nhammes - 2016-02-29 23:40:11

I drove 6 hours to Seattle to watch this with some online friends. Every hour of that drive was worth it. Tekketsu-hen was the first part of three movies. In order to avoid spoilers, I'm going to review the aspects of the film itself.

Story
As far as the story was concerned, this film serves as the origin to the Monogatari series as a whole. This is Araragi's initial meeting with Hanekawa and his introduction to the world of apparitions. More importantly, its his fateful meeting with Shinobu, and the transpired events that put them in their peculiar situation. Tekketsu-hen continues the series' long standing tradition of having excellent narrative. There was considerably less dialogue here than the rest of the series, but the film had a way of subliminally adding a variety of content while still retaining an atmosphere that made it seem completely self-contained.

Animation
Although the Monogatari series is known to have above-par animation, Kizumonogatari raised the bar tenfold with its theatrical production values. The beginning of the film had minimal dialogue. This may have been a risky move, as many anime rely on dialogue (excessive or otherwise) to draw the audience away from what's happening around them. However, Kizumonogatari's beginning successfully exchanged dialogue for animation. It was enough to keep your attention, and the attention to detail had your eyes traveling across each corner of the screen, not wanting to risk missing a beat. There was some CGI, but it was pleasantly easy on the eyes.

Sound
Shaft did a wonderful job with the soundtrack. It seems they went outside of the box a little, and used a plethora of enigmatic sounds to serve as audacious analogies. Although they were small details, they really helped bolster the conveyance of each and every scene. It seemed to use this as a method of peering inside of Araragi's thought process as opposed to the tried and true monologues we're used to him having. However, this method worked all the same, if not better, and I hope Shaft puts it in their bag of techniques for their future endeavors. 

Character
Once again sticking to the tried and true, Tekketsu-hen had a great depth of characterization that is distinct to the Monogatari series. Since this series is a prequel, the characterization takes a bit of a backpedal. Instead of chronological development, Shaft seemed to deconstruct the characters in a way that gave the audience the freedom to fill in the gaps between this iteration and those that we're familiar with. For example, Araragi is much more naive in Kizumonogatari, and understandably so as he's still nothing but a regular high school student. He meets Shinobu under drastic circumstances, and the first impression of her trades her usual conceited attitude for one of shameless humility. Overall, Shaft was able to successfully transition their characterization while still keeping the series in its roots.

Overall Enjoyment
In the end, this film was an absolute treat. They say not to fix what's not broken, and Shaft not only adhered to that idea, but managed to improve upon quality that was more than desirable. If you have the opportunity to see this film, don't let it go to waste.

ressie80 - 2016-02-28 01:27:54

the animation was really good. Its amazing that we finally get to see what happened before bake. See this in theaters if you can. It was an experience.