**Volume 1:** Before we witness the series’ climactic showdown in the third volume of the End Tale—each part of which forms its own cohesive whole—narrator Araragi wrestles with a crucial bit of history that had turned him into the loner we met at the very beginning, who opined that friendships only lowered his intensity as a human. What initiates his pilgrim’s progress of a reckoning is his first encounter, at school, with the mysterious freshman Ogi Oshino, self-described niece of the equally enigmatic aberration expert Mèmè, and the book’s opening chapter is a harrowing standalone novella of a who-dunit involving a locked room of sorts. Our increasingly well-adjusted hero kept on beingdecent at one thing even when he was just hanging on, but this forte, an unlikely aptitude for math, of all things, becomes the focus of a cheating scandal and a web of recollections that forces him to come to terms with, what do you know, his capacity to connect to people. **Volume 2:** When an old flame who gave up on life and chose to go up in flames—because he wanted to leave you but couldn’t—comes crawling back after four hundred years, you might not appreciate it, especially if you’re in a new relationship. But nothing’s ever simple between people, and that’s even truer between monsters. For the first time in months, our heroic loser Araragi is human, parted by previous events from the ex-legendary vampire bound to his shadow. Before he, the second-ever thrall of the former Kissshot, can resume his partnership with the donut-loving waif that she’s turned into, she must make a choice—about that first-ever. Before the End Tale can end, some loose ends must be tied, and in this volume, the fixer Gaen calls in her favor, requesting an introduction to her niece; the errand of the amulet that Araragi ran with Kanbaru comes into crisp focus; and the time-traveling and -spanning Dandy and Demon Tales see their devastating resolution. **Volume 3:** No good deed goes unpunished, they say, and so does friendship and lowering your intensity as a human, they don’t say—alas, for all his literally painful hustle and inveterate need to save others, our brave fool of a hero ends up in hell, a conception of the inferno in its full Buddhist glory, and muses (lol) if there’s a return ticket. Told in three chapters, the final part of End Tale concludes the story proper and resolves the series’ panoply of ongoing mysteries: the dues of a do-gooder for relying on a power not his own, the identity of a shady transfer student, the outcome of a class president’s questing abroad, and even the true name of a park. Araragi, indeed, is the one who knows, but along the way he meets old faces, really every last one of them, who aid him on his journey for understanding, and perhaps for salvation, and you for one might not be surprised if he had another rendezvous with an erstwhile “cloistered princess” before it—guess what it is—sees an end. (Source: Kodansha USA)

Circling back to a middle school girl’s apotheosis, if we can call it that, in OTORIMONOGATARI, and the mortal threat it poses to the hero and his girl, this “Season Two” finale is narrated, for the first time in the series, by a grown-up—but if the word conjures a sense of reliability, of stability and certainty to you, dear reader, then the lesson to take home from this is to trust no one. Because the teller of the tale, who has been summoned by the heroine to defuse the situation, despite having been her nemesis since the very outset of the series, is—in the absence of the equally shady adult, Oshino, who at least was an expert—none other than his college frenemy, the fake ghostbuster who doesn’t believe in ghosts, the shameless swindler Deishu Kaiki. And it is indeed a con that he agrees to perpetrate, uncharacteristically pro bono, on a wrathful god—a mythic undertaking if true, which it may be, when a liar among liars holds that his story, like any other, is all a lie. But maybe not, when a man who claims to be wise in the ways of the world sounds just as self-conscious as his adolescent counterparts or a Russian anti-hero. (Source: Kodansha USA)

A certain middle school girl has a fondness for hats, which serve as a line of defence against eye contact along with the overlong bangs she’s worn ever since she was little. Speaking in fits and starts when she doesn’t fall completely silent, her go-to line is “I’m sorry,” and she’s given to referring to herself in third person. Nadeko Sengoku is pretty, and not just cute. (Source: Kodansha USA)

Just when we thought the darkness menacing the town had been identified, named, and tamed, clear and unclear mysteries of seasons past looming or surfacing, then resolving, not without tears, not without bittersweetness, of course, but satisfyingly, in a tripartite finale, all loose ends tied up into, or at least with, a bow… The End Tale continues—if only for one last time, in a bonus stage for the ages, as our softie of a protagonist who wished for all parties involved, including himself, maturely enough, to end up happy, sees his reflected image freeze in a mirror and regretfully, regrettably, reaches for it to find himself through the looking glass. In an alternate reality where bits of the world have been flipped around, the hero comes face to face with the hidden side(s) of familiar faces, along with author NISIOISIN, whose bravura attempt to reimagine character possibilities concludes, with signature flair, the MONOGATARI series proper—thank you for reading. (Source: Kodansha USA)

How far does one go to help a lost child? In the case of returning narrator Araragi, the answer is too far, across the veil of time. Dutifully (if unknowingly) following up on Hachikuji’s cheeky foreshadowing, he concerns himself with his young lady friend and her fate in this instalment of the cult-hit series, heroically unable, once again, to find his own way home. Thus the tale is also, or more so, about the journey itself, the dark honeymoon of a trip he takes into the past with the dweller in his shadow, Shinobu. Even among a cast that routinely disrespects chronology with their meta-commentary, she takes the cake, or the doughnut, by rewinding the clock for a perverse road movie, one that by and large goes nowhere, spatially. It’s Kabuki not as in the theatre, but with the character for “tilt”—as in a slanted attitude toward the world, the posture of a bohemian. Or, perhaps, of a legendary vampire who once sought death, and of a high school senior who once tuned out life doing their dandy best to attend to an embarrassing wealth of aberrations in a provincial town. (Source: Kodansha USA)

Our sorry hero, his reformed girlfriend, and the amnesiac class president have all graduated from their high school out in the boondocks, and self-described Sapphist and ex-basketball ace Kanbaru, retired by reason of an “injury,” is starting her senior year and the narrator of this volume—her voice far more introspective than the smutty jock’s we thought we knew. Bereft of the company of her beloved mentors, the only other person around her with any working knowledge of aberrations the junior Ougi Oshino, apparently a relative of the Hawaiian-shirted folklorist, she feels a bit alone and blue, and sick with dread that the devil residing in her left arm courtesy of the Monkey’s Paw might act up again while she sleeps. Investigating a rumour that she fears might lead back to her, the former star ends up peering into an abyss of negativity called Rouka. Trapped in a pit the like of which could only be escaped by the one girl who was able to pull off slam-dunks in her basketball nationals, can the penitent Kanbaru, however, still be aggressive? (Source: Kodansha USA)

It, like the dark that makes up most of the cosmos, is not an aberration. Nonbeing can swallow you whole, yet if anything, it’s the anti-aberration. Darkness, in fact, is the Law, an executioner from whom a mark can try to run and hide, but only for so long. When it comes calling, the fortunate just might have the time to say goodbye. And the Darkness is—here now. Before ever visiting Japan to find a place to die, four centuries, indeed, before her failed suicide attempt, the legendary vampire KissShot literally stepped foot on the land of the rising sun with an epic jump that ended a lonely sojourn in Antarctica. It was back in those days that the proud noble created her first thrall. It was then, too, that she first met the Darkness. (Source: Kodansha USA)

Rampage. Weep. Kill. Every 12 years, the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac take the form of warriors and engage in the ultimate battle royal. They face one another in battles to the death, using all the powers of their star signs, and the sole survivor is granted the ultimate prize—a wish. Any wish. (Source: VIZ Media)

The record of the bloody battle between the twelve proud warriors— The 12th Twelve Tournament that gets held every twelve years… Twelve brave warriors who bear the names of the signs of the zodiac fight each other for the lives and souls. The participants are twelve very strange warriors: “Rat,” “Ox,” “Tiger,” “Rabbit,” “Dragon,” “Snake,” “Horse,” “Goat,” Monkey,” “Rooster,” “Dog,” and “Pig.” The victor of this tournament gets to have one wish granted, whatever the wish may be. The one wish they want granted— Who will be the final survivor? Whose tears will flow on the bloody battlefield filled with conspiracy and murder? A soul-shaking battle royale is about to begin. (Source: Crunchyroll)

Iroha is an average student newly enrolled in Cipher Academy, a Spartan school where students must crack code after code after code with barely enough time to catch their breath! Then a mysterious person named Kogoe gives Iroha an unusual pair of glasses with a crazy secret behind them! (Source: MANGA Plus)

The Pretty Boy Detective Club, a mysterious organisation that's rumoured to solve problems at Yubiwa Academy... Manabu the Aesthete Michiru the Epicure Hyouta the Adonis Nagahiro the Orator Sousaku the Artiste To search for a star she glimpsed 10 years ago, second-year student Mayumi Doujima calls on these five Pretty Boys to help her solve the case! Which Pretty Boy is your favorite!? (Source: Kodansha USA)

Calendar Tale, narrated by our titular hero, sends us to various earlier points in the story where certain events had yet to occur—when, for instance, the shady “expert” Oshino was still in town, and the ex-legendary vampire Shinobu hadn’t tired of sulking in a corner. After revisiting with a “case files” feel of the series’ origins, we will start to catch up to the present moment until we are violently spliced back into the overarching plot. Weaving in a motif of ways, paths, roads, and streets—walks of life—the nostalgic vignettes hark back to the “case files” feel of the series-launching Monster Tale, but with a twist. Not all oddities are supernatural: stones and flowers; sand and water; the wind and the tree can just be plain weird without being aberrations. The vignettes for the months of October to March deal with six ladies who are either not quite human or older than titular narrator Koyomi Araragi, bless his bantering soul. In this instalment, say hello from the future to class president among class presidents Hanekawa, acid-tongued girlfriend Senjogahara, cheeky lost child Hachikuji, smutty athlete Kanbaru, pathologically shy Sengoku, and justice-loving martial artist Karen, young ladies who love to make our young man sweat. See how he handles—or is handled by—aberration of a little sister Tsukihi, enigma of a freshman or -woman Ougi, shadow of a legendary vampire Shinobu, corpse of a tween girl Ononoki, psychopath of a monster expert Kagenui, and know-it-all of a Machiavellian fixer Izuko Gaen. (Source: Kodansha USA, edited) *Note: The English release was split across two volumes, instead of the original singular volume.*