‘Kizumonogatari’ Is A Good Vampire Film, Odd Even For Anime
Who doesn’t like a good ‘ol vampire story? I’m not talking about the sparkly kind either. Well, pair vampire tales with anime that is so stereotypically anime that it puts itself in a totally different category and you have the movie Kizumonogatari Part 1: Tekketsu.
I knew going into this film that I was going to be in for a weird ride but upon seeing it I’m shocked and thoroughly delighted at how it actually turned out. The animation style is anything but classic and the script is pretty solid. Lots of unexpected humor and hardly any gore — the trailer was certainly misleading to those who knew nothing of the series going in. Nothing will beat Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo as far as animation style but this certainly comes close. Having nods to classic anime films with a touch of CGI, this is a film where you’ll want to leave the mushrooms at home.
If you don’t know anything about the popular various Monogatari series of anime shows that in turn are based on light novels, you might want to skip the rest of the review, as it describes some detail of how the main characters meet for the first time. But if you do, read on, as I won’t tell you much you don’t already know.
Kizumonogatari is a prequel to the existing anime series. It follows the life of high school student Koyomi Araragi, a guy that is kind of just taking life as it comes until he meets his fellow classmate, Tsubasa Hanekawa. A cute yet awkward conversation, big breasts flying in the wind and lace panties revealed later and there you have your standard, nose-bleeding crush.
His classmate Hanekawa tells him of a vampire that has been lurking around town. Half listening, half perplexed by his new crush, Araragi doesn’t think too much of it and later that evening finds himself at the store to purchase a magazine. Upon the closing of the shopping center/mall he sees a trail of blood and because there would be no story if he didn’t follow it…he follows it. At the end of the trail he finds Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, a beautiful, blonde, big-breasted vampire with a name so “anime-like” of course Araragi shortens it to just Kiss-Shot. The vampire desperately wants him to save her after having her limbs severed due to the mysterious three vampire hunters who clearly want her dead.
By saving her life, Araragi too becomes a vampire and quickly realizes life will never be the same until Kiss-Shot claims she can turn him back into a human. Come on, even us mere mortals know there’s no going back. But in efforts to restore herself back to her adult form (as she’s now been reverted back to a…child vampire?) Kiss-Shot makes the promise that she will restore Araragi if he can help get her limbs back from the vampire hunters.
With insane, tipsy animation and graphics, classic anime humor, and sexual innuendos the only part of Kizumonogatari that disappointed was that we now have to wait for Part 2 of a planned trilogy.
