Zen Exclusive - Nisemonogatari Episode 1 Reaction

Yep, teenager Araragi is crazy with his antics as per usual. I'm not sure if you've noticed or someone has clarified it but pretty much every Monogatari opening is sung by female actress of the arc from their in-character perspective. I'm not sure what release you're using Joseph, but I recommend the Coalgirls release. Like others said, the previews have no spoilers and some releases don't have subs for them. I think your mods can point you in the right direction for that release, ask them. Once again, thanks for doing these reactions! I know you love doing this, but getting stuff up late or postponed a little is absolutely no problem so have a little leeway in mindset there. Take care!

Anthony

Speaking of the theme and meaning of Nisemonogatari, this episode already started establishing it hard (people almost always get distracted even on rewatches and that is kinda by design). The whole thing about life being a stage play and reality lurking behind the curtain, the shadow silhouettes, money and love, the wordplay of obscuring the meaning of a sentence by adding courage, lying to get the outcome you desire or even Tsukihi faking emotions to get a rise out of Koyomi (and even more things that I can't mention because of spoilers). It all already started and it saddens me that people still think that Nise is one of the weakest parts of Monogatari when in reality it is so super tightly written, it's insane how good it is. Guess what I am trying to say is, even if an episode seems like just a long big gag, there is always something important to be found in a scene of Monogatari.

dg_2drunk

Yup, forgot to mention it after Kizu but the previews are no longer previews but just after credits jokes now.

Stealth Potato

Monogatari really loves putting great conversations in between extremely over the top and more than slightly bad taste comedy scenes, Nise particularly given it starts off with it. Anyways time to finally get to know the sisters better, we only got a bit of Tsukihi in this episode but there's plenty of them in this season. Not particularly much to say about this episode aside from the conversation with Hachikuji being fantastic. so instead I'll put a bit of focus on the name of the season. Nisemonogatari being a portmanteau of Nisemono (an impostor, lit. fake person) and monogatari it like almost every name gives a hint as to the nature of the story in some way. Some times it's obvious like Bakemonogatari being a story about monsters, or less so like Kizumonogatari being a tale about the wounds and scars that were made in that story. Given how there's meaning put into the names of the various novels the series came from it seems appropriate to at least consider them a little bit going in.

Stealth Potato

Just a heads up, you can watch the previews from Nise 1 forward. There are no longer any spoilers on them because they aren't actually previews. The audio for them all (apart from the films) has always been banter between Araragi's sisters but the video itself spoiled the next episode. Now the preview "video" are just a handful of drawings that usually tell a different joke than the banter. This will be the case for the rest of the series until the previews eventually end up being dropped entirely.