Mayoi Hachikuji

Overview

Summary

Gallery

"Sorry, I bit my tongue."

— Mayoi Hachikuji

Mayoi Hachikuji
Kanji Name	八九寺 真宵
Kana Name	はちくじ まよい
Romaji Name	Hachikuji Mayoi
Character Information
Alias	Mayoi Tsunade
Age	21 (11 at death)
Gender	Female
Personal Status
Classification	Aberration (Lost Cow, God)
Status	Active (Deceased)
Relatives	Tsunade (Mother) Father Hachikuji (Father)
Professional Status
Occupation	God of North Shirahebi Shrine Wandering Spirit (Formerly)
Affiliation	North Shirahebi Shrine
Media
Work of Origin	Monogatari Series
Novel Debut	Bakemonogatari (Part One)
Anime Debut	Bakemonogatari Episode 3
Manga Debut	Bakemonogatari Vol. 2, Chapter 11
Voice Actor	Emiri Katou

Appearances
Novel Appearances
Series	Monogatari Series
Volumes	Bakemonogatari (Part One) Bakemonogatari (Part Two) Nisemonogatari (Part One) Nisemonogatari (Part Two) Nekomonogatari (White) Kabukimonogatari Onimonogatari Koyomimonogatari Owarimonogatari (Part Three) Zoku Owarimonogatari Yoimonogatari
Anime Appearances
Series	Bakemonogatari Nisemonogatari Monogatari Series Second Season Koyomimonogatari Owarimonogatari Season Two Zoku Owarimonogatari
Episodes	Bakemonogatari Episode 3, 4, 5, 6, 13, 14 Nisemonogatari Episode 1, 9 Monogatari Series Second Season Episode 1, 8, 9, 10, 17, 18, 19, 20 Koyomimonogatari Episode 3 Owarimonogatari Season Two Episode 1, 2, 5, 6, 7 Zoku Owarimonogatari Episode 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Manga Appearances
Series	Bakemonogatari Seishun Kijinden! 240 Gakuen
Volumes	Bakemonogatari Vol. 2, 3 Seishun Kijinden! 240 Gakuen Vol. 1, 2, 3
Other Appearances
Miscellaneous	Okitegami Kyouko no Bibouroku x Monogatari Commercial

Mayoi Hachikuji (八九寺(はちくじ) 真宵(まよい), Hachikuji Mayoi), formerly Mayoi Tsunade (綱手(つなで) 真宵(まよい)), is a character from the Monogatari Series. She is a little girl who died in a traffic accident, becoming a Lost Cow Aberration who wandered the roads for eleven years. She later became the God of North Shirahebi Shrine after Nadeko Sengoku gave up the position.

Personality

Hachikuji initially acts in a manner befitting her appearance, seemingly just a bratty child. She speaks in a polite yet frank manner, and seems to possess a lot of pride, refusing any offers of help. She is naive, easily tricked with the promise of money, and quickly grows attached to Araragi, despite her initial animosity. She is the best friend of Koyomi Araragi, enjoying bantering with him, much of their coversations consisting of her jokingly chiding and badmouthing him. She also has a tendency to mispronounce his name on purpose, leading to their usual iconic exchange. In addition, although she feigns panic, she actually enjoys Araragi initiating their conversations by attacking her, showing disappointment the one time he didn't do so. In the alternate timeline Araragi and Shinobu Oshino travel to, when she appears as a living adult, while acting in a less childish manner, she still retains her friendly and kind personality, saving the two time travelers from a hoard of Jiangshi. When she appears in the "mirror world" in that same form, she reverses their usual dynamic by attacking Araragi instead.

When her true nature is revealed, however, her childish disposition proves to be an act, her rudeness to others being an attempt to drive them away, in order to prevent them from suffering the effects of her Lost Cow nature, showing her caring disposition. The girl goes on to ironically serve as a guide to Araragi, giving him advice and leading him on the right path when he is unsure. While still keeping up her usual childlike energy during normal conversations, she does occasionally have moments where she shows her maturity. Even after her regrets are fulfilled and she stops needing to act as the Lost Cow, she still sticks around the world of the living out of attachment to her new friend, Araragi. After learning of the boy's attempt to go back in time and stop her from dying, she told him that, although dying so soon was sad, she met him because of it, and so she doesn't regret it. However, when her sticking around summons the "Darkness", she immediately decides to sacrifice herself for the good of those around her, even though she would have liked to be with them longer, once again demonstrating her kindness. She does this yet again when Araragi is about to be revived by Izuko Gaen, telling him that he deserves to be revived more than anyone, not even thinking of herself, although Araragi ends up dragging her back to the world of the living too. In the end, she finally finds a home as the new God presiding over the town of Naoetsu Town, never having to wander aimlessly again.

Appearance

Hachikuji appears to be a young girl of around eleven years of age with long brown hair, styled in twintails, and red eyes. She is almost always shows wearing the same outfit: an elementary school uniform consisting of a white short sleeved shirt, with a red ribbon around the collar, and a blue pleated skirt with suspenders (sometimes portrayed as red in illustrations). She also wears pink shoes with ankle high white socks, a white headband and green, leaf shaped ribbons tying her hair, as well as a translucent green bracelet. Her most noticeable accessory is her pink backpack, seemingly styled after a bird, with various stickers and decorations stuck to it, and filled to the brim with what appears to be a giant stuffed animal. This backpack gives Hachikuji's silhouette a form reminiscent of a snail, her motif animal.

As an adult in Route X, Hachikuji is a twenty one year old woman with long brown hair tied in a low ponytail and red eyes. As a survivor in a post-apocalyptic world, she is dressed in a practical fashion, wearing a brown tank top, black and green cargo pants with brown boots and black fingerless gloves and bandages over her wrists. She also has the same leaf-like ribbon tying her hair, and wears a smaller blue backpack with a heart on it, appearing to contain the same stuffed animal as her childhood backback. When appearing in the "Mirror World", she is shown in the same adult form, wearing an outfit reminiscent of her elementary school uniform, consisting of a frilly white shirt with a red bowtie and a lengthy blue skirt with suspenders and white frills at the end, as well as white high heels.

Background

Hachikuji was born with the surname Tsunade, but her parents began fighting and ultimately split, with custody of their child being given her father, changing her surname to his own, Hachikuji. While, by all accounts, a loving father, he didn't allow the girl to see her mother, and she realized that she began to forget her mother's face after not having seen her in such a long time. Disturbed by this fact, the girl decided to run away from home on Mother's Day and visit her other parent in secret. Tragically, however, the girl was run over by a driver ignoring traffic lights, and died at a young age. Her regret of never actually ending up at her destination caused her to become a Lost Cow, who would go on to lead people astray, wandering the roads for eleven years before Araragi helped her find her way and freed her.

Abilities and Equipment

• Lost Cow (迷(まよ)い牛(うし), Mayoi Ushi): The Lost Cow Aberration's function is to lead people astray, to distance them from their destination. Thus, anyone who follows Hachikuji will be unable to find the place they're looking for, even interferring with GPS systems. The condition for someone seeing the Lost Cow in the first place is the desire to not go back home. The Lost Cow does have one weakness, however. As a ghost, it cannot assimilate new information, so if one were to take a path that didn't exist when the aberration was born, then they will be able to avoid the Lost Cow's effects. After her regrets were settled, Hachikuji no longer exhibited the effects of the Lost Cow, though that's later revealed to only be because she didn't want to ever lead anyone astray ever again.
  • Immortality: As a ghost, she is immortal, unable to age and doesn’t need food or drink to survive. However, she could still eat if she wants to.
  • Clothes restoration: Hachikuji has the ability to instantly repair her clothes to pristine condition when they’re damaged.

Quotes

• (Hachikuji's classic comeback) "Sorry, I bit my tongue.
• (Hachikuji advising Araragi on whether to tell his family his secret or not) "In a way, the supernatural is what's behind the curtain. Normally, you only need to see what's happening on stage. That's how reality works. If you don't know, it's best that you don't. Actually, learning about the supernatural only increases the number of things you don't know."

Trivia

• Hachikuji's first name, Mayoi, means "true evening", and is homophonous with the word 迷い, meaning "lost".
• Hachikuji's last name means "89th shrine", is a reference to the Shikoku Pilgrimage, which includes 88 shrines, making the 89th a "lost destination". In addition, the 89 in her name can also be pronounced as "yaku", which is homophonous with 厄, meaning "misfortune". As such, according to Meme Oshino, the name Hachikuji has been gradually disappearing.
• Hachikuji and Shinobu both have a translucent green bracelet in their designs, an accessory which the character designer Akio Watanabe puts on a lot of his characters.
• Mayoi's first arc, Mayoi Snail (まよいマイマイ) is the only arc in the series to use a Japanese word as the second component in its name, using the word "maimai" (舞舞(まいまい)), which is a more uncommon word for snail. Later, the Mayoi Snail arc in Yoimonogatari uses the English word for Snail instead.