Originally planned to be the series’ conclusion, “final” chapter “Tsukihi Phoenix” invites us back to the seemingly eventless country burg where supernatural afflictions abound and characters change their trademark hairstyles at the drop of a hat. Rest assured, dear reader, that the story continued in Japanese and will do so in translation. In the first half of Fake Tale, lost soul Araragi helped resolve his bigger little sister Karen’s feverish run-in with a fraud. In this second half, he must attend to his littler little sister Tsukihi’s issues, but not before staging the Toothbrush Episode that the acclaimed anime adaptation’s viewers find quite memorable—whether they like to or not. As fraught with ominousness as a dark empty street, as unexpectedly full of feeling as an acid-tongued girlfriend, as sidesplittingly funny as a horny retired jock, and (maybe even) as educational as college in the best MONOGATARI tradition, this volume also introduces us to “ghostbusters” Yozuru Kagenui and Yotsugi Ononoki.
Unlike ne’er-do-well former vampire Araragi, his two younger sisters Karen and Tsukihi, who attend a private junior high, are little balls of energy and charisma that their peers look up to. That the “ka” in Karen and “hi” in Tsukihi are both written with the character for “fire” isn’t the only reason they’ve come to be known as the Fire Sisters. Karen is the brawn and Tsukihi the brains of a vigilantism that the pair sees not merely as defending justice but as justice itself. They can’t encounter a harmful fad without trying to hunt down a specific source that had a motive for spreading it. In their big brother’s humble opinion, there is something fake and precarious about it all. In this first of two parts, the immediate sequel to the legendary BAKEMONOGATARI plunges us into the middle of summer vacation in the mostly peaceful rural town where the series is set. As our hero and narrator can say from experience, however, teenagers with too much free time on their hands can get stung pretty badly.
There’s a girl at their school who is always ill. She routinely arrives late, leaves early, or doesn’t show up at all, and skips gym as a matter of course. She’s pretty, and the boys take to whispering that she’s a cloistered princess. As the self-described worst loser in her class soon finds out, they just don’t know what a monster she is. So begins a tale of mysterious maladies that are supernatural in origin yet deeply revealing of the human psyche, a set of case files as given to unexpected feeling as it is to irreverent humor. So begins the legendary novel that kicked off the MONOGATARI series, whose anime adaptations have enjoyed international popularity and critical acclaim. This first of three parts introduces Senjogahara and Hachikuji, and fans of the blockbuster prequel KIZUMONOGATARI will be delighted to meet their favorite crazies again: the weirdly reliable narrator Araragi, class president among class presidents Hanekawa, shady problem-solver Oshino, and a certain pale, blonde former vampire.
Following up on the high note of family ties on which the previous installment concluded, but preceding it chronologically, we find Araragi and his little sister Tsukihi, the heroine of the last volume, in full sibling rivalry mode as they bicker about love. The conversation that cannot end unfolds in its unabashed original glory herein. Like KIZUMONOGATARI, which delved into our narrator’s disastrous spring break, Cat Tale (Black) is a prequel about another catastrophe, mentioned often yet never recounted even in a foregoing chapter dedicated to Miss H.: namely, the model student’s rampage over Golden Week, a string of holidays starting at the end of April. Closing out what has come to be known as the “First Season” of the series, this episode of ’GATARI, as rich as ever in silly banter and poignant profundities, richer than usual in snide meta comments about the anime, will make you laugh and cry, or just put a grownup smile on your face, maybe, but is guaranteed to stay with you forever.
Our sorry hero, his reformed girlfriend, and the amnesiac class president have all graduated from their high school out in the boondocks, and self-described Sapphist and ex-basketball ace Kanbaru, retired by reason of an “injury,” is starting her senior year and the narrator of this volume—her voice far more introspectivethan the smutty jock’s we thought we knew. Bereft of the company of her beloved mentors, the only other person around her with any working knowledge of aberrations the junior Ogi Oshino, apparently a relative of the Hawaiian-shirted folklorist, she feels a bit alone and blue, and sick with dread that the devil residing in her left arm courtesy of the Monkey’s Paw might act up again while she sleeps. Investigating a rumor that she fears might lead back to her, the former star ends up peering into an abyss of negativity called Roka—a “wax flower” to take the characters’ meaning. Trapped in a pit the like of which could only be escaped by the one girl who was able to pull off slam-dunks in her basketball nationals, can the penitent Kanbaru, however, still be aggressive?
A certain middle school girl has a fondness for hats, which serve as a line of defense against eye contact along with the overlong bangs she’s worn ever since she was little. Speaking in fits and starts when she doesn’t fall completely silent, her go-to line is “I’m sorry,” and she’s given to referring to herself in third person. Nadeko Sengoku is pretty, and not just cute. When a jealous classmate tried to hex her with a fraudulent charm, Miss Bangs went and got cursed in earnest all by herself, having done her homework wrong and performed a gruesome ritual at a forgotten shrine. Thank goodness Big Brother Koyomi noticed and rescued her that time, but chopping up snakes at a place of worship that was dedicated to a serpent… It might come back to bite her again, hmmmm? Hoping to be saved by someone, but unable to ask for help, the shyest member of the cast explores a running theme of these tales in her own halting voice this round: While self-reliance is well and good, beware of its debased counterfeit minted from a mere reluctance to connect with others. You know what I mean?
Launching the third or “Final Season” of the international cult-hit series, Possession Tale returns the narrator’s headset back to high school senior and amateur savior Koyomi Araragi, who used to eschew friendship once upon a time because it’d lower his “intensity as a human”—a loner’s misgiving that was perhaps on the mark in a different way than he intended. At issue now is not the precarious fate of one of his cherished confrères, or rather consœurs, whom he’d aid, sight unseen, with a monster’s resilience, but his own aberrant state and its prolonged abuse. If everything comes with a bill, and if no man is an island, then is the price of self-sacrificing amity—and the bloodshed it ironically occasions—becoming inhuman for good? That being said! Our hero, whose first name means “calendar” but who has none in his room, sees no need to rush, so, on our way to the profound mysteries of the superhuman aspect, expect a super-shallow deconstruction of the alarm clock. On hand this volume to (hardly ever) humor his humor: his little sisters, a living doll of a corpse, and its violent mistress.
It, like the dark that makes up most of the cosmos, is not an aberration. Nonbeing can swallow you whole, yet if anything, it’s the anti-aberration. Darkness, in fact, is the Law, an executioner from whom a mark can try to run and hide, but only for so long. When it comes calling, the fortunate just might have the time to say goodbye. And the Darkness is—here now. Before ever visiting Japan to find a place to die, four centuries, indeed, before her failed suicide attempt, the legendary vampire Kissshot literally stepped foot on the land of the rising sun with an epic jump that ended a lonely sojourn in Antarctica. It was back in those days that the proud noble created her first thrall. It was then, too, that she first met the Darkness. Having messed with a more recent past with her help, and returning to the present to reunite with two more characters that look like little girls but are actually his elders, Thrall No. 2 Araragi reclaims the mic only to cede it in large part to the bloodsucking demon who goes by “Shinobu” these days. Her story, though, may not even be the most poignant one told herein.
Circling back to a middle school girl’s apotheosis, if we can call it that, in Otorimonogatari, and the mortal threat it poses to the hero and his girl, this “Season Two” finale is narrated, for the first time in the series, by a grown-up—but if the word conjures a sense of reliability, of stability and certainty to you, dear reader, then the lesson to take home from this is to trust no one. Because the teller of the tale, who has been summoned by the heroine to defuse the situation, despite having been her nemesis since the very outset of the series, is—in the absence of the equally shady adult, Oshino, who at least was an expert—none other than his college frenemy, the fake ghostbuster who doesn’t believe in ghosts, the shameless swindler Deishu Kaiki. And it is indeed a con that he agrees to perpetrate, uncharacteristically pro bono, on a wrathful god—a mythic undertaking if true, which it may be, when a liar among liars holds that his story, like any other, is all a lie. But maybe not, when a man who claims to be wise in the ways of the world sounds just as self-conscious as his adolescent counterparts or a Russian anti-hero.
Just when we thought the darkness menacing the town had been identified, named, and tamed, clear and unclear mysteries of seasons past looming or surfacing, then resolving, not without tears, not without bittersweetness, of course, but satisfyingly, in a tripartite finale, all loose ends tied up into, or at least with, a bow… The End Tale continues—if only for one last time, in a bonus stage for the ages, as our softie of a protagonist who wished for all parties involved, including himself, maturely enough, to end up happy, sees his reflected image freeze in a mirror and regretfully, regrettably, reaches for it to find himself through the looking glass. In an alternate reality where bits of the world have been flipped around, the hero comes face to face with the hidden side(s) of familiar faces, along with author NISIOISIN, whose bravura attempt to reimagine character possibilities concludes, with signature flair, the MONOGATARI series proper—thank you for reading.
When NISIOISIN, Japan’s bestselling novelist, writes a murder mystery, it won’t be like anything you’ve ever read before. Now in a new English translation! Whether you’re already a fan of Japanese phenom NISIOISIN, or a mystery reader looking for something unusual and compelling, don’t wait to get your hands around STRANGULATION: Kubishime Romanticist. This follow-up to Decapitation, and the second part of NISIOISIN’s debut Zaregoto series, presents a puzzling murder mystery that tells the story in the voice of a narrator who’s trying his hardest to stay out of the action. Now that he’s a cool college student, our anti-hero Iichan thinks his crime-solving days are behind him. Cynical, sarcastic and minimally engaged in his studies, Iichan is much more interested in his own feelings of disaffection and isolation. But despite his resolve to remain aloof, he’s pulled into the narrative when he encounters and bonds with a serial killer named Hitoshi Zerozaki – a homicidal maniac with the soul of an artist whose talent is on display at the grisly scenes of his crimes. Written by Japan’s prolific and top-selling author NISIOISIN, STRANGULATION: Kubishime Romanticist blends a tale of suspense and detection with an edgy exploration of the nature of talent, violence, and ego. This Vertical edition features a revised translation and new art by acclaimed illustrator take.
How far does one go to help a lost child? In the case of returning narrator Araragi, the answer is too far, across the veil of time. Dutifully (if unknowingly) following up on Hachikuji’s cheeky foreshadowing, he concerns himself with his young lady friend and her fate in this installment of the cult-hit series, heroically unable, once again, to find his own way home. Thus the tale is also, or more so, about the journey itself, the dark honeymoon of a trip he takes into the past with the dweller in his shadow, Shinobu. Even among a cast that routinely disrespects chronology with their meta-commentary, she takes the cake, or the donut, by rewinding the clock for a perverse road movie, one that by and large goes nowhere, spatially. It’s Kabuki not as in the theater, but with the character for “tilt”—as in a slanted attitude toward the world, the posture of a bohemian. Or, perhaps, of a legendary vampire who once sought death, and of a high school senior who once tuned out life doing their dandy best to attend to an embarrassing wealth of aberrations in a provincial town.
“I really have to give this book the highest marks I can… I could say buy this if you like Nisioisin or if you like mysteries or if you like amazing characters but I don’t think it’s for just any one type of person. Let me say, if you’re reading this review: This book is for you… As far as the translation goes, I think they nailed it… To put it frankly, out of all Nisioisin’s English releases, this is one of his top. To put it even simpler: It’s beautiful. Five Out of Five Beautiful Dark Shining Stars.” — No Good Nerds “The translation reads well with no issues to note… There is plenty to like and, as always, the author delivers an engrossing story with witty dialogue and interesting characters. I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of mysteries the Pretty Boy Detective Club tackle in the volumes to follow… Overall, Pretty Boy Detective Club offers another satisfying read for fans of NISIOISIN’s works.” — Anime UK News
Bakemono, literally “altered thing,” which translates as “monster.” Monogatari, literally “thing narrated,” which translates as “tale.” Combined into a neologism by he of the reversible nom de plume, they yield BAKEMONOGATARI, the monster tale that kicked off a series whose anime adaptations have enjoyed international popularity and critical acclaim. A self-described loser, Koyomi Araragi is struggling at a prep school that he should never have gotten into. He has all but quit caring, but as a senior, he faces the chilling scenario of not being able to graduate. It’s time to cram, but the supernatural aberrations that keep on popping up in his provincial town won’t let him be. Previously, our hero turned into a vampire and back, gained an acid-tongued girlfriend, and couldn’t find his way home thanks to a lost child. In this second of three parts, which introduces Suruga Kanbaru and Nadeko Sengoku, he becomes embroiled in a case that riffs on a classic English story from 1902.
The moment Koyomi's been waiting for is finally here! But as his date with Hitagi concludes, so does his story, followed by the stories of those he's saved since that fateful spring break. Though this monster's tale has reached its end, that doesn't mean they're gone-because monsters have been here since the beginning. They always have. They're everywhere.
From the renowed author NISIOISIN, the creator of BAKEMONOGATARI, Zaregoto Series and KATANAGATARI comes a new, innovative mystery series, Pretty Boy Detectives Club!
A mysterious organization is operating behind the scenes at Yubiwa Academy—the Pretty Boy Detective Club, comprised of President Manabu Sotoin, Vice President Nagahiro Sakiguchi, fearsome “bossman” and fearless gourmand Michiru Fukuroi, angelic track star Hyota Ashikaga, and artistic genius/business prodigy Sosaku Yubiwa. One morning, new recruit Mayumi Dojima happens to see someone drop a mind-boggling bundle, and the game is afoot! The ensuing investigation takes the Pretty Boys into the heart of enemy territory, but will they be able to see (or not see) it through to the end? The Pretty Boy series continues with this exciting new chapter, pitting a sublime aesthetic against the superlative scam!
“I love you.” “I smelt for you, Senjogahara.” Koyomi accepts Hitagi’s feelings and solves Mayoi Hachikuji’s dilemma. Everything starts to look up…until a mysterious raincoat busts him up out of nowhere…!
When an old flame who gave up on life and chose to go up in flames—because he wanted to leave you but couldn’t—comes crawling back after four hundred years, you might not appreciate it, especially if you’re in a new relationship. But nothing’s ever simple between people, and that’s even truer between monsters. For the first time in months, our heroic loser Araragi is human, parted by previous events from the ex-legendary vampire bound to his shadow. Before he, the second-ever thrall of the former Kissshot, can resume his partnership with the donut-loving waif that she’s turned into, she must make a choice—about that first-ever. Before the End Tale can end, some loose ends must be tied, and in this volume, the fixer Gaen calls in her favor, requesting an introduction to her niece; the errand of the amulet that Araragi ran with Kanbaru comes into crisp focus; and the time-traveling and -spanning Dandy and Demon Tales see their devastating resolution.
Shinobu's matter has been settled, but there's still one last problem to solve: Hanekawa and her struggle with the Tyrannical Tiger. With the life of a loved one in danger, Hanekawa will have to risk it all to put down her formidable feline foe, but can she really win the battle in a fight against her feelings?
With Shinobu's return, new battles begin on two fronts. As the Afflicting Cat crosses claws with the Tyrannical Tiger, Koyomi and Seishiro throw down to see who will remain Kiss-Shot's thrall. Now, with their lives on the line and the fate of the world at stake, who will prevail in these double duels of dual realities?
The latest book of the final season of the best-selling MONOGATARI series. Before we witness the series’ climactic showdown in the third volume of the "End Tale"—each part of which forms its own cohesive whole—narrator Araragi wrestles with a crucial bit of history that had turned him into the loner we met at the very beginning, who opined that friendships only lowered his intensity as a human. What initiates his pilgrim’s progress of a reckoning is his first encounter, at school, with the mysterious freshman Ogi Oshino, self-described niece of the equally enigmatic aberration expert Mèmè, and the book’s opening chapter is a harrowing standalone novella of a whodunnit involving a locked room of sorts. Our increasingly well-adjusted hero kept on being decent at one thing even when he was just hanging on, but this forte, an unlikely aptitude for math, of all things, becomes the focus of a cheating scandal and a web of recollections that forces him to come to terms with, what do you know, his capacity to connect to people.
A class president among class presidents, a bespectacled model student who soars to the top of honors lists without fail, Tsubasa Hanekawa also happens to be a decent human being. True, she does have a habit of making single-minded assumptions, but they come from a good place and turn out to be fortuitous as often as not. Loser extraordinaire Koyomi Araragi owes her his post of class vice president and a more significant debt of gratitude for her unstinting support during the darkest spring break of his life. All of it has blinded him to the possibility that his saintly classmate’s family situation might be no less adverse than that of his other lady friends. Thus, at last, we face Hanekawa’s unlikely aberration in “Tsubasa Cat”—the concluding part of the legendary novel that captured the sensibilities of a new generation in the aught years and spawned an animated series that has won international popularity and acclaim—before the story continues with a Fake Tale…
After looking back on the events of Golden Week, Koyomi scrambles to save Hanekawa from the "Afflicting Cat" once again. This time, Black Hanekawa's power threatens to grow to regal heights, but does Koyomi even stand a chance against the cat that came back?
With half of the fighters down for the count, the Zodiac War rages on! Usagi—the fighter of the Rabbit—and his undead army continue to rampage across the battlefield, intent on destroying anyone who stands in their way. For an honorable fighter like Ox, Rabbit’s desecration of and complete disregard for human life is unacceptable. To obliterate this heretical army, Ox teams up with an unlikely ally—the drunkard Tiger! -- VIZ Media
With little time to spare, Koyomi is on a mission to save Hanekawa from the Afflicting Cat's grip and find Shinobu. This time, he'll take all the help he can get-even a lead from a sketchy aberrations expert-but will it be enough, or will things once again go from bad to worse?
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