#niseimonogatari

A. Defining the Trickster 

Already covered in this post. 

1. Introduced as a Villain

In the story proper Kaiki is introduced to us as the opposite of Araragi. If Araragi is the person who saved Senyjogahara’s heart, then Kaiki is the one who broke her heart. If Araragi is a hero who saves everyone, Kaiki is a callous villain who cons people and doesn’t seem to care about the consequences for those he cons. 

Their interaction with every character they both interact with is the opposite. Araragi helps Senjyogahara, Kaiki stole her money and ruined her family home even though they are both positioned as people Senjyo once loved and thought of as a savior. Araragi saved Nadeko from the curse of the snake, whereas Kaiki is indirectly responsible for her being cursed due to selling curse charms to middle schoolers. 

Araragi heroically faces off against Gaen to defend his sister, while Kaiki is the one who sold the information about Tsukihi’s location to Gaen in the first place for a quick buck. In every instance, Araragi saves, Kaiki cons. 

Kaiki is also one of the few characters that Araragi shows an open disdain for. Araragi who is usually a very passive protagonist, and will go with the flow and talk casually with people who have beaten him half to death and is overly forgiving outright despises Kaiki on sight. 

However, it’s important to remember that Kaiki calls himself a villain when making his first introduction to Araragi. He intentionally places himself as the villain so that Araragi can play the hero, even calling him “Manly”, “Cool” and “Grown-up” for doing so, implying again that Kaiki is his opposite. Kaiki however is a liar, and when he calls himself a villain intentionally that also is a lie. 

2. Subverts Expectations

Everything we learn about Kaiki in his first introduction in Niseimonogatari is inverted later on. He is a character who exists to play upon other people’s expectations and cast everything into doubt. There’s even a meta aspect to this, originally Koimonogatari was foreshadowed to be Senjyogahara’s narration debut only for Kaiki to take the mantle of narrator from Araragi instead. 

Ladies and gentleman, dear readers and all of you who picked up this book expecting Hitagi Senyjogahara to be the narrator have been duped. The lesson you should take home from this is every sentence ever written down by a book is bogus. 

-Koimonogatari

Koimonogatari is a book that exists to flip everything set up by Nisei. It is a book where the villain saves the girl (Nadeko) whereas the hero is someone almost completely helpless the whole story (Araragi). You could even say that it’s Araragi’s actions which created the problem for Nadeko, as his complete ignorance of her, and his coddling of her helped push her to want to become a god. 

Koimonogatari also starts a turning point in the series, where Araragi who had been a straightforward hero until this part starts to have his character deconstructed. Araragi who is constantly remarked upon as a hero who tries to save everyone, we find out that in Owarimonogatari is not only are there people he never even made an attempt to reach out to and help (Sodachi Oikura), but that Araragi is someone who uses obfuscation and self-deception to cover up his bad traits. He is someone who cares far more for the appearance of being good and helping others, then the actual work of helping others. This is again an idea that is set up in the intro to Koi. 

Humans have a desire for truth. or they have a desire to believe what they know is the truth. Kaiki brings up the example of the higgs boson particle that moves faster than light. Plenty of people will find this change in the truth alarming, even though most normal human beings aren’t physicists and won’t even bother to look at the math or data that proves the Higgs-Boson particle and will just read the headlines and take other physicists at their word. 

People often care more for the image of something, than the actual thing. That’s true for Araragi as well who isn’t as noble as he appears to be and is for all intents and purposes a normal people. Kaiki is presenting us with the image of himself as a villain, because that is general is easier to accept then viewing himself as a more complicated person. Kaiki also, prefers to view himself as a villain rather than what he really is, which is a failure. 

Araragi uses obfuscation to hide his bad traits, but as his foil, Kaiki always desires to hide his good traits. The reason being that Kaiki as a person when he acts with good intentions, things always tend to go opposite of the way he planned them. Kaiki feels in control when he lies, he can control others by lying to them, manipulating them, duping them, but reality is something entirely out of his control. He can try to save someone only to have the completely opposite effect. 

“You tore apart the Senjyogahara - and backed her parents into a corner from which divorce was the only way out - because nothing else was going to work, right? You judged that the only daughter would have no future if you didn’t cut her mother off from the family.”  “Uh huh, that’s right. I was actually a standup guy. A real sweetheart, just looking out for a kid. I was only putting on a show of being nefarious. You’ve got all the details, don’t you? You’re really well informed. But don’t tell anyone, okay? It’s embarrassing.” 

-Koimonogatari. 

Kaiki is ultimately someone afraid to be good. That’s his weakness. He knows his good intentions are not guaranteed to produce good results, and he can’t face himself when his failures spiral out of his control so it’s easier to present himself as a villain. Kaiki, much like Iichan only feels comfortable when he’s deceiving everyone around him. He exists to subvert other people’s expectations because it’s a way of grabbing back control, in a world that Kaiki is mature enough to realize by now is completely out of his control. 

3. A Lying Liar Who Lies 

When Kaiki said every word written down in every book ever are lies, what he’s talking about is narrative. People who see the world in narrative view are applying a lens to reality to make it more palatable and easy to understand for them. Once again, they are preferring to hold onto images and preconceptions, the idea of the truth rather than the truth itself. It’s true that books are like reality, but people will often craft a narrative about reality in order to believe everything has direction, meaning, and a purpose when there is none.

Kaiki is also one of those people. He embraces crafting narratives, and telling lies because it gives him this idea of control he otherwise would not have. Kaiki is someone who doesn’t have a lot of control over his own life. If you take him for his word in the book he has almost no background, no family, he’s legally dead, and he’s a wandering vagabond that never remains in the same place for long. Kaiki’s way of reclaiming that stability and agency is to always craft a narrative around himself wherever he goes. He’s the one in control because he’s conning everyone else around him at all times. He acts like he always has all the cards in his hands, and he’s the smartest person in the room, because he can’t admit how afraid he is of not being that. Of being vulnerable. 

Kaiki goes one step further not just by calling himself a liar, but believing the whole world is made up of lies. He’s not just a fake, everyone is. A world of fakes desperately struggling to be real. 

“The second you say it out loud to someone, it deviates from your true feelings. All words are lies, it’s all a scam. No matter how true, the moment you utter it, it becomes embellished. Words are only representations, so impurities find their way in. If you want to make a wish, to make it exactly as it is, you absolutely mussn’t say it aloud.” - Koimonogatari

Yes, Kaiki I’m sure this speech has nothing to do with your fear of ever letting your intentions be known. 

This is also something Iichan directly calls out in his own struggles with lies, the truth, and the trust in other people you have to find between them. 

Hime-chan said everything was a lie. I agree, that must be the truth. But- really. Really, really, really you know.  If this world were like what Hime-chan said, if this world were like what I think.  We would not be suffering like this. Do you get it? If everything is a lie and there is not one ounce of truth - if ther is nothing of comparison, then everything ends up being the truth, too. - Zareogoto Vol. 3

Kaiki is able to call out Nadeko’s assertion that everyone in the world is a liar, everyone was misleading her and leading her on so easily because that is the same narrative lens he applies to the world to cope with it.

Let’s return to the Senyjogahara household again. Basically imagine you're Kaiki, a homeless man with no family who spends all of his time in luxury hotels and you're watching what looks like an ideal happy household. They are a rich loving family, with a good marriage, and their daughter is basically the school idol. What you Kaiki would call “Normal Law Abiding Citizens” the kind of life he could only dream of. 

Traditionally held values say that these people should be happy forever, because they're good people doing the right thing. But the things the world tells us have meaning, are secure, have no meaning at all and easily fall apart.

So, he watches this good family, get struck by misfortune and fall apart. The loving mother sells her daughter to a cult basically, even though she originally joined the cult because of her daughter's sickness.

Now what's an easier story to swallow? That good people do bad things and good circumstances can easily turn bad for no good reason at all.

Or is it easier, and more meaningful to swallow that Kaiki showed up, conned them, caused the parents to get a divorce and therefore he's the villain in the scenario. By being the villain he turned the scenario into a story, he gave it meaning.

The first time I met Hitagi Senjogahara - two years ago, in other words - I thought to myself, What a fragile-seeming kid.  Of course, back then Senjyogahara was afflicted with her mysterious ailment, which is why her devout mother had summoned me, flying the flag of the ghost buster as I was. But even without the ailment business, I thought she seemed “fragile.”  The impression hadn’t changed.  Fragile. [...] Fragile, on the edge of fragmentation.  Which is exactly why her current self was a miracle. A mysterious ailment followed by a miraculous achievement - for someone who seemed so breakable to make it so far without ever breaking, not two year sago, not now, for eighteen years -  The mother broke.  But the daughter Didn’t.  -Koimonogatari

So Kaiki says he thought Senjyo and her mother were fragile, but he probably thinks that about everybody. He's cynical and disaffected because he's seen this kind of thing happen again and again. That's why he tells lies, that's why he manipulates, it gives him the illusion of control over a world not only him, but no one else has any control at all.

There are two sides to the story of Kaiki’s perception of Senjyo. First, that people are more fragile than you think they are. Even if you come from a good household, have a loving husband, and have money you can break. The second is that people are less fragile than Kaiki thinks they are. Even if your mother turns against you, you lose your money, status, and family you still might not break. Both of these things are true at the same time, people are both more and less fragile. There are truth, and lies, and even Kaiki is unable to face reality directly because he prefers to stare into lies and shrowd himself in them then ever confront the truth. 

4. Themes of Nihilism

Kaiki case believes everything is worthless and everything will be eventually lost so he thinks it's pointless to cling to things. However, that doesn’t have to be an inherently negative idea. Nihilism the rejection of the idea of inherent meaning, is also something that can lead to creating meaning which is where we get existential nihilism. 

Nihilism is the precursor to existentialism. To find your meaning in life you have to first reject the meanings that other people give you.

With respect to the universe, existential nihilism posits that a single human or even the entire human species is insignificant, without purpose and unlikely to change in the totality of existence. The meaninglessness or meaning of life is largely explored in the philosophical school of existentialism. 

He basically tells Nadeko that he likes money because the value of money is something entirely made up by people and yet it’s still something that has value.

Kaiki loves replacable things while at the same time hating irreplacable ones, because he hates the way people tend to cling to things forever. Almost like, Kaiki himself is someone who always clings to his first love that he lost over ten years ago and doesn’t try to love anyone else, or find anyone else and Kaiki hates himself. 

Existential nihilism also means rejecting what society tells you to think has value, because you have to reject first before you can come up with your own meaning. Which is literally exactly what he guides Nadeko to do, he tells her to reject the thing which she thinks gives her life meaning, her love of Araragi and then find a new meaning instead in being a mangaka. and that she can do this because everything is worthless therefore she can try anything.

He also suggests that the work of having to create her own meaning to life, and follow her own dream, will make her far more satisfied than simply following the job of a god which was given to her by someone else.

Humans are always changing their minds about what has value and that makes them human and Kaiki thinks that's a wonderful thing, that's existential nihilism, they're always inventing new meaning. Kumagawa is someone who always loses, but he tries again an infinite amount of times, and that struggle to keep trying again and again is what makes him human in Kaiki’s mind. It’s not the result, not the happiness or sadness, but rather in the constant searching for meaning that defines yourself. Once again. Kaiki sees the freedom in that. There is nothing in life that will make you truly happy, there is no meaning to life, but there’s freedom because it means you can try as many times as you want. 

Everything is worthless. Everything will eventually lost. However, because of this it also means that you’re never going to lose something that will destroy you permanently. Because the things you were holding onto were worthless in the first place, you can always try to replace them. You can always try again and find something else. There is no ending that will permanently end you, there’s no loss you cannot suffer. Araragi is not really that important to Nadeko, she can live without him, she was only giving him that importance. This is also the compelte and exact opposite of Iichan’s a fatal would speech. 

Iichan is someone so terribly afraid to hold onto anything, because he feels the process of trying over and over again at something he’ll never succeed at is going to completely destroy him. 

And Kaiki would tell Iichan the same way that he tells Nadeko that him constantly stumbling over his own actions and trying to find meaning in them, is something in itself that has meaning. That's what makes him human, his search for meaning. But philosophically Iichan isn't there yet. He's still a little baby nihilist. Tiny. Infant. He hasn't grown up yet.

“A man devoid of hope and conscious of being so has ceased to belong to the future.” “The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.

One must imagine Sisyphus happy

[Albert Camus]