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SYSNOPSIS
March 25th—just another day during spring break. Koyomi Araragi, a second year high school student at Naoetsu High School, befriends Tsubasa Hanekawa, the top honors student at his school. Tsubasa mentions a rumor about a "blonde vampire" that has been sighted around their town recently. Koyomi, who is usually anti-social, takes a liking to Tsubasa's down-to-earth personality. That evening, Koyomi encounters this rumored vampire: she is Kiss-shot Acerola-orion Heart-under-blade, also known as the "King of Apparitions." The blonde, golden-eyed vampire cries out for Koyomi to save her as she lies in a pool of her own blood, all four of her limbs cut off. Kiss-shot asks Koyomi to give her his blood in order to save her life, and when he does, the very next moment he awakes, Koyomi finds himself re-born as her vampire kin. As Koyomi struggles to accept his existence, Kiss-shot whispers, "Welcome to the world of darkness..."
General Thoughts
This movie is the clear loser amongst the three kizumonogatari movies. With that said, it is also the most visually stimulating and stylized entry. If I'm being honest, I don't think I have much to say about this movie on it's own. I give it it's praise in it's very engaging visual and directing choices whether it be the best opening scene I've ever seen in a film with Araragi being burned up by the sun which just gave off a very uneasy feeling and also was a good indicator of the animation and art to come which are both phenomenal across all three films. It is also the most comedic out of the three with the detail of the car crashing after Hanekawa gets exposed never failing to make me laugh as it's such a strange and subtle detail that's easy to muss but very rewarding if you catch it, the way that Araragi gets horny after seeing Hanekawa and races to get material to relieve himself with the footage of that 3D train movie playing behind him, there are also what I refer to as the Looney Tunes moments where the animation style changes drastically to be much more simple and rounded, (they even have the old disney eyes that you would see in old mickey mouse cartoons) during scenes of slapstick comedy between Araragi and Kiss-Shot. This movie and the others feel like a love letter to animation and it's history just by virtue of the changing art and animation styles throughout the film, combining 3D with 2D animation constantly which looks absolutely stunning a lot of the time and they even mix the 2D animation with live-action in addition to changing it's style for different comedic effects. You could just feel the passion bleeding through the screen when you watch this trilogy of movies.
Character Re-Introductions
In addition to that, the character introductions were quite fascinating especially considering their characters before this point. Araragi's loner attitude was an odd choice considering his dedication to help others in Bake but it is that very dedication that causes him to want to avoid people in the first place since he is highly empathic and would find it very troubling to share emotions with another person as he would see it as a burden to both himself and that other person which I found to be an interesting take on the loner character archetype. There's also Hanekawa's introduction where I was off-put by how bubbly and playful she seemed toward Araragi. Then there's also Kiss-Shot who feels the most different to how we would have previously known her as (for obvious reasons). She's much more energetic and playful here and they even bother to make her speak very formal, archaic Japanese, or at least that's what the sub I saw would indicate. We also get the intimidating presences of Dramaturgy, Episode and Guillotine Cutter who were made clear to be very threatening in both kiss-Shot's description of them as well as Araragi's encounter with them and the reveal of their designs which either serve to be large and imposing (Dramaturgy), have a loud overwhelming personality attached (Episode), or be more enigmatic and unsuspecting like they would retain the element of surprise and you would have no idea what they could do (Guillotine Cutter). Then of course, we have the same old Oshino which is by no means a bad thing as we get his very relaxed, cool in the face of danger, reliable and pragmatic personality which is refreshing to see in the crazy world of Monogatari. I just find it very refreshing to see how different Araragi, Hanekawa and Kiss-Shot felt in this movie because it makes it much easier to see them as people with an actual history behind them who are constantly changing as opposed to being stagnant and unchanging, makes it feel like they respect how they write these characters and it's an indicator of the change they will go through after the journey of the 3 films.
Narrative and Closing Thoughts
Just like Bake, this film more so forms the purpose of introducing the grand story to be told rather than telling it's own story. It sets up Araragi's character well where he chooses to help Kiss-Shot despite the graphic gore of her body and his fear at both what he's seeing and the confirmation of the existence of the supernatural through her vampiric nature, showing his dedication of life to others, even at the cost of his own. They also establish the arc of Araragi opening himself to others through Hanekawa as well as the goal to defeat Dramaturgy, Episode and Guillotine Cutter to retrieve body parts they stole from Kiss-Shot in order to give her back all her strength as well as give her the ability to turn Araragi into a human once more, then there's the information on how he would be able to turn back into a human left up in the air, which we know from Bake doesn't quite work out so we expect a complication in the solution. This film was very enjoyable on it's own but in all honesty probably doesn't even deserve the very high rating I'm giving it which is more for the part it plays in the entirety of the plot as well as for the animation, character, comedy, dialogue and directing which are always excellent elements throughout the Monogatari series. It might just be an introduction to the story, but it certainly is a strong one and made an impact on it's own merits. See you at the next movie and check out these better reviews
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