Nekomonogatari (Black)

[Archangel]

Alternative Title: 猫物語(黒)

Type: TV
Episodes: 4
Source: Light Novel
Producers: Shaft
Genres: Comedy, Supernatural

Synopsis: After that spring break when he met a beautiful vampiress, just before meeting that girl who fell from the sky, on the first day of Golden Week, Araragi Koyomi and class-rep Hanekawa Tsubasa bury a tailless cat which had been run over by a car. Normally, that would be a trivial matter, but in this case, it leads to the "Nine Days' Nightmare".


Resources: ANN | AniDB | MyAnimeList

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[UTW-Mazui] - 720p

[shinta|hikari]

Excellent and utterly sad, for Tsubasa at least.

[Buffalobiian]

Commie - Episode 02

[Buffalobiian]

Commie - Episode 03

[Archangel]

I'll just wait until they're all released and then spruce up the thread a bit.

[Marik]

[UTW-Mazui] Nekomonogatari Black [720p] [4C075E10].mkv

All 4 eps together.

[Archangel]

Anyone else thinks the gatari series are getting a little grating? Maybe it was just the lack of other comic relief characters to dissipate the tension but all this drama was really starting to annoy me towards the end.

Why the fuck must all they say and feel be so complicated? Get over yourselves you pretentious pricks.

[Buffalobiian]

Anyone else thinks the gatari series are getting a little grating? Maybe it was just the lack of other comic relief characters to dissipate the tension but all this drama was really starting to annoy me towards the end.

I don't know if I can call it grating, but I do feel that nothing here lives up to the first 13 or so episodes of Bakemonogatari. Is the attraction getting old (verbal stuff), or is it the lack of Hitagi spicing things up?

I'm not too sure, but in either case, Hanekawa's carnal display was a nice substitute. (I'm also becoming quite a Tsukihi fan)

[Kraco]

I don't know if I can call it grating, but I do feel that nothing here lives up to the first 13 or so episodes of Bakemonogatari.

Then maybe it will gladden you to know that starting in July, there will be a second season of Bakemonogatari, running no less than half a year. According to somebody from the internets, the volumes it'll be based on are mostly more similar to the original Bakemonogatari than Nise or Neko.

[shinta|hikari]

Isn't that what this series is about? If you want simple characters, the entire anime industry is saturated with them.

I actually like the serious parts of the monogatari series. There is still humour in there, so I don't find it boring to watch them. I actually find Nadeko and Hachikuji to be less likable than the others (which is usually unlikely of me) just because they are too simple.

[Kraco]

The central characters indeed are pretentious and express everything 1000% more complicated that they really needed, but just like Shinta said, that's what makes this show so different. The dialogue and story still work perfectly. The characters don't fail because of that like in more average shows that try to reach beyound the author's capability. It's quite remarkable how the author still could keep this story so solid and meaningful despite all that mumbojumbo, and how it continues to sound so convincing, after its own fashion. Maybe it's because this is all about beliefs and the mind, after all, not anything more concrete than that, despite all the bloody action.

[Uchiha Barles]

Yeah...that was definitely pretentious. The two previous series didn't feel that way. So much of what he said was rubbing me the wrong way too in that final talk with Hanekawa before the "fight". "Don't use misfortune as a platform for growth." Really? what a douchebag. I'd like to think that that particular statement was an attempt to piss her off, but so much of what he said in that supposed attempt appeared afterwards when he was being "genuine". I couldn't make heads or tails of what he meant. Also, wtf is wrong with Hanekawa that he doesn't want to love her? Makes no sense. His reasoning was, I think, "you showed me how to care for others, so now I'm going to fall in love with someone who's not you." Some hipster with bad grades in philosophy class must've written this.

On a positive note, I enjoyed the lore, and I enjoyed the artwork.

[shinta|hikari]

Araragi getting together with Hanekawa while his feelings are mostly extreme gratitude and not romantic love will only end up in suffering for them both. He knew this, so he decided to not to pursue it. He already knew this when he realized that he wanted to die for Hanekawa, a feeling different from loving someone. You may choose to die for the person you love if necessary, but you don't want such a situation to arise. He did.

Araragi has always been a preachy idiotic asshole with no concern for other people's wills. That is why he got along so well with Hitagi, who is a more extreme version of him, without the idiocy.

Kizumonogatari should have been shown before Nise and this.

[Uchiha Barles]

Araragi getting together with Hanekawa while his feelings are mostly extreme gratitude and not romantic love will only end up in suffering for them both. He knew this, so he decided to not to pursue it. He already knew this when he realized that he wanted to die for Hanekawa, a feeling different from loving someone. You may choose to die for the person you love if necessary, but you don't want such a situation to arise. He did.

I mean, it's one thing to not love someone for whatever reason, but it's another to swear off *ever* loving said person, which is what he did. Hanekawa is awesome in every respect, I can't quite find the flaw she has or the mistake she made that would cause him to just swear her off. I don't get it, but whatever. The show was good though. I just really, *really* wanted to crack a solid body electric guitar over his skull.

Araragi has always been a preachy idiotic asshole with no concern for other people's wills. That is why he got along so well with Hitagi, who is a more extreme version of him, without the idiocy.

Yeah...I'm starting to see that.

[Kraco]

I don't get it, but whatever.

That's because you are not Arararagi. It makes perfect sense to him. After these three shows, surely you have noticed he's not the most sane person around (although considering his acquaintances I guess everything's relative). In fact, his personality ought to be an integral part of why he's at the center of all these weird incidents.

[shinta|hikari]

It's not Hanekawa's fault. It's how Araragi feels after Hanekawa helped him with his problem before. Hanekawa is awesome, and Araragi would be the first to agree to that. However, his feelings are already distorted by past events and he believes they cannot be changed, so he decided not to go after Hanekawa.

[Yukimura]

Right after the end my only thought was that the only lasting thing I'd take away from watching this was that Hanekawa has an absolutely fabulous lingerie collection (much better than Senjogahara's in my opinion). Upon further reflection though I have to tip my hat to Nekomonogatai for finally managing to inform me on why the *gatari series is so liked by those fans who's interest has baffled me for so long.


There was talking and talking and talking but in the end none of what was said seemed to matter within the story and I didn't enjoy that very much and felt bored through most of the verbal sparring. It's one thing to use complexity in dialogue to convey a very complicated subject in a more 'authentic' manner, but this didn't feel like that. It felt like a straightforward story about a couple of teenagers going through some typical teenage angst that was then dressed up with layer upon layer of verbal complexity. In fact, the complexity of the dialogue seemed to be the purpose of the whole endeavor rather than a means of conveying some narrative or thematic purpose.


Now that I look back I can recall a lot of similar instances in Bake- and Nise- of verbal complexity that only really existed for the sake of the audience that appreciates it but I didn't pick up on it as readily because there was also a lot of narrative and theme, which I am much more interested in, being handed out along with all the fancy talking. With Neko- I knew/could guess the narrative, and the themes weren't particularly new or thought provoking and I finally realized that I spent over an hour listening to people talk very prettily though a story that could be told in about 20 minutes and that the talking itself was a significant part of the intended draw for the series. I finally 'get' that if you don't derive entertainment value from complex dialogue in its own right then there's going to be a great gaping hole in your potential for enjoying this series and that's the likely source of the enthusiasm gap I've always felt between myself and other fans on this subject.

[Buffalobiian]

Yeah, UTW's video preview suggested as much.

While I do say that the first 13-ish episodes of Bake were the best, I still enjoyed the latter shows for what they're worth as well. Maybe the amped fanservice was in recognition that they needed to fill the gap somehow? In any case, it partially worked.