Monogatari Series: First Season

Would NisiOisiN have been born in 18th-19th century in Europe, I’m sure we’d all be learning about his literary masterpieces in school and how his genius helped molding the face of literature. Regrettably, he’s from a mere small island nation in the current year, so he won’t get all of the attention he deserves. Then again, this enables him to include in his work all those tidbits and tropes we came to love (and dismantling them on the way), so that is also a win situation. What started as something the author wrote pretty much just for the fun became one of the most belovedfranchises, and not for no reason. Monogatari Series is in fact an experiment, or a string of those. Even after becoming success, the series is still written for a fun, and it shows. In a good way. The narration is experimented with, sometimes with a specific challenge the author gives himself for a specific volume, which keeps the series fresh end entertaining to read. The novels employ a significant amount of meta humor and meta commentary while not hurting the story and its seriousness at all. NisiOisiN is one of the few authors that can mix comedy and drama without one of those hurting and decreasing the power of the other one. The plot twists are delightful the experience, with the author often pulling a high quality bamboozle on the reader that subverts previous expectations but only adds to the overall enjoyability of the story, not taking away any of it. The characters are written in a way that really shows NisiOisiN mastered the craft of novel-making. Each is enjoyable, unique and with characterisation that is the exact opposite of shallow. Starting right with the protagonist with his unreliable narration that adds a whole another layer to what is portrayed in those books, the rest of the cast too keeps unveiling their characters and is given more detailed portrayal of how their inner workings work – which is something that keeps getting better and better as the story progresses and more puzzle pieces and bamboozlement comes into light and as the characters go through several character developments. This is of course helped by the non-chronological sequence of event that helps with revelations to in a retrospective to the ongoing timeline. Of course, mentioning specifically what is it that makes those individual characters great would be spoiling the content not only of this novel series but of the sequels too, so I’ll leave that to the analysis content creators as those character studies already exist on other platforms and by other people. The illustrations of those novels are stylish and too a work of quality, which my only complaint being that there only a bit of them. Contrary to the usual light novel format with bunch of illustrations at start of the book with more of them through it, we only get one or two illustrations per volume here, which is regrettably low number. Overal, Monogatari Series is an unique piece of fiction of which I have thoroughly enjoyed every moment of reading and that I would wholly recommend. Yes, even if you’ve already seen the anime - both because the writing is so good it deserves to be experienced in its original form and also because some of the meta gags work only in a novel form and were not included in the anime because of that.

Oh boy here we go ! The monogatari series. The number 1 highest ranking light novel here in myanimelist... If your'e new here and your'e not familiar with the monogatari series nor read the light novels, but you are indeed curios, then let me help you First thing you have to understand, the monogatari series, more specifically its author nisio isin doesn't really care about the order of the story ( the prequel to monogatari, which is kizumonogatari got released after bakemonogatari ) its sounds weird and it causes a lot of controversy in the fandom too... in my opinion you can either start with kizu orbakemonogatari they are both enjoyable. But after story progresses we jump more and more in the timeline . So don't be surprised! AND HERE IS THE REAL DEAL The monogatari series is ALL about the characters!!!!! Story ? you may ask, doesn't matter! It's basically nonexistent. Characters go from point A to point B and here you go. That's it. If you expected a world breaking story with the biggest plot wist ever developed, than you will be disappointed. As i mentioned earlier the series is all about the characters their dialogues, and monologues. And nisio isin's wordplay/ writing style. He loves making references and long pages of dialogues. Most of the time nothing really happens, just 2 characters interacting with each other. We have some nice discussions about girl panties, the meaning of love, life and friendship. But sometimes the author decides to throw in some meaningless tool and lets his imagination go wild. We basically have 10 pages where nothing happens, Araragi is just thinking about some girls panties that's all. But you don't have to take those seriously, it just shows how a high school boy thinks and feels. WARNINGS: the series, especially kizumonogatari can be stupidly sexual sometimes. In the first season " first 7 books from kizumonogatari to nekomonogatari white " we have our main protagonist aka Koyomi Araragi as narrator. I was really impressed how strange/weird he gets sometimes, but to be honest i was obsessed with Araragi. He is a loner, a bad student, who doesn't want friends. He is generic at first glance, but he's actions and the way he sees the world, people and other situations makes him stick out. It was really interesting getting to know him better and understand him. He truly shines as a main character and as an individual. Every word that leaves his mouth, can be used as an awesome quote. "Worlds how powerless" or "I think you should call the verbal abuse police then" Short story 1) If you start with kizumonogatari / wound tale It's a story about how Koyomi Araragi a high school loser met the missy class president and helped the world's most fearsome vampire This is how everything started. You can read this first, or you can read it after nekomonogatari. The story here is surprisingly good, and i loved the "twist" at the end. But if you can't handle a 10 page long description of underwear, than i'm sorry but the series isn't for you... 2) If you start with bakemonogatari / monster tale Bakemonogatari is a collection of short stories about troublesome girls, demons gods and possessed souls. Our main protagonist Koyomi Araragi already has some experience with this kind of stuff, which are monsters, and unnatural events, so he decides to help the girls in need. Here we have some hints about Araragi's spring break, which is the story of kizumonogatari. The plots are basic, but we get to know the characters and Araragi. Overall I think it's a great experience, but the series isn't meant for everybody. You either fall in love with it, or you throw it in the garbage bag. There is no in between. Afterword Hope it was helpful and sorry for making some grammar mistakes, i am just a human afterall c:

The Monogatari series is one that has alluded me for some time. Like with Durarara!, the hype train came and gone. Their anime both- astonishingly- adapted all the volumes of their source materials, and have long since fully aired. However, they looked so charming that I HAD to try the originals for the sake of the fact that I really don't care for anime that much. And finally, in 2019, I slowly sunk my teeth into the first third of the Monogatari franchise. ~~~~~~~~ Story AND Characters- What Even is This?/10 This is a strange series. Basically, we have a supernatural slice-of-life, similar to Durarara! Except unlike Durarara!'snonchalantly over-the-top cast and sense of humor, Monogatari- so far- is the exact opposite. Monogatari is all about meta-humor and nuanced wordplay. Monogatari is a character study in disguise as a supernatural harem. The main character, Araragi, is a hypocritical masochist who has been through some HELL. Ever since his run in with a vampire in Kizumonogatari (which is set BEFORE Bake but was published AFTER because the author is so "META"), he's had to help various girls like Best Girl Senjogahara and Other Best Girl Kanbaru with Best Man Oshino the Memelord. These girls are all tormented by inner demons, literally and figureatively. Literally, as in they are being cursed by literal yokai and spirits. Figuratively, as in these are all real life human issues. And the latter thing is my least favorite aspect of Monogatari. I think Monogatari is a very charming series so far, but I personally don't care about what it's trying to do. I know what it's doing; it's trying to deconstruct the harem genre by making the self-insert male and his girls deceptively complex and human. But... I dunno, maybe it's because my selectiveness has spared me from the hundreds of thousands of hours of factory-produced harems and rom-coms that Monogatari puts to shame, or the fact that I don't find human psychology that interesting, but I'm not floored by it. As for Monogatari's writing, though... oh boy! You've ever heard of SAO's notorious information dumps? Well, Kawahara is holding Nisioisin's beer! A chapter will often start with Araragi meeting up with someone on his way from point A to point B and say something to the effect of "Good morning, X-san!" Fifteen plus pages later, and those same two characters will finish their intricate philosophical conversation about the meaning of life, their game of "Let's retroactively analyze Araragi-kun's psyche", or... panties. It's... different, and I'm at odds with it. The real problem is that it gets redundant and feels like padding. A lot of the times Araragi meets up with someone by happenstance it's ON HIS WAY to the actual plot of the arc and then the entire chapter ends up being spent just roasting him for the umpteenth time, especially if he's with Senjogahara or Hachikuji. Not that I don't like a good "nothing happens" story (like Grand Blue), but Monogatari HAS arcs and ORVERARCHING NARRATIVES, and the actual proper storylines are legitimately really good, so the nothing happening bits are AGONIZING in this case. But don't worry; it's perfectly justified by having Araragi apologize to the reader after intentionally wasting 100+ pages of time. *sarcasm* This feels like an unintentionally pretentious writing style, plus it reminds me a lot of the abhorrent writing of some Western YA novels that I hate. For example, there's this vampire character, see, and if their name is ever mentioned in dialogue OR narration, we must be reminded that she's the "iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire". I can suspend disbelief over her having hot and cold blood at the same time, but calling her IRON-blooded?! FUN FACT: Blood HAS iron; That's the whole basis behind the Metallica fight in Jojo! Why call it "iron-blooded"? Because it SOUNDS COOL on a surface level, and people'll eat it up (not literally though, or else they'll become vampires too...). It makes me feel like the series is pretending to be smart. But the thing is, Monogatari pretends to be smart really well. Like I said for the twelfth time, it's charming. I didn't expect to see a perverse guy screaming his perverse ideals and feel like it's an uplifting battle shounen moment. I didn't think that a book would describe panties for 5+ pages. It's not terrible! But I can also see how people wouldn't enjoy it. It depends on what kind of person you are. If the characters didn't have legitimately interesting personalities (unlike some other "human" protagonists who have less personality than rocks), then I would without question hate this series. ~~~~~~~~~ Art- Not that Much/10 This one only really has volume cover and chapter cover illustrations. However, the presentation of the cover art is very visually surreal, and is probably what would get people into the series if it weren't for the anime. ~~~~~~~~~ Overall- 8/10 I'm really at odds with this franchise so far... I enjoy the personalities of the characters (except Hanekawa) and how the harem tropes are seamlessly integrated into the drama. But... at the same time, I don't enjoy the whole infrastructure of talking about random crap until the good stuff happens (at least it always gets to the good stuff within the volume, unlike Overlord) or how it sometimes thinks it's smarter than it is. If it weren't for my PTSD with Western YA "masterpieces" like The Fault in Our Stars, I'd likely enjoy Monogatari marginally better. I'm definitely willing to finish the series, but it's not the masterpiece of a genius, it's merely the pretty darn good work of a decently talented writer.

The Monogatari Series is quite possibly one of the weirdest series I've ever experienced. Yes, even weirder than Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (Araragi's Bizarre Adventure sounds like a suitable title not gonna lie). But after reading it, this series has definitely become one of my all time favorites, and I would definitely recommend to anyone interested (however there's some rather iffy subject matters that might turn some people off, if you're interested there's a video about it on youtube). What makes Monogatari so enjoyable are definitely the dialogue and the characters in the series. The banter and interactions these characters have with each other is not justwitty and comedic, but can also at times be thought provoking and contains some genius wordplay. That said, before one embarks on this journey, it is necessary to warn that a sizable chunk of the dialogue and the monologues are well...filler. They're totally random, and don't affect the story in the slightest at times. But that's part of the appeal of Monogatari; it was written "100% as a hobby", as NisiOisin likes to call it, and you need to read it with a different mindset in order to properly enjoy it. The characters are all really solid in the first season, however the story and characters have yet to peak in the first season, hence it's not a perfect 10/10. The First Season starts off with Bakemonogatari: Hitagi Crab, and it is a fantastic first arc that sets the tone and style of the series. Unlike a lot of shows, I think it's quite easy to tell if you would like this series with just the first arc. If you felt extremely bored and negative about this first arc, then you should definitely drop the series. If you were put off by NisiOisin's very unorthodox storytelling style, but you're still intrigued, then read on. I was honestly put off guard at first, since the way NisiOisin writies with regards to the Monogatari series is something that I've never seen before, but after completing all the subsequent arcs in Bakemonogatari I was sold. Overall, Bakemonogatari is a solid introduction into the world of Monogatari and the the characters that inhabit it. Kizumonogatari is a prequel to the story, detailing how our MC Koyomi Araragi became a half vampire. It is a far more action packed and also slightly darker installment compared to Bake, though I would say personally reading action scenes isnt as interesting as dialogue. Kizu does a great job in fleshing out Araragi, Shinobu, Hanekawa and Meme's characters, and the ending is truly beautiful and well executed. My only major gripe is the first half, with not much going on other than Araragi training to beat up vampire hunters. Even then, his interactions with Hanekawa still makes this a fantastic read. Going back to the events after Bake, Nisemonogatari is a worthy follow up, introducing more crucial plot elements into the story like the specialists and fleshing out the Araragi sisters. There's much more fanservice in this installment compared to Bake though, which might turn off some readers due to the incest undertones. Even then, the exploration of the whole concept of "fake", the new characters being introduced and a nice balance of action and drama with comedy and dialogue makes Nise still just as fun to read. Lastly, there's Nekomonogatari Black, which is another prequel, this time concerning Hanekawa. This is probably the weakest book in this season, even then, it's still really enjoyable. Araragi and Hanekawa's relationship is the main focus in this book, and sets up the events of Neko White in the next season. Overall, a fantastic introduction to the Monogatari Series.