Bakemonogatari, Part 1 by Nisioisin
At their school, there is a girl who is constantly unwell. She regularly misses gym because she gets there late, leaves early, or doesn’t show up at all. She is attractive, and the males start teasing her that she is a princess who lives in seclusion. They simply don’t realize what a monster she is, as the self-described worst loser in her class quickly learns.
So begins a story of unusual illnesses with otherworldly origins that are also profoundly illuminating the human psyche. This collection of case reports is equally prone to unexpected emotion and irreverent humour. So starts the storied novel that introduced the MONOGATARI series, whose anime adaptations have received praise from critics and fans alike.
Bakemonogatari, Part 1 by Nisioisin
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At the beginning of “Hitagi Crab,” when Koyomi catches the weightless Hitagi Senjogahara, he continues to look into Hitagi’s position by questioning several of her old classmates about her background. Hitagi threatens Koyomi with a box cutter and a stapler to keep her secrets private, but after a weird mention of a crab, Koyomi becomes insistent on helping her get back her lost scale weight. Once Koyomi exhibits the residual miraculous healing from his brief time as a vampire, Hitagi ultimately backs down. He brings Koyomi’s rescuer, Meme Oshino, to Hitagi. Koyomi had been held captive by a vampire. Also, Oshino assisted a pupil who was being controlled by a cat.
Oshino, an expert in aberrations, determines that a Crab of Weight, one of the eight million Shinto gods, is the cause of Hitagi’s ailment. Oshino asserts that in order for Hitagi to be released from her curse, she must address the problems from her past that led her to make a bargain with the crab god. Only Hitagi can save herself, but he can still assist her.
A few weeks later, the circumstances of “Mayoi Snail” were put in motion by a series of unexpected encounters on Mother’s Day. At the park, Hitagi and Koyomi run into each other. Hitagi spots a lost child roaming through the park while attempting to flirt with a completely illiterate Koyomi. The child is carrying a snail-shaped backpack.
Mayoi Hachikuji agrees to accept assistance from Koyomi and Hitagi after a sarcastic introduction. She refers to herself as a lost snail that can’t get home. But after spending hours ambling through the park, Koyomi questions whether Mayoi is experiencing an abnormality. As Hitagi returns with information on the aberration, he waits with Mayoi while he sends Hitagi to fetch Oshino.
The spooky mystery “Hitagi Crab” is also the tale of a young woman coming to terms with her past. While Nisioisin’s well-known wordplay explains how a crab would be able to lift Hitagi’s weight because kani, or crab, is analogous to kami, or god, the story’s central conflict is between actual and figurative demons.
After drawing the reader’s attention with Hitagi’s weightlessness, “Hitagi Crab” follows Lester Dent’s classic pulp technique by piling twists and stakes onto Koyomi’s shoulders until he persuades Hitagi to fight her cursed crab deity. The employment of pulp techniques in a time and culture that are so far different from Chicago in the 1930s during the Great Depression is thrilling, and the roller-coaster that the pulp plot produces takes the reader through the story to the inevitable punchline at the end.
