Monogatari (series): Difference between revisions

 

Recently, [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2012-04-06/aniplex-of-america-adds-bakemonogatari-anime Aniplex has announced that they will release the first season in North America.]

 

* [[Adaptation Dye Job]]: In the light novels and Vofan's corresponding illustrations, Hitagi had brown hair. In the anime it's purple. There ''is'' the ending of episode six and the beginning of episode seven where everybody's hair is rather subdued and brown, but it's arguably due to lighting.

* [[Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance]]: Applies to most of the character designs; most invoke some type of [[Animal Motifs|Animal Motif]] while possessed by a monster which is removed once the possession is resolved. For example, Nadeko wears a cobra hood-esque oversize hat while under the effects of a snake curse but gains a completely different outfit after the curse is broken.

* [[Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever]]: The "staple stable" opening features a giant Hitagi.

* [[Awesome McCoolname]]: Araragi considers one of Hachikuji's [[My Name Is Not Durwood|mistakes]], Shuraragi, to be one. For reference, "''shura''" means [[Hindu Mythology|"Asura"]] or "carnage".

* [[Banana Peel]]: The reason Hitagi fell in the first place.

* [[Broken Aesop]]: Maybe. Araragi's anger when Hanekawa reveals that her stepfather hit her in a fight kind of loses its effect when you realize that Araragi earlier in the series not only beat up, but proceeded to "shamelessly molest" a fifth grader he had just met that day. [[Played for Laughs|But it was funny when he did it.]]

** It should be noted that even when Koyomi beat up Mayoi, Tsubasa reprimanded him--[[Harsher in Hindsight|it's abuse if you hit a child without giving a reason]].

* [[Butch Lesbian]]: Suruga, in that distinctly Japanese way: sure, she talks dirty and smacks Koyomi around (and more), but she still looks very feminine and caters directly to those with a [[Fetish Fuel|bicycle short fetish]].

* [[Call Back]]:

'''Koyomi:''' It wasn't on purpose?! }}

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: [[Discussed Trope|Discussed]] in ''Nisemonogatari'' episode 6, where Hitagi speculates that the telescope Koyomi bought her as a gift will factor into the story's climax somehow.

* [[Cool Big Sis]]: According to Hanekawa, Senjogahara was this back in middle school, gaining [[Even the Girls Want Her|popularity among guys and girls]], but especially [[Schoolgirl Lesbians|younger girls]]

* [[Chronic Hero Syndrome]]: Koyomi insists on helping everybody he finds who has a problem, even when it means he'll suffer for it (and when I say [[Good Thing You Can Heal|suffer...]])

* [[Department of Redundancy Department]]: Whole dialogues are repeated with no apparent reason. There is also Senjogahara's habit of repeating the same thing several times with different emphasis.

** Also, the quick flashes during dialogue of different coloured frames that display whatever colour they are. E.g. red frame, black frame, etc.

** During the car ride in Episode 12, Senjogahara runs her fingers along Koyomi's thigh. Cue cut to the gas meter dinging empty.

*** It's augmented by her whispering obscene words to him and sensually biting his ear while he's fidgeting and whimpering "St-stop it." It's all wrapped up by seeing his hair that once stood pointed and firm, turn all flaccid. At this point, it's not even subtext.

** Not at all sexual and probably highly disturbing, when Koyomi has Shinobu drink his blood so he can regain some amount of a vampire's abilities, the scene is highly reminiscent of a mother nursing an infant. He even pats her back to get her to let go.

** The scene where Koyomi touches Suruga's monkey arm. He even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] it by yelling at her for making weird noises.

* [[Don't Explain the Joke]]: Lots of the great wordplay gets lampshaded or straightaway explained.

* [[Driven to Suicide]]: Cause of death for 90% of all vampires, including {{spoiler|Shinobu's only other subordinate}} and {{spoiler|Araragi, until Hanekawa talks him out of it.}}

* [[Faceless Masses]]: Very occasionally. More often than not [[Minimalist Cast|only the people that matter will be onscreen at all anyway]].

* [[The Fair Folk]]: The "heavy crab" possessing Hitagi is described this way by Meme.

* [[Fan Service]]: The first twenty seconds of the show is a gratuitous [[Panty Shot]] '''[[Mundane Made Awesome|in slow motion]]'''.

** It's not exactly gratuitous, since {{spoiler|this pantyshot is the event that triggers everything: Araragi becomes so obsessed with Tsubasa's panties that he goes out late at night to buy a porn magazine to forget about them, only to find the vampire Kissshot dying under a streetlamp...}}

* [[Good Thing You Can Heal]]: Koyomi's [[Martyr Without a Cause]] behaviour means he gets a lot of mileage out of part-vampire [[Healing Factor]]. Hitagi states she's frightened that he'd do the exact same things even if he couldn't rely on his healing.

* [[Gorn]]: See [[No Holds Barred Beatdown]] below. While it may be portrayed in variant colors in order to "censor" it, the images alone are gratuitously gruesome.

** [[Aya Hirano]] - Shinobu Oshino (in the Drama CD, and she sounds a lot like Konata from Lucky Star.)

*** In Nisemonogatari (the first time Shinobu speaks in the series) she has been replaced by [[Maaya Sakamoto]]

** [[Yui Horie]] - Tsubasa Hanekawa

** Hitagi's dad was [[Evangelion|Gendo]]. Another not-so-good father for [[Fumihiko Tachiki]]'s list!

** Karen and Tsukihi Araragi are voiced by [[Eri Kitamura]] and [[Yuka Iguchi]] respectively.

** [[Shinichiro Miki]] - Deishuu Kaiki

** Saori Hayami - Yotsugi Ononoki

* [[Hesitation Equals Dishonesty]]: Inverted, mostly. A good rule of thumb in this series is the more straightforward someone seems to be, the bigger the lie they're concealing. Nadeko is hesitant and lacks self-confidence, and her "big secret" is that she likes Araragi (secret only to [[Idiot Ball|Araragi, really]]); on the other hand, Suruga is quite forthright with her [[Girls Love|sexuality]] but no so much {{spoiler|with her violent hatred towards Araragi for "stealing" Senjogahara from her.}} As it turns out, her [[Girl On Girl Is Hot|provocative]] [[Fetish Fuel|teasing]] of Araragi is probably {{spoiler|a ploy to get Araragi to forget about Senjogahara, even if that means potentially having to seduce him}}.

* [[How We Got Here]]: Nisemonogatari opens with Koyomi waking up after being knocked out and kidnapped by Senjogahara. We don't get to hear why until episode 3.

* [[Hypocritical Humor]]:

* [[Improvised Weapon]]: Hitagi Senjogahara keeps several pencil, rulers, scissors staplers and a box cutters in her [[Hammerspace|skirt]] and uses all them at once.

* [[I Want My Beloved to Be Happy]]: In "Nadeko Snake"...sort of. {{spoiler|More like, "I want my beloved to be happy, but since you don't want him I'll curse you to death for his sake."}}

* [[Idiot Hair]]: Koyomi's distinctive feature, doubled with [[Expressive Hair]].

** Apparently the Idiot Hair runs in the family, as both of Koyomi's sisters, Karen and Tsukihi, are shown to have it.

* [[Lucky Translation]]: The portmanteau in the title works just as well in English (''GhoSTory''/''MonSTory'', pick one). The sequel book ''Nisemonogatari'' also applies ("ImpoSTory"), but the series' other three books, ''Nekomonogatari'' ("Cat Story"), ''Kizumonogatari'' ("Damaged Goods Story"), and ''Kabukimonogatari'' ("Slope Story"), don't, but they're not really puns in Japanese either...so maybe that makes it double lucky.

* [[Magic Skirt]]: Nisemono Episode 8. Karen, with a blue tennis skirt, stands on her hands. It's only after several seconds and a bit of coversation that the skirt even starts to fall down, just to stop short of revealing anything, after which Karen tries to hold it up. This is more just one of all ridiculous details that show up than any sort of censoring, as her panties are seen at other occasions.

* [[A Man Is Not a Virgin]]: Subverted and lampshaded when Hitagi makes fun of Koyomi for being a virgin. Soon after, it is revealed that {{spoiler|[[Hypocritical Humor|Hitagi is a virgin as well]]}}.

* [[Meaningful Name]]: As might be expected from someone who loves wordplay as much as Nisio Isin. They're on the character page.

** Valhalla was Odin's domain, for warriors who died in battle; "Kanbaru" contains "god" and "Senjogahara" contains "battlefield."

*** Koyomi is impressed with the nickname until he finds out that {{spoiler|Suruga made it up herself}}.

* [[Mystery of the Week]]

* [[Naughty Tentacles|Naughty Snake]]: See [[Orifice Invasion]]

* [[Of Course I'm Not a Virgin]]: subverted. Koyomi pretends like he's not a virgin when the topic comes up in the second episode, but eventually admits that he is when he's tired of keeping up the facade. In the third episode, Senjogohara does the same- but immediately admits she was lying when Koyomi notes it seems implausible that someone with her psychological issues would engage in orgies.

* [[Official Couple]]: Koyomi and Hitagi.

* [[Only in It For The Money]]: Kaiki's M.O. to a T. He would in fact have given up his whole charm business for the right amount of money. He even charged Karen for infecting her with the bee's poison!

** The same could be said of all of the 5 con men.

* [[Orifice Invasion]]: The DVD release of Nadeko Snake [[Captain Obvious|features a snake]] that {{spoiler|forces itself into Sengoku's mouth, reminiscent of...well...[http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/3/nd003.gif/ just look]}}.

* [[Our Vampires Are Different]]: Vampires are described as the "kings of oddities," and powers seem to include high strength and speed, superpowered sight, and {{spoiler|inhabiting shadows}}. Unfortunately they apparently can't swim, something Koyomi didn't know until he tried to teach Nadeko. In addition, Koyomi is described as "one-tenth vampire", something that is only maintained due to him periodically feeding Shinobu his blood. He can improve his powers by letting her suck more blood than usual.

* [[Recap Episode]]: One aired after the end of "Mayoi Snail" to recap the first two arcs.

* [[Retraux]]: Almost all of the Japanese text is written with older orthography, using unsimplified ''kyuujitai'' kanji (including complex ''daiji'' numerals, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals#Characters_used_to_represent_numbers nowadays usually used only in finance]) and katakana. Much of the incidental text also goes from right to left, and the cut cards look significantly aged.

** Nisemonogatari 9 has a shot of marching God Warriors from [[Nausicaa of the Valley of The Wind (Manga)|Nausicaa of the Valley of The Wind]]'s Seven Days of Fire and a sign with [[Puella Magi Madoka Magica (Anime)|Kyuubey]] on.

** Nisemonogatari also contains a [[Shout Out]] to [[Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger]], starting from Deka Master's [[Badass Boast]]<ref>"Cutting down hundreds of evildoers! The Guard Dog of Hell! Deka Master!</ref> to Deka Blue's [[Gratuitous English]] [[Catch Phrase]]<ref>Super Cool. Perfect.</ref>

* [[Something Else Also Rises]]: Koyomi's [[Idiot Hair]].

* [[Soundtrack Dissonance]]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAnyT2G0-og The Kizumonogatari trailer.]

{{quote| {{spoiler|'''Senjougahara:''' [[Lampshade Hanging|Tsundere service!]] Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm worried about you, but if you don't come back I'll never forgive you.}}}}

*** This being Senjougahara, {{spoiler|she switches to being deadly serious halfway through}}.

* [[Twerp Sweating]]: Koyomi's afraid Senjogahara's scary-serious looking father will do this on their first date. Subverted in that the father is actually extremely grateful to Koyomi for both curing his daughter's condition and making her happier than she's been in a long time.

* [[Unmoving Plaid]]: Oshino's patterned shirts, Hanekawa's pajamas, Senjougahara's panties in episode 2 and dress in episode 12, and Tsukihi's kimono.

** The real reason, as explained by Oshino, is that Koyomi's still a [[Weirdness Magnet]] because of his unconscious refusal to let go of Shinobu. Once he separates from her ''completely'', his vampirism will ''completely'' disappear, the oddities will abandon his life and he'll finally return to normality. So in the end, it's '''his''' decision.

** It's trickier than it appears. {{spoiler|It's explained in the novels that Shinobu will die if Koyomi stops giving her his blood, and Koyomi will pretty much help anyone in need, so he's stuck. It's not an unconscious desire to hold on to her, it's an unwillingness to sacrifice a life for his own sake.}}

** "I understand, Araragi-kun. ''[[Hammerspace|Let's go]] [[Improbable Weapon User|to war."]]''

** The first episode ''opens'' with a [[Bullet Time]] [[Panty Shot]]. The odd thing is, this is the closest visual equivalent to the scene in the book, where Koyomi spends ''over a page'' describing the effect of Hanekawa's skirt being blown up by the wind in front of him, and then dwells on it for the rest of the chapter.

** The entire tooth brushing scene in Episode 8 of ''Nisemonogatari'', which is treated as an extremely sexual process.

* [[World of Symbolism]]: During the the opening for Suruga Monkey arc Kanbaru can be seen running {{spoiler|after Senjougahara}} across a field of huge floating lilies.

* [[X Meets Y]]: The series combines the surrealist [[Talking Heads]], fanservice and utterly random high school comedy of ''[[Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei]]'' (Araragi even shares Nozomu's seiyuu) with the surrealist action and supernatural story [[Arc|Arcs]] focusing on a person afflicted by a single creature of ''[[Mononoke]]'' (with Meme sharing the same seiyuu who did the Medicine Seller).