Anime: Nekomonogatari (Kuro): Tsubasa Family

Nekomonogatari is a fair excuse to gawk at a black-lingerie clad, cat-eared, busty high schooler. The story tells about the Golden Week before the events of Bakemonogatari, where Araragi is forced to deal with Hanekawa's possession by a mischievous cat aberration. As with the case in Fate Zero, the challenge here is to keep the viewer intrigued even though they most likely know the final story outcome. They do a pretty good job at that here. Nekomonogatari is a good watch for fans of Bakemonogatari. For newcomers to the franchise, I recommend starting with Bakemonogatari as there are a lot of intricacies that would be missed otherwise.

Animation:
I would describe the animation style as clean. The design is obviously minimalist though it is obviously a stylistic choice rather than a budgetary choice here. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of scenes that are bathed in glorious details and coloring. Just expect lots of scenes to be highly stylized with emphasis on certain colors and an almost frantic reliance on insert frames for emphasis. All the characters are familiar faces from the Bakemonogatari and Nisemonogatari series though only Tsukihi and Hanekawa are the only previous heroines that get any decent screen time.

Expect quite a bit of action, mostly in the form of Araragi getting beaten up and bloodied. There's definitely a bit of gore involved with Koyomi's repeated mutilations. Nothing really new considering previous monogatari works. There are a few ecchi-based scenes/conversations involving both Tsukihi and Hanekawa.

Sound:
The series/special opens with a nice, calming OP by Yui Horie. It ends with a faster-paced, light-rock piece that I don't like as much. The BGM is minimalist like the rest of the monogatari pieces. Instead, there is a heavy focus on dialogue and sound effects.

The strong VA cast caries over from the other works so you can expect an overall superior experience. Yui Horie is as good as a VA as ever, her cat accent and laugh are quite addictive.

Story:
In Bakemonogatari, the story repeatedly referenced a "Golden Week" incident that was never really fleshed out. Now, the series finally tells the story in this special. The special is divided into sections that combine nicely into one single viewing. The story has good pacing and builds up from a lengthy exposition introducing Koyomi's interest in Hanekawa and the theme of a family. It then quickly shifts gears and starts building in tension, punctuated by a few fight scenes. This continues until a final climax is reached and the viewer sees the link to the beginning of Bakemonogatari.

The story has good execution overall with some cool tidbits to pick up on a second viewing. Dialogue is critical in this work and a lot of witty comments and philosophical ramblings are presented for the viewer to absorb. It's quite a bit and beginning sub viewers may struggle with the sheer volume of text in places. My main issue with the story is that, given my take from Bakemonogatari, I was expecting the Golden Week incident to be a grand occurrence. The events in the special weren't anywhere near as big as I had expected. That aside, I've got to give it to Shaft for avoiding the common plot holes galore conclusion.

Character:
The story sheds a bit more history on the overachiever, Hanekawa, and her ridiculous family circumstances. Though there is a pinch of development, I was in general let down by the interactions between Araragi and Hanekawa. Nonetheless, the characterizations were very good and Hanekawa in cat form was quite the entertainment.

Value:
This is a must see for Bakemonogatari and Hanekawa fans; heck, for anyone who likes cat ears and lingerie as well. Just don't expect overly grand events to take place. Looking forwards to the next prequel, Kizumonogatari, where we may finally learn Araragi's vampire roots.

Oddly enough, this little one-shot miniseries/tv special feels to me like the right one to review and through which give a wider evaluation of the whole ~monogatari franchise so far, and even take a little stock of Shinbou's accomplishments and growth while at it.
Bakemono stirred a lot of praise as it definitively brought Shinbou's art to everyone's attention, while on the other hand required me to wait a while before passing a judgement as the tv airings were severely handicapped by the time constraints. Nisemono, on the other hand, was criticized for allegedly being too fanservicey, and while I was under the impression it wasn't exactly gratuitous, the suspicion was legitimate and not just the result of the spawn of a newborn generation of Shinboufags, thus I felt I had to wait to further see how he really was planning to proceed before settling on a final opinion.

Then here it comes this little special, by it's nature what you would think should be the quintessential fanservicey product (not necessarily of the sexual kind), and while it's own value might not be extreme it makes everything else seen before click together in a slightly different, but quite poignant, way. Actually, without keeping into the equation Bakemono and Nisemono, Neko would even be kinda lame: and it is intended, as I see it.
Which is another reason why even though this is a prequel it really is advisable to newcomers to not try and watch the shows "chronologically": it's not just that several characters and several in-jokes need you to already know the flow and what has happened in the future, but the whole meaning of certain reasoning tackled by characters in Neko is aimed towards the understanding of characters that don't even make an appearance here.
As such, I won't hold back on the spoilers regarding the two previous seasons - not that ~monogatari is written in such a linear way that you can really spoil much, but oh well - so be warned.

ART

I fell in love with Shinbou several years ago. I had already stumbled on the very interesting Soul Taker, which is probably the first work in which Shinbou began to find - and had the freedom to express - a very specific visual style, certain fascinating compulsions and symbolic fetishes; apart from his visual imaginary, however, ST was fairly pointless and didn't really leave a lasting impression. Then Cossette no Shouzou came: a great talent in visual art put together with an equally remarkable genius in music such as Yuki Kajiura, with a subject directly inspired by Baudelaire and Wilde... it was love and obsession at first sight.
However, in hindsight I have to say it still wasn't a "mature" Shinbou: it was great, fresh gothic visual art, but it wasn't just Shinbou's art. For a while he still mingled with pseudogothic styles, even though with much lighter approaches (Tsukuyomi Moon Phase), then he stepped up learning to have a completely independent, own artistic corpus transcending the theme of the subject at hand: Pani Poni Dash was the testing ground for what would become his complete maturity shown in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, a masterpiece and his definitive consecration. In Zetsubou Sensei - a show that gives the director freedom par excellence - we are fed a continuous array of all his most distinctive symbolisms, first and foremost his obsession for ideograms and their hybridization with the flesh (not much unlike Cronenberg's - though in his case less visual - obsession for flesh and machine), or his wonderful duotones.
Since Zetsubou pretty much every show Shinbou directs is a piece of real visual art: even the admittedly poor ones (like Dance in the Vampire Bund) are a feast of witty framings and wonderful, sarcastic photography, and certain just "decent" series - like Arakawa Under the Bridge or Natsu no Arashi - become something hard to forget, their intrinsic value doubled by his talent and reinterpretation.

What really strikes me as exceptionally simple and yet so worth of praise about his visual style, is that it's astonishing directors such as him aren't the norm. One could very well like a different style than his more, let's say for the sake of argument Satoshi Kon's or Miyazaki's (who still are, imho, much more chained than Shinbou when it comes to visual art), but it's ridiculous how anime directors (western cartoons directors are less affected, probably because their market isn't as standardized) are so little minded that they clearly are under the erroneous belief of being movie directors. They are given an instrument which has no real limits: they can express their vision how they see fit, they can give birth to whatever they see when they close their eyes; and yet they work as they were filming using a camera, an instrument limited by reality, and in the same way their framing, their traking shots, their photography and their "art" is just trivial. It's as if pretty much all the painters in the world only painted carefully realistic portraits, still lives and landscapes and we only had two or three surrealists. Even the aforementioned (great) directors (and unlike Shinbou writers) Kon and Miyazaki usually mostly manage to look like a Gondry or del Toro (Paprika and Spirited Away), or maybe a Gilliam (Millennium Actress): their art is great, dreamlike, suggestive and distinctive... and yet you always kinda know what the camera is gonna do in that next shot (or at least you know what it will not do... because it would be impossible for a real camera), it's not that different from a (great) live action movie, as they look at the scene composition from a relatively traditional, widely archetypal perspective.
Shinbou is something else. Shinbou is born to do animation and only animation: Satoshi Kon would have been an equally great director if he were to make live action movies, I dare say he could have been a worthy rival for David Lynch, while Shinbou would probably suck at it; but when it comes to animation he is in his element and shows more freedom and ingenuity (not necessarily skill) than everyone else. He uses the instruments he is given to their full extent, freely screwing with any preconceived idea of how a scene should be built to be coherent, with perspective and the laws of physics, and without having to give it a second thought. There are others like him, of course, but he probably is the only one who managed to impose himself on the wide public bending the mainstream forma mentis to his will instead of the opposite.

And so we come to his latest flagship, the whatevermonogatari franchise, that isn't only a setting that coincidentally perfectly matched Shinbou's visions and own themes, but a source material which can be light without being dumb or relatively predictable, conventional, and without having to be random to fulfill these characteristics (like Zetsubou Sensei had to be). As such Shinbou has the chance to completely let loose his visions while intertwining them with something coherent - though quirky - matching symbolism with actual meaning, something that often was less prominent (if not missing completely) in his previous works: his art isn't vanity anymore, but becomes integral part of the setting, the characters, the storyline and the suggestions both him and the script want to convey. Under that light, even the "fanservice" that admittedly took a large portion of Nisemono wasn't completely gratuitous (even though there's no doubt the lowest reasons why fanservice works were still definitely taken into consideration when deciding how much space to give it), and the wittiness and artsiness in which it was portrayed wasn't just pretentious. And anyway it was sexy: eros can be art as dignified as any other, it's just that usually in anime (and, well, in pretty much any audiovisual media) it isn't, it's just vulgar entertainment that always works no matter how crude or gratuitous. Thus the name "fanservice", but here the name doesn't honestly completely apply.

Even in Nekomonogatari there's an healthy dose of this so called "fanservice", though it doesn't feel meddlesome as the pacing of the show is much faster than in Nisemono, and all in all the quality of the art is still top notch. Admittedly, however, there's the slight perception Shinbou is resting on his laurels a little here (it still is just a tv special worth of 4-5 episodes, with the corresponding budget, so it's not that surprising or disappointing): there's really not much we haven't already seen in the previous seasons in terms of his signature tropes, and even those are used rather sparingly, probably somewhat sacrificed to give enough breath to the story, which is unusually linear if compared with other previous arcs (and if you think Karen Bee took 7 episodes, this arc would have taken 12 if he took the same time to play with the visuals). Even the backgrounds feel a bit emptier than previously: less little absurdities here and there in the corners of a room, and less prominent; again, for the sake of the pacing and a certain linearity.
Still, there's nothing to complain given the type of production, and the show is still a feast for the eyes and a real work of art. Like one would expect of Shinbou.

SOUND

I'm firmly of the opinion Bakemonogatari had by far the best soundtrack of the three ~monogatari shows so far, both for the quality of the tracks themselves and because as it had several arcs it had more tracks, both feature songs and underscore tracks matching the various starring characters. As this is a one-shot arc there's little variety, and honestly nothing really memorable, though by no means subpar or mediocre. Still, sometimes I wonder how this franchise would have been with someone with a bit more personality, uniqueness than the still very competent Kousaki.

Voice acting, on the other hand, is as great as ever, as usually lead by an Hiroshi Kamiya that really deserves to have become Shinbou's juju voice actor. By now any other voice for a typical Shinbou's male protagonist would feel terribly wrong. Obviously, as Nekomonogatari focuses only on Hanekawa, and most characters haven't even appeared yet at this point in time, the overall impact is less remarkable.

STORY/CHARACTERS

As mentioned, this prequel is relatively more linear in its exposition than most of the other arcs seen in the previous seasons, to some extent because they are running out of actual still not told events happened in the past to wink at during flashbacks used to slowly build up a chara's depth, and in part as it is itself a story already roughly traced in such a collection of flashbacks during the events of Bakemonogatari.
As we see in detail the first appearance of the bakeneko possession, we are presented a story that looks at first quite stale, with oddly cliched interactions (apart from the signature witty and humoristic dialogues and remarks, of course) and morals. Hanekawa herself and her dualism, as well as how the actual curse she falls under mixes with her own unspeakable subconscious desires, is actually nicely portrayed and stands on its own feet with enough depth to not feel overly trite. However, suddenly Arararararagi (gomen, kamimashita) seems your run of the mill anime male lead with martyr instincts, who wants to sacrifice himself for the girl he loves. He indeed had a messianic complex since day 1 (it's a Japanese light novel, the male lead HAS to be a god damned moralfag), but it was much less banal, stereotyped, and always portrayed with a rare touch of self-deprecating humor and not taken too seriously. Here instead this overused archetype seems - at first glance - to be idolized as we are more commonly used to see in (mediocre) anime.
As the events unfold and Araragi's inner monologues feel more and more out of character from what we learnt about him in the past, suddenly it clicks together, and it does right when everything reaches the utmost cheesiness of sterile, silly self sacrifice: not just the actual "I'm gonna die for her" but the even worse, theatrical bottling up one's own feelings to not inconvenience the newfound balance. That's the point, which was hinted at by the seemingly redundant introductory funny dialogue between Araragi and his sister around his feelings about Hanekawa: it really is theatrical, just like it happened at least once to pretty much us all when we were adolescents, mistaking wordly feelings for a Shakespearean tragedy because at that age we all are, more or less, slaves of romantic conventions and crazed hormones.
There's a saying here: when you are a kid, you fall in love with the schoolmate with the biggest boobs. Then you slowly grow into an adult, fall in love and marry the woman that's beautiful as whole, with which you can share happiness and sadness alike, the one that completes you and is a good companion. Then you grow old and wise... and fall in love with the nurse with the biggest boobs. This is exactly what happens to Araragi: he falls for the girl with the biggest boobs (metaphorically, as it is out of a series of reasons and coincidences, gratitude included... but also literally, as she is the one with the biggest boobs), and builds upon it an inner facade of tragic romanticism, acts by its own little mental romantic novel up to the cheesy, nostalgic and "poetic" conclusion... but in the end it's just overhyped lust.
Under this perspective, we shed a very satisfying new light upon his relationship with Senjougahara: their interactions don't show the slightest bit of hypocrisy, they are direct and gritty, she is aware she might have become attracted to him out of gratitude but she doesn't care for the circumstances, and Araragi himself doesn't translate everything into something nicer or higher than what it really is, he just likes her: all the opposite than what happens in Neko with Hanekawa. The relationship with Senjougahara feels authentic because it is, it's - simply put - mature, and this depiction of his previous blatantly immature infatuation serves the purpose to further point that out. And it works out pretty darn well I'd say, even though I wonder how many viewers will try and look behind the surface.
It's nothing groundbreaking, but it's definitely very satisfying to see such depth and careful, realistic depiction of a character personality and growth in what by all means is a light, kinda silly show; doing it using - and joking with - those very same stereotypes that are over used for those very same opposite trite and unlikely characters typical of anime, is the sugar on top.

That being said, it all comes at a price. We definitely got from this that we shouldn't take everything Araragi says in his thoughts at face value: it's only half the time something born from the narrator's voice - and as such sort of objective - the other half is indeed only his subjective, momentary perception which might be biased, self trickery or prone to change, without anyone spoon feeding us whether it is or not. However we still stumble on several inconsistencies that cannot be explained no matter how we figure Araragi has changed his way of thinking (and the way he remembers and contextualizes his past). The biggest one is indeed about his relationship with Hanekawa: in Bakemonogatari, when it turns out the stress that makes the bakeneko reappear is this time her unrequited love for him, Araragi is completely clueless and actually astonished at the idea she might have been harboring such feelings for him; yet here we see how he comes to a clear understanding about her feelings. He might have concluded it was an infatuation on her part too, or a result of her almost pathological altruism, but he certainly isn't oblivious to the possibility, and shouldn't be a few months later, when he also seems pretty new to the wondering if he nurtured some feelings for her or not, which he definitely shouldn't be.
Furthermore, even though it was just a fleeting joke - presumably sarcastic - one interaction he has with Hachikuji in Nisemono feels a bit odd thinking back at it (in line with what happens in Neko, but not with what happened in Bakemono): "I like Hanekawa, I go out with Senjougahara, but I'm gonna marry you" [funny skinship follows], where he again seems to have a clear enough idea about what goes - or has gone - between him and Hanekawa to be able to joke about and downplay it with an healthy dose of self deprecating humor.

There are some other inconsistencies as well, usually more related to certain plot twists in Bakemono that, in hindsight, shouldn't have been twists at all in Araragi's perception, but I find these less disturbing than the aforementioned contradiction in a fairly important aspect of a chara's personality and relationship, when those are the main fulcrum - and biggest point - of the show(s).

ENJOYMENT/VALUE

My enjoyment is through the roof everytime Shinbou is involved. I have flooded the art section of the review with enough OT verbal diarrhea to explain why. But from a slightly more IT standpoint I have to say this ~monogatari franchise is for me the most satisfying work of his in a fairly long time, in no short part thanks to how NisiOisiN's novels match, integrate and complete Shinbou's way of re-elaborating the storytelling. In the specific case of Nekomonogatari the dynamic pacing made it more enjoyable than the admittedly slow, slightly limping Nisemonogatari, making it more on par with any one of the arcs in Bakemonogatari. Even though 99% of the screentime in Neko is used by a female character with big boobs, braids, glasses, and obnoxious class rep personality, pretty much all my anime turn offs put together. Luckily she is in cat form for a good while, where she doesn't at least have that dumb look on her face... :razz:

Jokes aside, Bakemonogatari, and to an extent Nisemono too, obviously have much more absolute value than Neko, by their own nature of full (well, half) seasons with wider scope. This special sheds some new light with some craftiness - and a couple stumbles - on some inner workings of the characters throughout the whole show, but it cannot stand on its own like the main seasons of course do. One could even argue that, being this a prequel whose main events were already summarized in Bakemono, it could even be skipped completely without really missing out on too much. Couldn't imagine why one would skip this hour and a half of not-guilty pleasure (minutes and minutes of an half naked cat girl on screen and it doesn't feel like a guilty pleasure... impossiburu!), but stranger things have happened.

It hasn't been long since Nekomonogatari come out , and seeing as no one reviewed it yet (and probably will not be for quite sometime :razz: ) .I decided to make a review to say what it's about to all those who are undecided to watch it or not after nisemonogatari , or are interested in watching the anime after they saw neko here and there . Anyway , without further ado here is the review :

Animation:
As usual Shaft puts the entire powerhouse of its production capabillities for this show .We saw it in nise and here it is again , the animation is simply wonderful , its impossible for the fans to think of an animation style that would fit the novel more than this one , and I can see the seas of flames coming if the quality drops somehow .For newcomers , its a unique animation style but is typically Shaft .If you watched Saynoara zetsubou sensei and madoka magika , you should be familiar with it and will like it if your a fan of those animes :thumbup: .

Sound :
The sound department in the monogatari series in general isnt very catchy , its perfect for setting the mode , but nothing one will go actively search the net to find and listen to again , nonetheless , it doesn't disrupt the flow of the series at all and helps set the mood many times so it gets a passing grade :smile: .

Story :
The rating I gave here is for Nekomonogatari , not the monogatari series in general . Admittedly , the story in the monogatari series in general (the animes , we haven't gotten to the tasty parts yet from the novel :razz: ) is either neglected as in nisemonogatari , or annoying as in bakemonogatari .In nekomonogatari they struck the cord perfectly with the story (especially regarding the pacing) and the quality of the dialogue is as high as ever. :mymaster:

Character:
Oh boy . What can be said here? This series is driven 75% by the witty dialogue it has , that means the characters must be quite something in order for the anime to pull such success it has now off . (the characters themselves are mostly generic mind you , their interactions however, are absloutly amazing and witty) .In nekomongatari we get more focus on Hanekawa tsubasa , one of the three main characters , and her ordeal with an oddity that possess her . It must be said though , that a great deal of background and interaction is given to the oddity itself and only later does it become with the character. The length of the OVA was perfect for this arc , it was neither too short , nor too long . I personally think it would have been boring if they gave this arc more screen time seeing as it is a prologue and about a char which is not the favourite of many.

Value :
The value of nekomonogatari in itself is not something great , when taken in the context of the monogatari series however its a big landmark . Because it shows the fruits of experience the studio gained while making the two previous seasons , the always focused on one side in each seasons and that was a wrong approch .In neko , even though they gave more attention to the story (which makes sense seeing how its only 4 episodes long ) but they also gave enough time for wacky day to day interaction between the characters which we all love :grin: .

Enjoyment :
Nekomonogatari came as a nice surprise to me . I was expecting something very messed up in pacing that left a bad aftertaste and tarnished the name of the Franchise , it came instead as the archexample of how the series should flow in the future (nice going shaft :wink: ) .Im sure the fandom is now looking greatly forward to the next season and movie after this morale boost.