Kizumonogatari just reassures my love for the monogatari series since I have watched the anime adaptation previously. With the context of the next arcs I can say that the core themes of the series are all beautifully teased and encapsulated in this arc. Araragis character arc The beginning of Araragis character arc felt underwhelming to me in the anime but in the novel the insight that is we get to his thoughts made it much more detailed as I expected because the story is narrated by him. In my opinion his arc is beautiful mostly because of his dynamic with hanekawa and kissshot that made him appreciate more the value of relationships. In the beginning he stated that having friends lowered his intensity as a human and having hanekawa as his friend made him literally be less human by the end. And through his vow with Heartunderblade he learned the importance and value of relationships by licking each others wounds 220https://i.pin.com/originals/0e/9b/43/0e9b4318860ddeccee9f61e23ac088b5.jpg Araragis dynamic After reading acerolabonapptit aka kissshots backstory in wazamonogatari I was able to appreciate kissshot and ragis dynamic much more and I also think it is mandatory to understand shinobu as a character. This dynamic displays one of the main themes in all of Monogatari What do we owe to each other and what do we owe to ourselves. Araragi saw himself in kissshot when she wanted to die because when he sacrificed himself he only understood death from his selfish perspective but as he developed his relationship with hanekawa he saw the consequences of death for other people. Also through hanekawa he learned not to escape from reality through death but to live awkwardly/ find a reason to live a conclusion that he passed on to shinobu. After all he gave kissshot what she needed not what she wanted and that is a part of relationships what might be better for us might not be what we want. Having wounded each other the two of us licked each others wounds. Damaged goods both we sought out each other. If you want to die tomorrow Im ready for my life to end tomorrowif you care to live for today then so will I I vowed out loud After all I think Araragi was partly right in the beggining by saying that having friends would only birng weakness to his life but he only had one perspective. As the story develops he gets another perspective that he adopted from hanekawa and that he applies with kissshot. Friends can give wounds to each other but can also lick them. 220https://1.bp.blogspot.com/VvxSQe9lJE/YTASvjghJjI/AAAAAAAAFgM/dj70nWuJWPUC6m1rH7NBYXXoJZvkq5gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Kizumonogatari.jpg Spoiler for wazamonogatari Some scattered thoughts Really liked Oshinos role and how it plays a big role in araragis conclusion of There are also some other aspects about Dramaturgy Episode and Guillotine Cutter that are interesting but there is already a video on about them Another thing that is cool is the characterization trough sexuality but I dont know much about it to put it in the review but there are some videos on about it too Conclusion Koyomi vamp just solidified my feelings from the monogatari series and might make me read all of the novels from the start. The rating might seem low for how much I praised this arc but an 85 for me means amazing and its great there are some things that are better and remember that this is only the begging of the story. Feel free to DM me if you want to discuss about it.