In Kizumonogatari we find out all the details about Koyomi’s dark encounter with the supernatural that changed his life. It’s easy to believe the story this time will feel repetitive because so much was hinted already, but this is no mere recap. It’s remarkable how he manages to keep readers on their toes, regardless of the fact that we know the precise outcome from Bakemonogatari. They’re genuinely exciting and suspenseful, thanks to being more roughly described, allowing me to paint the scenes vividly in my head, instead of stumbling over every single fixed movement. Rather than being tedious, the fight sequences in Kizumonogatari turn out to be the highlights this time around. Surprisingly however, Nishio seems to have levelled up his writing skills between books. In my previous review I also voiced complaints about how battle scenes left me cold, and it was clear at the outset that this volume would contain more action than the other arcs.
Knowing this I was a bit apprehensive, thinking it would lead to less opportunities for the dialogues that make Nishio’s writing so great. As a consequence, most of the girls introduced in the previous books are completely absent from this one. While Kizumonogatari was published 18 months after the first two volumes, it’s actually a prequel taking place over the spring break, about a month before Koyomi meets Hitagi in the first arc of Bakemonogatari. It took no more than two sentences to get back into the groove. After taking a little break from the Bakemonogatari series, reading a few books by other authors, I finally dug into Kizumonogatari, which is the third novel about Araragi Koyomi.
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