Tracing influences: Boogiepop and Monogatari

Sometimes, you learn about things in the wrong (non-chronological) order. Something that came first naturally comes last to someone consuming a newer piece of media inspired by that very thing. Emotional resonance with the media that came later inspires research, a tracing of influences.

Due to gaps in my own anime-watching habits, I don’t have an emotional attachment to Takashi Watanabe’s 2000 anime adaptation Boogiepop Phantom, like many anime fans around my age. However, when I began to watch anime as it aired, one of the first series that resonated with me was Bakemonogatari in 2009. The Monogatari series light novels were penned by Nisio Isin, whose writing was inspired by Kouhei Kadono’s Boogiepop novel series.

All of this is a preface to my immediate reaction after watching the first two episodes of Boogiepop and Others.

It reminded me of Nadeko’s narrative in the Monogatari series.

(major spoilers for Nadeko Sengoku’s character arc in Monogatari)

[Two] I am thou, thou art I: the end of Monogatari (Owarimonogatari Season 2)

“I had believed that not taking care of myself was the act of loving others. The days of kind deception, filled with thin, weak euphoria have now come to an end.”

-Koyomi Araragi, Owarimonogatari Season 2, Episode 7

The Monogatari franchise is often incorrectly labeled as another harem where the male lead (Koyomi Araragi) saves a bevy of cute girls. Bakemonogatari starts this way, Nisemonogatari meanders, and it’s not until Monogatari Second Season that the series really begins unravel preconceived notions of the audience and in-universe characters. At the end of the long, emotionally-exhausting, and verbose journey, the series lays everything bare. Monogatari is not about saving others. It’s about saving yourself.

And only you can save yourself.

[Three] Nadeko Everything (Owarimonogatari Season 2)

“If the world can’t be the way I want

Then I have no use for it anymore

There’s only one thing I desire

Everything, everything, everything, everything.”

-Nadeko Sengoku, “Delusion Express,” Monogatari Series Season 2

Here in Monogatari Hell

For high school me, Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit was a revelation. It still has a firm place in my heart — The Little Prince was the first book I learned to read in French, but No Exit marked when I really felt that I could actually read the language with any amount of competency — and every subsequent reading has been an experience. It makes me think, even if it also makes me wonder just how much of my own young pretentiousness I’ve dragged along behind me as I’ve grown older.

I’ve often thought about why I return to No Exit. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly a reflection of my own personal preferences. Then again, Mayoi Hell is specifically about hell, so perhaps this framework fits Owarimonogatari better than most series.

The moment Koyomi Araragi begun wailing to Mayoi Hachikuji about being in hell, I couldn’t help but recall Joseph Garcin’s arrival and introduction to hell in No Exit. There are no torture devices, only a room furnished in the style of the French Second Empire.

Hell is not at all what he expected.

Monogatari Collection: Koyomimonogatari

One of the Monogatari series favorite tricks is playing with chronology. Adapting from the original Nisio Isin light novels which are also technically out of order chronologically, the anime series similarly scrambles the chronological order of its narrative arcs. This refocuses the series on the emotional development of specific characters that would otherwise be lost if the story was told in chronological order.

Airing immediately after Nekomonogatari: Kuro, Nekomonogatari: Shiro is the shining example of the Monogatari series’ success. Placing the two side-by-side thoroughly explores Tsubasa Hanekawa’s character growth from a time before the first Bakemonogatari series — and immediately after Kizumonogatari, the first arc in the chronological timeline — to nearly four months later.

Koyomimonogatari is a series of short stories collected into one light novel that span a large amount of time across what viewers are already familiar with, including the recent Owarimonogatari arcs of Ougi Formula, Sodachi Riddle, Sodachi Lost, and Shinobu Mail along with the theatrical release of Kizumonogatari‘s first film.