Hachiku-jin as the main character, so please help me out again.

NISIOISIN

Translator’s Afterword

The obvious question that may or may not be on everyone’s minds—is the title of this arc “Shinobu Mustard” or “Shinobu Mastered”? I wouldn’t be surprised if most people favored “Mastered”, considering Shinobu’s encounter with her former master Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster in this arc—however, the themes of eating and being eaten, together with the mention of condiments in the afterword, make for a pretty interesting case for “Mustard” being just as applicable. It could be a simple matter that the author saw the word “master” rendered in Japanese (masutaa) and found it amusing that it wasn’t that far off from “mustard” (masutaado), so perhaps you could say this is a practical joke of sorts. While this translation had no choice but to choose one word over the other, I encourage you to think deeply about what the title could mean and come to your own conclusions. If you feel as if you’ve come even a smidge closer to this work as a result, I would consider it a great success.

On behalf of the author, I would like to thank you for reading “Shinobumonogatari”—but also, I would like to thank you for reading my translation, lacking as it may have been.

Polaris

Updated January 24, 2024

Notes

[←1]

切望 setsubou “earnest desire”, 絶望 zetsubou “despair”.

[←2]

カオス kaosu “chaos”, 顔 kao “face”.

[←3]

Sea hares are called アメフラシ amefurashi in Japanese.

[←4]

雨を降らした ame o furashita, “made it rain”.

[←5]