Tsukimonogatari

Tsukimonogatari

Tsukimonogatari cover art featuring Yotsugi Ononoki from the Monogatari series anime
Tsukimonogatari Cover Art

Overview

The only arc found in Tsukimonogatari is the Yotsugi Doll arc. Chronologically, this arc comes between the Hitagi End arc of Koimonogatari and the Suruga Devil arc of Hanamonogatari.

Tsukimonogatari is also the first entry in what is known as the “Final Season” of the Monogatari series. However, although it’s called the final season, there is a fourth season called the “Off Season” and a fifth season called the “Monster Season.”

Yotsugi Ononoki is the main girl of the Yotsugi Doll arc as you could probably guess from the title. Although Yotsugi is in the series before this point, I don’t think I’ve actually talked much about her yet.

Yotsugi is considered the familiar of the specialist Yozuru Kagenui who exterminates immortal apparitions. However, Yotsugi is herself an immortal apparition. She’s a living doll made from a human corpse.

Yotsugi Doll

The Yotsugi Doll arc begins with a series of events involving Koyomi and his sisters which results in him noticing that he’s becoming more like a full-on vampire than before. In order to solve this mystery, he decides to get in contact with Yozuru and Yotsugi.

As it turns out, Koyomi is slowly becoming used to being a vampire due to his repeated use of his vampiric powers. While this doesn’t seem like a big deal to him at first, it’s revealed that this process is irreversible, but won’t progress any further if he refrains from using his powers.

At some point during their discussion, Koyomi’s sisters, Karen and Tsukihi, along with Kanbaru whom with they were staying, are kidnapped by another specialist who is using them as bait to lure out Koyomi and Shinobu.

Teori Tadatsuru is the specialist in question and is sort of a combination of Oshino Meme and Yozuru Kagenui. He specializes in the extermination of immortal apparitions like Yozuru but also attempts to mediate between humans and apparitions like Oshino.

Koyomi takes Yotsugi with him to help him confront Teori because he and Shinobu aren’t able to rely on their vampiric powers anymore to fight. While Yotsugi suggests using herself as a weapon to kill Teori, Koyomi doesn’t want anyone to die and also wants to preserve what he sees as Yotsugi’s last piece of humanity.

However, in the end, Yotsugi does end up killing Teori just before he fights Koyomi. Karen, Tsukihi, and Kanbaru are all found safe and sound after the confrontation.

In this arc, we also get a little bit of information regarding something or someone working behind the scenes. When Koyomi and Yotsugi arrive at the snake shrine where they are to confront Teori, they find Ougi Oshino who seems to know all about the current situation.

Further, before the fight between Koyomi and Teori, Teori comments on how he doesn’t really want to fight Koyomi, but that it instead feels as though some unseen force is pitting them against each other against their wills.

Yotsugi Ononoki referencing Sailor Moon (from the anime Tsukimonogatari)
Yotsugi Ononoki Referencing Sailor Moon

Conclusion

As with most of the entries in the Monogatari series, Tsukimonogatari is another 10/10.

While Yotsugi isn’t my favorite character in the series, she probably does have my favorite character design of the series. Also, her reference to Sailor Moon is a plus, something Mayoi has also done in the series.

Next time I’ll be reviewing the first season of Owarimonogatari which covers the arcs Ougi Formula, Sodachi Riddle, Sodachi Lost, and Shinobu Mail so it should be a bit longer than this one.

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