220https://i.ur.com/726JMbt.png 220https://i.ur.com/5YdtpZL.png 220https://i.ur.com/VqluBdx.png Im going to try to be spoilerfree for anyone potentially wanting to get into the light novels like me considering that this is the first entry in the series. The Monogatari series is a very very long series. For anyone trying to get into it you better be ready to invest at least a couple of months to read all of it and thats only if you plan to binge it. Also if you dont like reading books because that is quite literally what light novels are then do not bother. Though if you do manage to get through Bakemonogatari then youve already read one of the longest parts of the series. Bakemonogatari and the entire Monogatari series is from a first glance a light novel about some guy meeting a bunch of girls and then getting into a somewhat ridiculous amount of lewd fanservicey moments. And yeah that is essentially a big part of it and a big part of the appeal of the series. Apart from that though Bakemonogatari is a light novel about a bunch of people who through an encounter with a socalled aberration/apparition/oddity depending on the translation basically a monster hence the title with bakemono meaning monster end up with pretty major problems in their lives and who through a coincidental meeting or past relation to the protagonist Araragi Koyomi end up solving said problems. This formula is the same for all 5 arcs comprising Bakemonogatari and though you might imagine that this would end up being quite repetitive it doesnt. All the arcs are completely different in every sense be it the characters or aberrations introduced. I would say that one exception would be the character of Hanekawa who happens to be the first girl introduced in the series and who appears throughout the entire novel before finally getting her own arc which also happens to be the final and longest arc of Bakemonogatari. What this plot structure does is make you feel used to the concept of aberrations which ends up being one of the main parts of the entire series. Apart from that you are introduced to some of the main characters of the entire series the 5 girls who end up having more arcs further in the series. All of this including the running gags essentially tell you what a lot of the novels are going to be like hence why Bakemonogatari is a perfect introduction to the series as a whole. Other than that as it is the first part of a series though it wasnt at first intended to be a series spanning you know 30 volumes Bakemonogatari sets up the relationship of Araragi and Senjougahara which ends up being one of the main plots which essentially lasts and develops throughout the 30 volumes or so. Quite frequently there would be mentions of certain events happening before the time that the events of Bakemonogatari take place namely certain events involving Hanekawa during Golden Week or Araragi during spring break. So Bakemonogatari ultimately ends after about a 1000ish pages with the questions of what exactly happened before the story how in the world did Araragi become a vampire and why is there an eightyearold vampire girl which ultimately leads to those being answered in the next entry Kizumonogatari.