M.S.S.S Episode 18

Let us see what comes around this time...

Surprisingly Complex: M.S.S.S Episode 18

Who is Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade?

I have no idea, but dammit, I'm interested. Kizumonogatari! Come, goddamnit!
It would seem that the reason for her long name is that she has had different personas in different times(?), not sure. Because I believe that she got her name Heart-Under-Blade only after she created her first minion. Just wait a bit...

The art style of the episode is great. I love the classical Japanese painting style as it's executed here. Really gives the feeling of a totally different era.

Moreover... It would seem that Shinobu's lasting theme in the series "Apparitions are what we make them up to be." One of the most important ones, I think. It was first in the Nekomonogatari Black, now it's back. You can start drawing lines pretty easily between her worshippers and Araragi, and you can get a lot of her character development right there. Shinobu changes as the people around her change. Like the people who treated her as a god, and Araragi who treated her like a child, her character takes huge leaps in short amounts of time, purely of things that don't involve her. Her self is not for her to make.

This may well tie in to her long name. Maybe the name Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade actually is linked to the idea and belief in vampires, and how those beliefs change over time. The three names have distinct differences in tone, and as such could be seen as separate names for separate beings, which just happen to have been in the same body.

Maybe the name also has something to do with her behavior. Like, for example. Araragi and the first minion both called her Kiss-Shot. Maybe the Kiss-Shot in her is the only one who has the capability of making minions. The others may be physically capable of it, but have no interest in it. Or what if..? The lore of the vampire has changed over time so much, that only in certain periods of time there has been the idea that it makes minions?

Another part of her being is probably the inevitability of the outside world. As KSAOHUB (Stupidest abbreviation ever.) makes huge changes to the environment she lives in (Like destroying the ecosystem), maybe it is mutual. Maybe the changes in the environment in turn affect her very being?

TL;DR?
Maybe Shinobu this, maybe Shinobu that. Who even reads these?