This volume is situated perfectly in place to really drive in home how positioning a story or an arc is vital to the heights that Tsubasa Tiger or Nekomonogatari Shiro reaches. My home life was at its worst when I watched the anime portion of this in the end of December 2021. The original plan for the Monogatari Series was to watch the respective arc in the anime and then read the LN version then watch the next arc rinse and repeat. I had followed this from July of 2021 with Bakemonogatari all the way until the end of the First Season and times were going well Nisemonogatari was a struggle in both mediums though. Then the first arc of Second Season hit. Hanekawas message about having her own room with her heart filled with all the scars and dirt and pain and suffering. That she was ready to stop turning her eye are throwing away the filth to compartmentalize things. It hurt me to watch that. I graduated college in May 2019 dropped out of the future schooling that I had secured twice and worked at the bottom of the ladder when I was scheduled to be at the top due to feeling like an imposter having it all. I had tossed away the freedom I earned through college to go back to my helicopter parents house as a failure for the next 2 years. I binged the entirety of Second Season and then I binged the entirety of Final Season for the anime. It was glorious. I got to see these characters face external and internal struggles that seem impossible and change whether for the better or the worse it didnt matter because at their core they are just them. Hanekawa is Black Hanekawa and the Tyrannical Tiger. She lives in all 3 versions and whatever other versions that may arise and that is ok. We are allowed to live imperfect lives as long as we can keep going. Moving out of my household in May of 2022 and reading this volume of the LN within 2 weeks of moving into my own apartment is just perfect timing. The freedom that I gained from my own space about 40 tatami mats is liberating and way more than I could hope for. I do not still have a stable job in a career that I want and eventually I will run out of my funds but that is just the price of a peace of mind. Of being able to wake up in the morning and not having to look behind your shoulder all day in hopes to please someone else. I am able to live for myself and it is the happiest Ive ever been even if there are plenty of bad habits I need to stop like binging anime and manga and LNs the entire day. Back to actually analyzing this volume since I have just been rambling about myself and pushing Hanekawas struggles aside. This volume is the next manifestation of Ii from Zaregoto and the blueprint for Ougi. Because it is at the start of a whole season every little stage is set with introductions of key figures like Gean who works wonderfully as a foil to Hanekawa by knowing everything confidently while Araragi is absent until when needed to the point that it really did feel like a century before he showed up. The proximity to Nekomonogatari Kuro to juxtapose the extremity of pure white and pure black emotions and Hanekawas is a brilliant move. I could go on and on about the structural reasoning of transitions between arcs but it would require a lot more time and space so that is all for now. I am excited for 2 other big arcs this Second Season and hopefully Ill whip something up of a review about them that talks a lot less about me. If you made it this far thank you I am just using this as practice for writing scripts on my videos so they are not going to perfect but maybe one day. This is probably my top 1/2 arc in Monogatari thus far.