Kizumonogatari just reassures my love for the monogatari series, since I have watched the anime adaptation previously. With the context of the next arcs I can say that the core themes of the series are all beautifully teased and encapsulated in this arc.
Araragi’s character arc
The beginning of Araragi’s character arc felt underwhelming to me in the anime, but in the novel the insight that is we get to his thoughts made it much more detailed (as I expected because the story is narrated by him). In my opinion his arc is beautiful, mostly because of his dynamic with hanekawa and kissshot, that made him appreciate more the value of relationships. In the beginning he stated that having friends lowered his intensity as a human and having hanekawa as his friend made him literally be less human by the end. And through his vow with Heartunderblade he learned the importance and value of relationships by “licking each others wounds”
Araragi’s dynamic
After reading acerola-bon-appétit aka kissshot’s backstory in wazamonogatari, I was able to appreciate kissshot and ragi's dynamic much more (and I also think it is mandatory to understand shinobu as a character). This dynamic displays one of the main themes in all of Monogatari - What do we owe to each other and what do we owe to ourselves.
Araragi saw himself in kissshot when she wanted to die, because when he sacrificed himself he only understood death from his selfish perspective, but as he developed his relationship with hanekawa he saw the consequences of death for other people. Also through hanekawa he learned not to escape from reality through death but to live awkwardly/ find a reason to live, a conclusion that he passed on to shinobu. After all he gave kissshot what she needed, not what she wanted and that is a part of relationships, what might be better for us might not be what we want.
Damaged goods both, we sought out each other.
“If you want to die tomorrow, I’m ready for my life to end tomorrow─if you care to live for today, then so will I,” I vowed out loud
After all I think Araragi was partly right in the beggining by saying that having friends would only birng weakness to his life, but he only had one perspective. As the story develops he gets another perspective that he adopted from hanekawa and that he applies with kissshot. Friends can give wounds to each other but can also "lick" them.
__
__
Spoiler for wazamonogatari
Spoiler, click to view
“That’s your name, Kiss-Shot. Eat the humans who die for your sake like you’re kissing them. If you obtain immortality and live for a while, who knows, you might come across a wonderful prince someday.” Kill and eat. Kill and love. Like eating and loving were one and the same.Some scattered thoughts
Really liked Oshino's role and how it plays a big role in araragi's conclusion of
Spoiler, click to view
"you are the only one that can save yourself" by only giving him an oportunity for him resolve his conflict by himselfThere are also some other aspects about Dramaturgy, Episode and Guillotine Cutter that are interesting but there is already a video on youtube about them
Another thing that is cool is the characterization trough sexuality but I don't know much about it to put it in the review but there are some videos on youtube about it too
Conclusion
Koyomi vamp just solidified my feelings from the monogatari series, and might make me read all of the novels from the start. The rating might seem low for how much I praised this arc, but an 85 for me means amazing and its great (there are some things that are better), and remember that this is only the begging of the story. Feel free to DM me if you want to discuss about it.