#monogatari novels

I am. far less excited now. They are dicey at best, awful at worst, and I'm definitely going to be watching their releases with a great deal of skepticism.

I don't have time to do as thorough a blog post about this as it really deserves, but I did want to gather in one place the receipts that were shared with me, so that if others didn't know, they could learn more about the company we're dealing with and make their own decisions about whether to buy from them or not.

First: I noticed myself, and thought it was odd, that a place that primarily publishes Chinese fiction would use the name Monogatari, which is a Japanese word. Further, tho I hadn't noticed, it's actually worse: they use a rising sun as their icon, which is. uh. A choice. A pretty fucked up choice, given the history between Japan and China. When this was pointed out to them, they said repeatedly they just didn't know/didn't realize, which is a fucking weird thing for a company that things they have the expertise to translate these books to say about the history of the country they're translating books from. Like. It makes me think they don't actually know jackshit.

They also have a bad record regarding who they're picking as translators and their understanding of copyright law. (I recommend you use the links, the tweets often have more info in the replies)

(one of those mistranslated lines is so basic that even I, with my less than 2.5 yrs of studying, could have translated correctly.)

Basically: they are sus af. They've also apparently said on their Spanish-language twitter that they've been lying on their English-language one to appease US fans.

I was really excited a couple hours ago. Now, I'm EXTREMELY wary.

Just...be on the look-out, y'all.

To be clear: this doesn't mean that their subsequent publications will be a cluster. They might have learned! They might be doing better! Or, they might just have picked better, more trustworthy partners for specific projects! I don't want to say "do not support under any circumstances." But I know... I'd rather know all the above than not. And I figured other people would want to know too.

Suruga and Koyomi are not romantically or sexually attracted to one another — In Suruga's case it's fairly unambiguously because she's gay; in Koyomi's case there doesn't need to be a specific reason but we can fairly assume it's because the thought of being romantically or sexually involved with his girlfriend's ex-girlfriend makes him uncomfortable for relatively straightforward social reasons

But a lot of people get thrown off by the fact that Suruga apparently flirts a lot with Koyomi, thinking this must mean that she's actually attracted to him — This isn't what's happening and there's a few angles to analyse it from

The first, and most straightforward, is that Suruga is flirting with him as a joke — You may wonder what's so funny about this ("is the joke that lesbians are secretly attracted to men? what's so funny about that?" a certain subset of people will surely cry out) but this isn't a joke for the sake of the audience — Koyomi and Suruga are friends and Suruga finds it funny to get a rise out of him by acting provocatively, and is comfortable enough in her own sexuality and her relationship with Koyomi to know that it will never actually lead anywhere

Her relationship with Hitagi is also important here — She wouldn't sincerely make a move on Hitagi's boyfriend because she wouldn't want to betray the trust of the woman who's still so dear to her — This also ties into her apparent attempts to seduce Koyomi in the "Suruga Monkey" arc of Bakemonogatari, before her rapport with Koyomi was well established — While her jealousy towards Hitagi's new partner is the most prominent factor in her actions in that arc, the degree to which she still sincerely cares about Hitagi cannot be understated — It's pretty likely that she'd be concerned that mysterious truant and possible delinquent Araragi Koyomi would take advantage of a girl who's been very ill for several years at that point only cheat on her at the first opportunity — In this regard it's also possible to analyse continued instances of her flirting with him as her reassuring herself that Hitagi is dating a good guy, that she doesn't need to worry that he's going to frivilously break Hitagi's heart (or that Hitagi will wind up getting arrested for assaulting any potential mistresses)

There's also the factor that Koyomi simply is not a reliable narrator — A significant proportion of what he describes strongly resembles intrusive thoughts — It's fair to assume that Koyomi might have primarily-obsessive obsessive-compulsive disorder, given how many scenes have him acting wildly inappropriately one moment only to resume their prior course a moment later as if nothing happened — So when Koyomi describes Suruga acting provocatively and flirting constantly with him, it's really worth taking that with a grain of salt — Some of it is probably her joking around, but a lot of what we're seeing is more likely a representation of Koyomi's anxiety that the strong platonic bond he's forging with his girlfriend's ex-girlfriend might undermine his romantic bond with Hitagi

It's also worth noting that we don't see the same sort of provocative flirting from Suruga when she narrates in Hanamonogatari, which has an added layer of significance given she's by far the most reliable narrator the series has (at least as far as Zokuowarimonogatari) — That can in part be attributed to the fact that Koyomi only appears in a couple of scenes in that novel, and the fact that Hanamonogatari is the last arc chronologically in the first-three seasons of the Monogatari series — But there's also a broader theme of the entire second season of Monogatari coming across there, that the person you think you know and the person they are inside are not the same — The Suruga we hear from in Hanamonogatari barely resembles the Suruga we see from Koyomi or Tsubasa's perspectives — Sure, she still has a manic episode in the later parts of the arc, but where others see her as a constant whirlwind of energy, underneath she has a far more depressive side that dominates her own narration

And that brings me to the final point, that Koyomi and Suruga's relationship works as well as it does because it represents a platonic bond between a man and a woman that you don't necessarily see all that often in fiction — And that bond is treated as being just as valuable and important as any other bond between any other character's in the series — And while it may be easy to be led astray from that fact by some of how their relationship is depicted in the series, really what we see is that it's a bond that can withstand social pressures and expectations surrounding gender and relationships

Here are some danmei recommendations for those who are interested in giving this genre a shot.

Danmei: Chinese: 耽美; pinyin: dānměi; lit. 'indulging beauty' (Source: Wikipedia)