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Review

by Nick Creamer,

Hanamonogatari

Sub.Blu-Ray - Suruga Devil

Synopsis:
Hanamonogatari Sub.Blu-Ray
Kanbaru doesn't know what to do with herself anymore. Her old friends Araragi and Senjougahara have moved on, graduating and leaving her behind. Her old regrets still linger, represented in the monkey's paw that remains fixed to her wrist. She's not a basketball player anymore, but if she isn't that, then what is she? Her mother once said “if you're not a cure, you should at least be a poison; otherwise you're just water.” But perhaps even being water might be better than the fate of her old rival, Numachi, who now grants wishes under the name of “Lord Devil.” Kanbaru knows all wishes come with a price, but what does she know of the one who grants them?
Review:

Monogatari has nothing left to prove. In the wake of Hitagi End, the show's central themes have been established, articulated, and hammered home. All of us deceive ourselves to make better, kinder worlds, all of us externalize our flaws and see demons outside ourselves, and none of us can be “rescued” from the pain of engaging with our own identities. Hanekawa's arc revealed the power and catharsis of truly embracing yourself, and Nadeko's demonstrated the wild destruction of imagining nothing is truly your fault. Araragi hasn't arrived at a real maturity yet, and still needs to give up his tendency towards martyrdom, but in larger terms, Monogatari's points have been made resoundingly clear.

So now we have another arc. According to the light novels' release chronology, this one actually comes before Nadeko Medusa, and it was ultimately put off and replaced by recaps during Second Season's broadcast run. Due to that positioning, you might think Hanamonogatari would be a retread, an unnecessary victory lap that revels in Kanbaru's Araragi-lite sex joke banter.

Fortunately, this arc is anything but.

Taking place after Araragi and Senjougahara's high school graduation, Hanamonogatari tells a self-contained story of Kanbaru coming to terms with her identity. Still bearing the monkey's paw that is the mark of her old desires, she can no longer play basketball, and feels uncertain of who she even is anymore. Her beloved senpais have left her behind, and her senior year has begun, but her path forward seems totally uncertain. She's haunted by her mother's voice in dreams, constantly scolding her for being not medicine or poison, but simply water. And her days are spent jogging and checking the newspapers, making sure she didn't attack anyone the night before.

Into this unhappy stasis, Hanamonogatari introduces Numachi Ryouka - an old basketball rival of Kanbaru's, now equally crippled by injury and without any real prospects. To fight her own feelings of emptiness, Numachi takes requests from high schoolers as the mysterious “Lord Devil,” promising to handle their problems, but ultimately just collecting and savoring the taste of their misery. Numachi's attitude disgusts Kanbaru, but she's not sure what she can do about this. And when Kanbaru wakes up to find her monkey's paw has been “collected” as well, her doubts only get worse.

Hanamonogatari is a classic coming-of-age story and fractured love story inside the Monogatari shell, reflecting on who Kanbaru has been and who she might become. Kanbaru struggles with her current actions, her regrets, her relationship with her mother, and even (especially) her fundamental identity. “I'm not even sure what's ‘typical of me’ anymore,” she says, and the challenges of Numachi and the other people around her constantly reinforce that central question. This tight focus and self-contained drama allows the arc to demonstrate even more nuance of characterization than Monogatari's usual top quality writing. We get to see many sides of Kanbaru here, as her various conversations reveal shades of personality that consistently make tangible the arc's constant refrain of “nobody is wholly one thing, no person or action is universally good or evil.”

This nuance of characterization also applies to this arc's side characters, with Kaiki in particular getting a brilliant one-episode cameo. Having apparently survived the events of Hitagi End (a great relief for all right-thinking people, I'm sure), he now reemerges to play the role of Kanbaru's weird but well-intentioned uncle, a job he was clearly born for. His mild calls for Kanbaru to make sure she doesn't trip and hurt herself as she's running away from him, and his attempts to overstuff her with meat because she looks far too thin, add some necessary humor to an arc that's otherwise one of the most subdued so far. Numachi also proves herself to be a compelling character and excellent foil for Kanbaru, helping to highlight the arc's points about how we define ourselves and move forward in spite of regrets while also working as a poignant character in her own right.

The storytelling is tight and focused throughout this arc, with a few core ideas constantly reflecting on themselves. The importance and consequences of making mistakes, the fear and difficulty of defining yourself and being defined by others, the ways we accept the past and engage with the future… all of Kanbaru's insecurities are examined from a number of angles, all leading up to a final reckoning with who she has been and who she wants to be. Ultimately, Hanamonogatari resolves in an unconditional optimism that offers hope for anyone struggling with their path in life - Kanbaru doesn't know everything, but she pursues what she knows she wants, and refuses to regret moving forward. In contrast to Monogatari's often wild visual games, the visual metaphors here are consistent and strongly reflective of the core themes. From the opening monologue about being “not cure or poison, but water” onward, water is a constant interloper in the frame, creeping into scenes whenever Kanbaru's anxieties start to get the best of her, reflecting her mother's constant, oppressive influence. And the arc is full of sequences of Kanbaru literally running from her troubles, with winding roads, tracks to nowhere, and vast horizons constantly evoking her sense of loneliness and lack of direction.

That's not to say the visuals don't go wild, too, as Hanamonogatari is actually one of Monogatari's most beautiful and visually creative arcs. Early on, the outdoor scenes bloom in all manner of colors, from the bright pinks and blues of cherry blossoms against sky (a moment reflecting Kanbaru's joy in freedom, and a motif that carries through right until the final scene) to the gorgeous oranges and purples of a vast sunset. The arc is full of new examples of Monogatari's tendency towards self-conscious stage framing, from Kanbaru and Numachi being framed almost voyeuristically through bleachers to Numachi actually confessing her sins on a spotlit stage. And episode four is a particular highlight, featuring all manner of unique visual tricks to reveal Numachi's memories. That episode is largely conveyed through loosely sketched, almost cut-paper looking characters, who wander jerkily across crumpled scenery as what look like the shadows reflected by a child's mobile drift ominously in the background. Characters exist as the shadows of drawings on stained paper, and rain is conveyed through what look like red chalk scratches on the frame. At one point, lovers being torn apart are represented by the shot literally being stained red and torn down the middle.

There are some visual issues, though. The show has trouble conveying the drama of a basketball match (the characters always seem to be floating, and there's no real sense of space or distance), and the CG basketballs themselves look somewhat out of place within the show's defiantly flat, almost sterile normal aesthetic. There also isn't a great deal of fluid animation, though what there is is used well - Kanbaru is a very expressive character, with her face and body language conveying a great deal about her shifting emotions. And the music is also a step up, with a diverse mix of piano, strings, and chimes alternately evoking the bright optimism of Kanbaru's freedom or the drama of her anxiety. There's even a couple more more variations on Kaiki's theme thrown in for good measure.

Hanamonogatari comes in the usual quality Monogatari packaging, featuring a set of postcards and a character booklet (complete with a standing shot of Kaiki in his meat-bib, of course). The bluray quality is as sharp as ever, though I wasn't a fan of the choice to put this arc's distinctive opening song right at the beginning of every episode. During its original streaming broadcast, the “opening” was reserved as a stinger for the show's finale, and it works far better as an epilogue, since it essentially gives away points the arc slowly builds towards and dances around. But overall, Hanamonogatari stands as one of the strongest entries yet in the Monogatari series, a thoughtful coming-of-age story that elevates one more member of Monogatari's incredibly rich cast of characters.

Grade:
Overall (sub) : A
Story : A
Animation : B
Art : A-
Music : A-

+ Tells a rich and poignant personal story that reveals new sides of Kanbaru; Numachi's flashbacks are one more visual highlight for the Monogatari greatest hits reel.
The arc has difficulty conveying tension or even just movement in its basketball matches; animation is somewhat limited throughout.

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Production Info:
Chief Director: Akiyuki Simbo
Director: Tomoyuki Itamura
Script:
Yukito Kizawa
Munemasa Nakamoto
Storyboard:
Tomoyuki Itamura
Hiroko Kazui
Mamoru Kurosawa
Kenjirō Okada
Toshimasa Suzuki
Unit Director:
Tomoyuki Itamura
Eiichi Kuboyama
Yukihiro Miyamoto
Kenjirō Okada
Toshimasa Suzuki
Music: Kei Haneoka
Original creator: NisiOisin
Original Character Design: VOfan
Character Design: Akio Watanabe
Art Director:
Hisaharu Iijima
Ken Naito
Chief Animation Director:
Taisuke Iwasaki
Nobuhiro Sugiyama
Akio Watanabe
Animation Director:
Issei Aragaki
Keiji Ishihara
Yoshiaki Itō
Taisuke Iwasaki
Yoshio Kosakai
Tsutomu Matsūra
Akihisa Takano
Shota Tsukiyama
Akio Watanabe
Takumi Yokota
Sound Director: Yota Tsuruoka
Director of Photography: Takayuki Aizu
Producer:
Atsuhiro Iwakami
Mitsutoshi Kubota
Takuya Matsushita
Licensed by: Aniplex of America

Full encyclopedia details about
Hanamonogatari (TV)

Release information about
Hanamonogatari - Suruga Devil (Sub.Blu-ray)

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