Monogatari Openings Reaction
Added 2023-07-09 10:00:06 +0000 UTCNow in the Patreon Anime Openings section of Discord
Comments
Haha not too long at all! Great info bro and much appreciated, to help clear up the confusion that was those intros π€£
Metal Lover
2023-07-09 13:59:50 +0000 UTCOh boy, here we go. Sorry, this will be an incredibly long comment full of me rambling about different aspects of the series. The openings of the Monogatari series are all heavily focused on the characters. Each opening (except the "gothic" ones from Shinobu Time and Shinobu Mail) is sung by the voice actor/actress that is portraying the character which the opening is about. Some characters change their appearance over time (for example the one girl with short black hair which you commented could be the same as the one from the previous op, just with a new haircut, that is exactly what happened :D). I guess if you are good at telling voices apart, you could identify which openings are about the same character by the singer's voice. About the order of the openings: they were in the right order in the playlist you used, obviously the ones you listened to outside of the playlist weren't. However, the story itself of the Monogatari series is not told in chronological order (Monogatari actually meaning story in Japanese, each title, like Bakemonogatari (Monster Story), Nisemonogatari (Imposter Story) is a play on words, think "Bakemono" and "Monogatari" form "Bakemonogatari", in English you' could maybe say "Monster" and "Story" form "Monstory"). As for the story itself, the main character of the overall series is Araragi Koyomi, a 17 year old highschool boy. He is the guy with black hair and the weird moving strand of hair on top of his head. You mostly see him in the background of the openings, though he does sing the final opening (although his singing is reversed). The series has supernatural elements (like vampires, ghosts and demons) but they are mostly used as story devices to highlight a character's struggle or background. Most of the characters have a symbol (often an animal) that identifies them. The most obvious one is probably Hachikuji Mayoi, the little girl with the big backpack, with her symbol being a snail. Others are Hanekawa Tsubasa, the girl with braided black hair and glasses (later short hair and no glasses) and a cat, or Senjougahara Hitagi, with long purple hair (changes her hairstyle a lot) and a crab. Monogatari is very, very dialogue-heavy and character interaction-driven, uses weird camera angles, animation switch ups, a lot of pop culture references and 4th wall breaks. There is also a lot of referee moments, some of them being rather questionable. The interesting part of its storytelling is that Araragi, as basically the one telling the story, is portrayed as an unreliable narrator, which means we can't actually trust everything we are shown. Sometimes, the POV shifts to another character for one story arc and suddenly we see some characters or events in an entirely different light (that includes fights or referee moments, where we can never be sure if that is how it happened or if it is just Araragi trying to make himself look bad, which he has a tendency for). The Monogatari series has a very dedicated fanbase and is adapted from a series of light novels written by NisiOisiN (see, even the author's pseudonym can be mirrored. As you correctly deduced, there is a lot of focus on stuff like one's other self, light and dark, morality etc.). The novels are still ongoing, with the anime having adapted about 70% of them. Phew, that was way too long of a comment. Sorry about that.
Darkwing Duck
2023-07-09 13:37:17 +0000 UTC
