Launching the third or “Final Season” of the international cult-hit series, Possession Tale returns the narrator’s headset back to high school senior and amateur savior Koyomi Araragi, who used to eschew friendship once upon a time because it’d lower his “intensity as a human”—a loner’s misgiving that was perhaps on the mark in a different way than he intended.
 
At issue now is not the precarious fate of one of his cherished confrères, or rather consœurs, whom he’d aid, sight unseen, with a monster’s resilience, but his own aberrant state and its prolonged abuse. If everything comes with a bill, and if no man is an island, then is the price of self-sacrificing amity—and the bloodshed it ironically occasions—becoming inhuman for good?
 
That being said! Our hero, whose first name means “calendar” but who has none in his room, sees no need to rush, so, on our way to the profound mysteries of the superhuman aspect, expect a super-shallow deconstruction of the alarm clock. On hand this volume to (hardly ever) humor his humor: his little sisters, a living doll of a corpse, and its violent mistress.
 
(Source: Kodansha USA)

Third season of the Monogatari Series, part 1/5. Contains the arc Yotsugi Doll from the Tsukimonogatari light novel.
 
One day in February, Koyomi Araragi was taking a bath with his younger sister Tsukihi amidst finishing his studies for the college entrance exam. This was also following the incident involving Nadeko Sengoku, which was successfully amended behind the scenes by Deishu Kaiki. Koyomi noticed a change on his body “that could not be overlooked” and sought advice from Shinobu Oshino leading him to contact Yozuru Kagenui and Yotsugi Ononoki. Was this change signifying retribution for everything that Koyomi has done?!
 
(Source: Aniplex)

A short promotional video cross-promoting Monogatari and Okitegami Kyouko no Bibouroku.


Circling back to a middle school girl’s apotheosis, if we can call it that, in OTORIMONOGATARI, and the mortal threat it poses to the hero and his girl, this “Season Two” finale is narrated, for the first time in the series, by a grown-up—but if the word conjures a sense of reliability, of stability and certainty to you, dear reader, then the lesson to take home from this is to trust no one.
 
Because the teller of the tale, who has been summoned by the heroine to defuse the situation, despite having been her nemesis since the very outset of the series, is—in the absence of the equally shady adult, Oshino, who at least was an expert—none other than his college frenemy, the fake ghostbuster who doesn’t believe in ghosts, the shameless swindler Deishu Kaiki.
 
And it is indeed a con that he agrees to perpetrate, uncharacteristically pro bono, on a wrathful god—a mythic undertaking if true, which it may be, when a liar among liars holds that his story, like any other, is all a lie. But maybe not, when a man who claims to be wise in the ways of the world sounds just as self-conscious as his adolescent counterparts or a Russian anti-hero.
 
(Source: Kodansha USA)

Calendar Tale, narrated by our titular hero, sends us to various earlier points in the story where certain events had yet to occur—when, for instance, the shady “expert” Oshino was still in town, and the ex-legendary vampire Shinobu hadn’t tired of sulking in a corner. After revisiting with a “case files” feel of the series’ origins, we will start to catch up to the present moment until we are violently spliced back into the overarching plot.
 
Weaving in a motif of ways, paths, roads, and streets—walks of life—the nostalgic vignettes hark back to the “case files” feel of the series-launching Monster Tale, but with a twist. Not all oddities are supernatural: stones and flowers; sand and water; the wind and the tree can just be plain weird without being aberrations. The vignettes for the months of October to March deal with six ladies who are either not quite human or older than titular narrator Koyomi Araragi, bless his bantering soul.
 
In this instalment, say hello from the future to class president among class presidents Hanekawa, acid-tongued girlfriend Senjogahara, cheeky lost child Hachikuji, smutty athlete Kanbaru, pathologically shy Sengoku, and justice-loving martial artist Karen, young ladies who love to make our young man sweat. See how he handles—or is handled by—aberration of a little sister Tsukihi, enigma of a freshman or -woman Ougi, shadow of a legendary vampire Shinobu, corpse of a tween girl Ononoki, psychopath of a monster expert Kagenui, and know-it-all of a Machiavellian fixer Izuko Gaen.
 
(Source: Kodansha USA, edited)
 
Note: The English release was split across two volumes, instead of the original singular volume.

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