Kizumonogatari (Part 1: Tekketsu) – Overview/ Review (with Spoilers)

Overview

How Koyomi met Shinobu, Oshino, and Hanekawa is the main focus of the movie and honestly, you may be left wondering why this, and the two movies to follow, weren’t just made into a season?

Rating:
TV Viewing

Trigger Warning(s):
Blood | Severed Limbs

Main Storyline (with Commentary)

How did Koyomi meet Hanekawa? Well, with an ecchi moment in which her panties showed and, despite the embarrassment, she decided to pursue his friendship. How did he meet Shinobu, when she was Kiss-Shot? Well, that is a little bit more complicated. She, after taking on the vampire hunters Episode, Cuillotinecutter, and Dramaturgy, was left to bleed out with all her limbs cut off. Koyomi, having a strange hero complex, came to her aid by offering himself and expecting death. Instead of this, since Shinobu isn’t much for killing humans, she turns him into a vampire. Something he isn’t really for, because he wasn’t mentally prepared to no longer step into daylight. So, in exchange for getting all her limbs from the vampire exorcists, she will turn him back into a human. Problem is, he isn’t strong enough to take them all on at once so that is where Oshino Meme steps in. For 2 million yen he is going to try to mediate. Try being the key word.

[Commentary]

Being that, for years, we have followed Koyomi’s story it makes jumping back to the beginning slightly jarring. Granted, a lot of the things are the same, like overly bouncing breast and panty shots, but Koyomi being rude to Hanekawa just felt so off. On top of that, being that the series feel slightly dragged out, often relishing in the seriousness of the situation, containing more comedic moments, and monologues, it makes everything being to the point different. Not good different or bad different, but it does lead you to wonder how things would have been if the multiple seasons were done in this fashion or how the three movies would have been if they were a 12 episode season.

Moving past the initial shock, I must admit that out of everyone introduced in the series, Shinobu was perhaps the one character I always wondered about. Throughout the series we see her in this child form, and sometimes maturing to a teen form, and we got an arc about her past when she made her first minion. However, the time period where she met Koyomi was skipped. On top of that, and maybe this is just my memory slipping, a lot of the reasoning behind her state and relationships were treated as if we already knew. So to be treated to learning all the details that formerly were missing, like her being in her child state because that is what she is able to maintain due to the amount of blood she took from Koyomi, among other things, is quite exciting. Again, I’m unsure if I like the speeding through everything else, but seeing Shinobu and Koyomi’s relationship origins makes up for that.

Review Summary

Highlights

Seeing the origins of Koyomi meeting Hanekawa, Oshino, and the focus on Koyomi and Shinobu, when she was Kiss-Shot, becoming close.

On The Fence

Something about this story, despite it being split into three movies, thus far feels like it is at a pace which is a bit too fast. Be it because the anime sometimes seemed to drag things out with multiple title cards, monologues, and things of that nature, or because it seems the movie wishes to more so give you the gist of things than everything and more. Though with me having never read the mangas, something I need to do one day, reading mangas, in general, that is, perhaps this could have been one of the shorter books? Either way, I find myself questioning why this wasn’t just made into a 12 some odd episode series rather than a movie? Yes, this is the last bit to cover so why not make it grand, but unless the ratings were crashing I don’t see why the serial route wasn’t done.