The Dark and Beautiful in Kizumonogatari 3-part Film

Studio: Shaft (tehe!)

Aired: January 2016 – 2017, 3-part movie

10/10, would most highly recommend and watch over and over again

One day I was really craving a decent vampire story, or rather an anime/manga featuring a vampire. I’m honestly surprised there aren’t more out there, because movies & tv, video games, and literature are saturated with them.

I came across Bakemonogatari, technically the 3rd installment chronologically in the Monogatari series, a story about a sarcastic & somewhat perverted but composed teen Koyomi who finds himself catching a weightless tsundere Hitagi (Senjogahara) and things get rolling from there. I enjoyed the series so friggin’ much and eventually I found that a prequal 3-part movie was made, under the title Kizumonogatari.

It depicted how Koyomi meets his vampire shadow Shinobu, or rather Kiss-shot Acerola-orion Heart-under-blade *takes deep breath* and how one favor can change someone’s life forever as well as lead to a series of unintended fortunate and unfortunate events.

The opening scene is absolutely f@cking wild and ranks my top 3 best openings of all time (I’m dead serious). I won’t spoil it, but the suspenseful build-up is phenomenal, and what happens at the end of the scene actually made me jump in my seat and gasp like a little kid seeing a shiny toy for the first time.

For me, it depicts how paranoia and the existential realization of the character that he isn’t the same person he once was and never will be… can break a man. It’s absolutely genius writing and the intense buildup is worth several rewatches.

So backtrack, how did Koyomi, the naive teen who’s only heard about the supernatural (and girls) end up where he is in the opening scene?

All it takes is curiosity and a little push.

Minor spoilers throughout ahead! But even then it is SO worth watching. Trust me.

After talking with the ‘no-it-all’ Hanekawa, whose bust has more personality than she ever could (not to diss her, she’s a decent character, but Koyomi deserves better, and gets better) touting rumors of vampires and whatnot, Koyomi musters up the courage (and the labedo) to prove her theory wrong (I can hear her words echoing at me “I don’t know everything. I only know what I know!”).

Entering the subway station at night (you know, what normal teens do when they’re bored), he hears a sound and follows it down (is that the best idea? I’d shriek and run as fast as I could damnit!) and he finds a most interesting scene indeed.

A pool of blood.

A beautiful pale blonde woman.

Her decapitated limbs bleeding out on the floor of the subway tunnel.

A cry for help.

And his reaction, although humorous, is completely appropriate for anyone in his shoes; fear for one’s own life and the realization that something beautiful yet so monstrous such as a vampire, a supernatural being, could exist in this world.

So why didn’t he just leave her to die (a second death)? He was so close to turning away and exiting that baffling scene, but her agonizing cries of apology:

“Gomen’nasai! Gomen’nasai! Gomen’nasai!”

Crawling with all her remaining strength to reach him.

To him, it was like the cry of a baby and he couldn’t abandon her. He approaches her helpless body and lets her drink his blood, the start of a beautiful yet complex relationship that’ll last the rest of their undead lives.

And thus his life was changed, forever (dun, dun, DUN!).

Back to the beginning scene, we’re like “oooooh so that’s what happened!” and why he was so nervous and on edge. So after nearly dying (again), he wakes up saved by a cute lil donut-obsessed girl, Shinobu (SHINOBUUU!) who just so happens to be Kiss-shot, just a weaker form of herself.

I’m not going to go through the entire 3-part film, but those few scenes I just described really stuck with me even today, as I haven’t seen another scene in anime or manga like it, with immense suspenseful build-up, facial expressions that really show the emotions of the characters and what’s going through their heads, and a highly climatic finish that leaves me satisfied.

Koyomi learns of the supernatural world from both the posh Shinobu, and Oshino, the relaxed apparition-hunter with swagger that is good at reading emotions with his catchphrase “What’s wrong Koyomi? Did something good happen to you?”.

So Koyomi is tasked with retrieving Shinobu’s limbs to restore her to her full power (because that’s obviously a wonderful idea) and one by one he faces a formidable foe, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and Shinobu eats her legs and arms up like that’s just the normal thing to do (yummm).

So when all is done and well, Koyomi and Kiss-shot have a rather fulfilling and cute bonding experience on the rooftop at night, talking, sitting, dancing, and playing around together, and it just made me happy to watch.

The ‘Master – Servant’ Relationship Koyomi and Shinobu (Kiss-shot) start off with evolves over the course of the series. What at first may seem like a one-sided kind, where one serves the other as a pawn, later develops into a co-dependent relationship, where one cannot live without the other.

But of course it’s not that simple, and Koyomi is a dumb@ss for not realizing it, but vampires have to eat, and what do they eat? *facepalm* HUMAN FLESH (did you guess that right?) and his world is just torn upside down when he finds her chomping away at the scumb@g priest guy he fought.

Then there’s this weird scene with Hanekawa and Koyomi talking about the situation and his fantasies play out in his head and it’s just pretty weird and ecchi, but he has self control and that makes him a half-decent protagonist.

So then is the final showdown, and boy did I pause to take screenshots and rewatched the fight over and over again because of how f*cking bad@ss, awesome, and hilarious it was.

The setting is a football stadium, and Koyomi and the newly revived Kiss-shot go head to head to the death, but it also seemed kinda playful. I don’t have every scene memorized, but there’s one particular scene that makes me laugh quite a bit.

It was when the pair just comically start punching each other’s heads off, but because they’re vampires they just keep regenerating their heads over and over, and soon the entire football stadium is just full of their heads rolling around (reminds me of the song “Heads Will Roll”).

Kiss-shot does some brutal things to Koyomi’s body. Realizing his strength and skills are f@cking garbage compared to hers, he tries running away, only to fail miserable.

He gets in a few hits as well; one time he torpedoes himself through her chest and her blood just clogs his nostrils, but another time she drags his body across several seats and tosses him around. They wreck the stadium.

It’s an awesome fight scene, but when it comes to finishing her, he consults a witnessing Oshino and makes a very interesting decision I wasn’t immediately expecting.

Hope I didn’t spoil too much if you haven’t seen it. but really you should watch Bakemonogatari first and look up the order from there (that’s what I did at least). Kizumonogatari was made a bit after a part of the series so the relationship between the characters like Koyomi and Shinobu have already been established before its release.