Bakemonogatari Light Novel Japanese

[Shanta Plansinis]

Monogatariis a Japanese light novel series written by Nisio Isin and illustrated by Vofan. The plot centers around Koyomi Araragi, a third-year high school student who survives a vampire attack and subsequently finds himself helping girls involved with a variety of apparitions, ghosts, beasts, spirits, and other supernatural phenomena.

The series began as three short stories serialized in Kodansha's Mephisto magazine between the September 2005 and May 2006 issues, which were later collected in a light novel volume published in Japan on November 2, 2006. Kodansha released 29 volumes in the series under its Kodansha Box imprint. Each of the 29 entries in the series share the common title suffix -monogatari (物語, lit. "story"). In 2015, Vertical licensed the novel series for English release.[1] The company began its paperback line with Kizumonogatari on December 15, 2015,[2] and later released the Bakemonogatari novels in three volumes: the first in December 2016, the second in February 2017, and the third in April 2017.[3] As of December 2020, the novels in the series up to Zoku Owarimonogatari have been translated.[4]

The English audiobook version of Kizumonogatari was released on May 25, 2016 by Bang Zoom! Entertainment with narration done by Keith Silverstein, Eric Kimerer, and Cristina Vee.[57] The audiobook for Nekomonogatari (White) was released on April 9, 2019 with narration done by Cristina Vee, Eric Kimerer, and Erica Mendez.[58] The audiobook for the three volumes of Bakemonogatari were released on March 24, 2020 with narration done by Eric Kimerer, Cristina Vee, Erica Mendez, and Keith Silverstein.[59]

The Japanese audiobook version of the entire series began release by Kodansha via Audible on February 17, 2021. Each novel features narration by the voice actors/actresses of the anime adaptation. It released one novel each month until June 16, 2023, with the second volume of Shinomonogatari.[60][61]

Kodansha revealed that Mijikanamonogatari (短物語ミジカナモノガタリ, "Short Story" or "Short Stories") was scheduled to be released July 3, 2024 (ISBN 978-4-06-536177-1).[102] The book will contain 38 short stories, 32 of which were previously released[c] and 6 new stories:[103] On June 12, 2024, Kodansha announced that the book would be delayed after it was discovered that a story that should have been included was inadvertently left out.[104]

Mazemonogatari (混物語マゼモノガタリ) is a collection of short stories featuring characters from Nisio Isin's other works. Twelve of these stories were first distributed in Japanese cinemas during the Japanese theatrical releases of Kizumonogatari Part 1: Tekketsu,[105] Kizumonogatari Part 2: Nekketsu[106] and Kizumonogatari Part 3: Reiketsu.[107] A collected volume of these stories, alongside three previously unpublished ones, was published by Kodansha on February 6, 2019.[108] (ISBN 978-4-06-513292-0)

Even though the first two volumes were published in 2006, its English counterpart (separated in three books) was only published in 2016 and 2017. Why did it take so long ? After all, the light novels were a success and the animated series began in 2009 (in Japanese with English subtitles). The problem is the following: Nishio Ishin is way too good at Japanese pop culture and at playing on Japanese words and symbols (kanji). His novels are full of references to other Japanese works, Japanese news and Japanese laws. In what world would that be possible to translate for an American public ?

Most translated TV shows that I watch sound like garbage. This comes from a lack of budget or efforts from the producers. On the other hand, the Monogatari series took its time to be translated for a reason: it was to assure its quality and pay honour to its great author, finally giving birth to novels that I absolutely enjoy reading.

The Monogatari series has become a cult hit among fans, and thanks to its many anime adaptations it continues to be one of the most talked about franchises of today. The series originated with a set of light novels written by Nisio Isin and illustrated by Vofan in which the hero, Koyomi Araragi, who was himself briefly a vampire, comes to assist various girls who have supernaturally themed problems.

Now you can experience this series which is much loved for its wordplay and metahumor for yourself in its original version thanks to this complete set of all 18 volumes of the original Japanese light novel.

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If you're into anime (Japanese animation) or light novels (Japanese young adult novels), you may have noticed that in recent years, titles have gotten a little... long. And not just long, but distinctly sentence-like. You'll have titles like "So I'm a Spider, So What?", "I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level" and "Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?" Compare this to previous titles like "Bakemonogatari" (a pun on 'bakemono', monster, and 'monogatari', stories).

This looks at the change of length in English language translations. I also recommend this accompanying piece at Otaquest, which looks at the change in Japanese, and this genre-based analysis by jgeekstudies.

Both Red Bard and jgeekstudies seem to agree that light novel title lengths began increasing dramatically in 2014. The jgeekstudies paper mentions that the long titles are most common in the fantasy and isekai genres. 'Isekai' is a genre based around a person who is transported to another world and has to live there now. "Sword Art Online" is an example of a popular isekai work. The three titles I mentioned in the open paragraph are also either fantasy or isekai.

Red Bard speculates that light novels have become so long as a way to give a very neat plot summary and hook readers in right away. Light novels are displayed with the spine outwards, so having an attention-grabbing title can cause a potential reader to check out the book and its actual summary in a way a one-word title might not.

I'm not a big consumer of isekai anime, so I don't have a representative sample, but I have watched "I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level" and I don't know if I'd really call the title a good summary of the story. The plot begins with a young woman who dies of overwork, and is reincarnated as an immortal into a video game fantasy world by a goddess who takes pity on her. She decides to live a carefree, slow life and only kills a handful of slimes each day. After 300 years, she has, indeed, 'maxed out her level' by killing slimes.

However, this barely has any relation to the real story, which involves her becoming an adoptive mom for two slime spirits, building a chosen family, and generally getting into hijinks. Her having maxed out her level is more an excuse for her to be overpowered; her killing slimes for 300 years is related to the overall theme of avoiding overwork and choosing a slow life (raising her level slowly instead of grinding out powerful enemies every day). I would consider the title more of a hook of the absurb elements of the show than something that really has much to do with the rest of the plot.

Indeed, I think it's worth pointing out that these sentences are all humorous, or at least a little absurd. "So I'm a Spider, So what?" could have been called "I got reincarnated as a spider" - already a silly premise - but goes the extra length of being defensive about being reincarnated as a title. "Is it wrong to try to pick up girls in a dungeon" takes a funny concept and also makes the asker sound defensive or curious.

It's funny to consider that light novel titles are becoming full sentences compared to English language pop songs, which have gone the opposite direction from favoring sentences or titles to single words or phrases (previous posts here and here). I mention in a previous article that having a song title be a sentence picked out from a song's chorus was a good way to make your song memorable, which was important in a time before Shazam and internet on cell phones to look up song lyrics. Today, it's relatively easy to find out what a song's title is, so there's little risk to naming it something short and sweet from the beginning or end of the chorus.

It's just another part of enregistration, where something becomes popular due to some reason (an early innovator who struck gold with a highly recognizable example, random chance causing a cluster), is copied by people, and ultimately becomes a genre marker. If I see an anime titled something like "Yeah, it's true - my little sister got reincarnated as a yogurt after beating a video game", there's a pretty good chance it's going to be some kind of isekai or fantasy adapted from a light novel. The fact that it's so easily parody-able, as I just showed, also makes it very easy to produce - find something absurd in the premise of your book, add some kind of emotional coloring to it with a discourse marker, and you have a title that can intrigue readers and make them laugh while not challenging them stylistically. Profit!

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