Directors: Tatsuya Oishi and Akiyuki Shinbo (chief director)
Release date: 2016
Contains spoilers
Release date: 2016
Contains spoilers
The Monogatari series has produced several anime series and the first, Bakemonogatari introduced us to a character named Araragi (Hiroshi Kamiya) who – as the series began – was a young man who had been attacked by a vampire, turned and then returned to his human state. This was stated openly but the series never showed us that backstory in its running time.
The Kizumonogatari (which means wound story) trilogy of films tells that story and this is the first of those films.
The film is not long (just over an hour running time, and actually doesn’t do too much in its running length and yet it is a captivating anime. The opening (6 minutes worth) sees Araragi in a building, moving through corridors. It is clear he is a vampire and the scene is without dialogue. He eventually exits through a door onto a roof. The roof – indeed the surrounding area – is covered in crows. He ignores them but the cloud cover breaks and he sets on fire and falls from the roof…
After the credits we are back in time and Araragi is walking down the street with a girl (and class representative) Hanekawa (Yui Horie) walking towards him. She is drawn in an exaggerated, sexualised way and the blowing up of her skirt is pure fan service and embarrassing to Araragi. She speaks to him, tells him about a rumoured golden-haired vampire – who we later discover to be the outrageously named Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade (Maaya Sakamot). She purposefully puts her name and number in his phone, forcing him to have a friend.
That night, in a train station, he sees blood trails on the floor. Following them he finds the vampire, her limbs cut away by vampire hunters and close to death through loss of blood. She wants to feed from him but he runs and yet, as he considers things, he decides that he will feed her (knowing he will die). What he doesn’t know is that he will turn and he awakens, after feeding her, a vampire. She has taken the form of a young girl – the form we know from the previous series and called Oshino Shinobu. To get her power back, Araragi must defeat the three vampire hunters and retrieve her limbs, following which he will be turned back to human…
As you can see there is very little story in this first film and yet the film manages to captivate. There is little dialogue (a use of chibi styling often codifies emotion) but the animation, often incorporating photography, is lovely to look at. Unfortunately it might mean more to those who have seen at least the first series (despite being a prequel) and will stand poorly if watched in isolation to its other two parts. For this episode I am suggesting 6 out of 10 is fair (given it’s reliance on other films and its lack of story), but I think that does give an indication of how captivating it is despite this.
The imdb page is here.
On Demand @ Amazon US
On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK
The Kizumonogatari (which means wound story) trilogy of films tells that story and this is the first of those films.
 |
| Hiroshi Kamiya voices Araragi |
The film is not long (just over an hour running time, and actually doesn’t do too much in its running length and yet it is a captivating anime. The opening (6 minutes worth) sees Araragi in a building, moving through corridors. It is clear he is a vampire and the scene is without dialogue. He eventually exits through a door onto a roof. The roof – indeed the surrounding area – is covered in crows. He ignores them but the cloud cover breaks and he sets on fire and falls from the roof…
 |
| fan service |
After the credits we are back in time and Araragi is walking down the street with a girl (and class representative) Hanekawa (Yui Horie) walking towards him. She is drawn in an exaggerated, sexualised way and the blowing up of her skirt is pure fan service and embarrassing to Araragi. She speaks to him, tells him about a rumoured golden-haired vampire – who we later discover to be the outrageously named Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade (Maaya Sakamot). She purposefully puts her name and number in his phone, forcing him to have a friend.
 |
| wounded vampire |
That night, in a train station, he sees blood trails on the floor. Following them he finds the vampire, her limbs cut away by vampire hunters and close to death through loss of blood. She wants to feed from him but he runs and yet, as he considers things, he decides that he will feed her (knowing he will die). What he doesn’t know is that he will turn and he awakens, after feeding her, a vampire. She has taken the form of a young girl – the form we know from the previous series and called Oshino Shinobu. To get her power back, Araragi must defeat the three vampire hunters and retrieve her limbs, following which he will be turned back to human…
 |
| chibi styling |
As you can see there is very little story in this first film and yet the film manages to captivate. There is little dialogue (a use of chibi styling often codifies emotion) but the animation, often incorporating photography, is lovely to look at. Unfortunately it might mean more to those who have seen at least the first series (despite being a prequel) and will stand poorly if watched in isolation to its other two parts. For this episode I am suggesting 6 out of 10 is fair (given it’s reliance on other films and its lack of story), but I think that does give an indication of how captivating it is despite this.
The imdb page is here.
On Demand @ Amazon US
On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK
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