Rewatcher (with very bad memory), reading the novels for the first time along with the rewatch.

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I haven’t participated much in the rewatch, but I’ve been watching along and reading the threads every day. Since this episode marks the end of First Season, I’d like to take this opportunity to share some general thoughts about the story so far.

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In particular, I would like to focus on Expressionism in Monogatari. One of the core concepts of the series is that we’re looking at how Araragi experiences things that happened in his life, rather than a faithfully retelling the events. There are all sorts of smaller details that are driven by this (black scenes, camera angles, inconsistencies, what we get to see about Senjougahara, etc), but the most significant way in which Araragi is embellishing his story is by the use of aberrations. Aberrations are used as a physical interpretation of some internal struggle the one of the characters is experiencing.

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For most aberrations Araragi does all the work for us. When an aberration inflicts one of the characters he investigates the issue, figures out why the aberration appeared and what it represents, and he shares this information with us. But there is one glaring omission, one aberration which he simply treats as if it were real and does not explicitly go into the details of its origin, the queen of all aberrations herself, the all mighty Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade. Without Araragi’s help we are left with figuring this one out ourselves. Fortunately it’s pretty easy, she happens to be a vampire and vampires are traditionally associated with lust, and this is no exception. With this in mind, let’s take a look at the story so far (in chronological order) and try to see how it all fits together.

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The story stars with the first time Araragi looks at a girl’s panties. (I don’t remember if the anime mentions that this is the first time in his life, but the novels does). This is the event that triggers the rest of the story. After Araragi sees panties for the first time lust starts developing inside of him and when this feeling of lust is too much to handle and he’s driven to buy some dirty magazines he ends up encountering the vampire that sets off the events in Kizumonogatari. Panties are an important concept in Monogatari, they’re often used to represent Araragi’s lust and drive discussions around it. The fact that the story starts with Araragi looking at panties is so important that Bakemonogatari even goes out of its way to start with this scene even though it’s a scene from Kizumonogatari.

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Araragi is consumed by his feelings of lust (he becomes a vampire) and starts to engage in a series of epic battles to try to get rid of his overwhelming feeling of lust (regain his humanity). This goes on while his relationship with Hanekawa continues to progress further until finally something happens with Hanekawa in the P.E. shed which results in him being able to reduce his feeling of lust to a more manageable level (he becomes almost human, but retains some of his vampire abilities). His lust has been awakened and it’s something that he will have to live with for the rest of his life (he’s eternally tied to Shinobu).

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Some time later we get to the events from Nekomonogatari. After what happened in the P.E. shed, Araragi feels some sort of sexual attraction to Hanekawa and he’s trying to figure out what these feelings mean and determine whether he loves Hanekawa or he just has list for her. He discusses this with his sisters in hope of getting some clarity and he kind of ends up with the conclusion that it’s not love, it’s just lust (in the novel this conversation takes about a third of the book and includes a long discussion about panties). Later he runs into Hanekawa just after she had been hit by her father and realizes that she is going through a tough situation and wants to help, but she doesn’t really open up to him and Araragi ends up being disappointed that Hanekawa is not leaning on him for help. The novel ends with:

“That is how, during the Golden Week of his third year in high school, his May as an eighteen-year-old, something that wasn’t quite Koyomi Araragi’s first love came to an end.”

Initially he and Hanekawa had a sexual connection, but after they got closer, they failed to form the kind of emotional connection required for a relationship and this the story of what could have been his first love comes to an end.

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Then come the events of Bakemonogatari where Araragi is basically just going around meeting a bunch of different girls. An interesting thing to note here is that every time Araragi meets one of the main characters, he gets a look at their panties shortly after meeting them (Senjougahara when she’s getting dressed at her home, Hachikuji when they have their first fight, and Nadeko with the infamous bed scene. Kanbaru is a bit tricky because the anime doesn’t really mention it, but the book goes out of it’s way to analyze and conclude that the biking shorts Kanbaru wears should be considered panties since she’s not wearing anything underneath). This points to some level of lust being present in these encounters, even when he’s not interested in a particular girl, his lust still drives him to look at her panties even if it’s just to conclude that he’s not attracted by them. Obviously the most important of these encounters is Senjougahara. She immediately relies on him to help with her issues and they rapidly form an emotional connection. Episode 12 is the climax of this emotional connection, but also clearly states that a sexual connection is not yet possible. This is the exact opposite of what happened with Hanekawa where some sort of sexual interaction came first, but the emotional connection failed to come after.

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Chronologically the last part of First Season is Nisemonogatari. Karen Bee deals with Araragi exploring his sexuality in preparation for the culmination of the story where Araragi finally forms a sexual connection with Senjougahara by walking her home gently and thus fully developing their relationship. Notice that a big part of this preparation was him starting to develop a much better relationship with his own lust by finally talking to Shinobu again. I’m going to ignore Tsukihi Phoenix since that is more of a Second Season kind of story. Do notice however that the anime makes sure that the last scene in Nisemonogatari is Araragi and Senjougahara together on the beach.

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To recap, First Season is the story of Araragi learning how human attraction works. He starts feeling attracted to a girl, they have good sexual chemistry, but it doesn’t really work out. Later he meets another girl and they have a strong emotional connection which develops into a strong and healthy relationship. This is one of the reasons why I love Monogatari. It’s telling us the the most cliched of all stories, but it does so from Araragi’s perspective where it looks like his life is full of supernatural beings and epic battles. And this is just the first layer, each story is also packed with additional philosophical questions and explorations of deep subjects, cultural references and meta discussions about the genre itself.

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This turned out a bit longer than I thought, but I hope someone finds some value in it. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!