is the protagonist of Nisio Isin's light novel series Monogatari. Araragi is a third-year high school student who became part vampire after sharing his blood with Shinobu Oshino. During the story, Araragi finds himself helping girls involved with a variety of apparitions, ghosts, beasts, spirits, and other supernatural phenomena, which often serve as proxies for their emotional and mental issues. While most of the narrative focuses on his multiple relationships and encounters, the series often centers on his own personal life as it tackles his origins as a vampire, most notably the Kizumonogatari prequel story.
Araragi was written by Nisio Isin as the main narrator of the series who often dealt other female characters in large discussions. However, Isin revised early manuscripts and rewrote Araragi as a better person and developed a relationship with Hitagi Senjougahara as a romantic couple. In the anime television series and film adaptations, Araragi was voiced by Hiroshi Kamiya who found the character hard to emulate as a result of his multiple narrations, monologues and interactions.
Araragi was popular for several years in polls involving characters and relationships. He has been praised for his role in the story as well as his romantic relationship with Senjougahara which remained appealing in the novels despite the large amount of romantic interests the character has. However, he was often criticized for his childish demeanor with younger characters, most notably in Nisemonogatari, which would scare general audiences.
Creation
Araragi appears in the Monogatari light novels by Nisio Isin; the author said that the protagonist was meant to be a "stud" and abandon his desires and lose his propensity for love. However, the novel was re-written in the form of romantic comedy elements with a major focus on Araragi's relationship with his love interest Hitagi Senjougahara. The vampire Shinobu Oshino was kept in secret until Nisemonogatari where she is revealed to his sidekick after several scenes where she remains silent without major activities in the narrative. With the Monogatari novels, Nisio Isin has been delving into one character per story arc by writing their one-on-one conversations with Araragi by each arc. While Araragi is not depicted in the light novels' covers, he was still designed by novel illustrator Vofan. This generated rumors that Araragi was never drawn for the novels until VOFAN corrected this on Twitter by showing his illustration that predated the anime series.
For the anime adaptations of the light novel, Araragi was voiced by Hiroshi Kamiya. The actor's work was divided into three categories: narration, monologue, and dialogue. He divided the text and devoted himself to processing it in a form close to the narration. Frequent switching between monologues and narration mixes objective explanations with the feelings of the Araragi which brought him difficulties. The number of sentences was overwhelmingly large, so if there is a number of words that one person could speak in a day, which led to several problems during recordings of the anime. Kamiya kept reading the novels to understand Araragi's character until the final school novel Owarimonogatari. Director Akiyuki Shinbo found Kamiya useful in the making of the anime adaptation noting he had already read the novels before the premiere. Erik Scott Kimerer narrated and voiced Araragi in the English-language audiobook version of Kizumonogatari, which was released by Bang Zoom! Entertainment on May 25, 2016.
For the manga of the series, the authors said Koyomi's subtle expressions and gestures can convey more complex information. The fact that meaning can be understood without words can be seen as a way of "sharing the atmosphere" with the reader. Nisio Isin made emphasis on how the story often focuses on Araragi's relationship with Hanekawa when interacting with Oh! Great. She is the reason that Koyomi became a vampire, and she is also the mastermind of sorts. On the other hand, Senjougahara, who was freed from the crab, is a so-called wannabe, just like any other high school girl who keeps wishing to be "special," to be the protagonist even if it means tragedy, but in the end she is unable to become that, and is unable to even continue wishing for it. Koyomi, who is in the middle, in the grey zone, is the one who is the one between the two. Oh! Great also wanted to explore more the relationship between Koyomi and Shinobu in the manga as Bakemonogatari barely addresses their origin.
Portrayal in Kizumonogatari In regards to his prequel persona from Kizumonogatari, Araragi was portrayed to act more immature when interacting with others. His relationships with his mentor Meme Oshino, his first love interest Tsubasa Hanekawa and Shinobu's original vampire persona, Kiss-Shot, were written to have a major impact on his life. This would eventually result in Araragi developing into the more social teenager from Bakemonogatari. Director Shinbo wanted to learn why Araragi chose Senjougahara over Hanekawa since Araragi was also attracted to the latter in the prequel. Two subsequent stories, Nekomonogatari Black and Nekomonogatari White, serve as the major focus involving Araragi and Hanekawa's relationship which pleased Shinbo, believing he understood Nisio Isin's feelings in such novel. Araragi concludes that his feelings for Hanekawa were not romantic. Araragi's relationship with Hanekawa was written to be predecessor of the story arc "Tsubasa Cat, Part 6". Originally, the idea of the film was portraying the duo as friends but as the film was developed, Oishi found their relationship love provoking. Fellow director Tatsuya Oishi enjoyed the focus on Araragi and wanted his scenes with Kiss-Shot to be fulfilling in Kizumonogatari. The puberty jokes about Araragi wanting to touch Hanekawa's cleavage to prepare for his battle with Kiss-Shot were specifically made to make the audience feel uncomfortable and make sure it retains the comedy that the franchise is known for. Araragi's more degenerate persona was symbolized by how his hair covers the other half of his face compared to the TV series.
For the final fight between Araragi and Kiss-Shot, staff members at studio Shaft wanted to stay away from Isin's commentary as a torture in every move and instead animate a black comedy as a result of the several gruesome sequences. Oishi also wanted to emphasize Araragi's burst of rage when Hanekawa is severely wounded in the second film from the trilogy. In developing the protagonist, the staff came into thinking of it as a story about how Araragi has his set of values and ethics that he has spent 17 years building up completely overturned. As a result, he comes to realize the hypocrisy of his actions in saving someone out of pity and becomes another victim.
Kamiya was looking forward to voicing Araragi in Kizumonogatari for several years due to delays of the films. However, he was disappointed due to the more quiet atmosphere the film was given. He had already read the novel and wanted to repeat the same monologues. In contrast to the TV series, Kizumonogatari has no monologues, so it was essential for Kamiya to understand Araragi's inner thoughts as well as the subtle emotions behind his eye movements and breathing patterns. He was heavily supported by Shinbo while working in the film. During the scene in Tekketsu when Araragi first encounters Kissshot and tells her to take his blood, his state of mind was fluctuating rapidly. Although his internal turmoil was spelled out in the novel, the film had to continue without pausing. Being eleven years older during the recording when compared to his debut, Kamiya said the character of Araragi would be missing a sense of freshness because his acting chops have improved over time. There are many scenes where the underlying emotions do not match the superficial actions; there are parts where he would not understand how his character is feeling from the art alone. Kamiya had trouble deciding whether to convey what the animation showed or what Araragi truly felt in those moments. It was hard to determine which emotions to reflect in his voice. He knew Araragi would be misunderstood even if the audience picked up on all the nuances in the art. Kamiya had to think about how to create these clues while deciding whether to create them at all, which was a lot of work. However, recordings with Owarimonogatari helped Kamiya understand several parts from Araragi's mental state.
Appearances Araragi is the protagonist of the Monogatari light novel series. He is a third-year high school student who fails every subject except mathematics. The series starts with Bakemonogatari where he meet his antagonistic classmate Hitagi Senjougahara after saving her from falling to the stairs. Despite Senjougahara's threats, Araragi notices she has several problems. He offers his help, revealing his own secret of being part vampire in the process. Once Araragi helps solve Senjougahara's problem, she becomes friendlier with him, talking to him several times until she confesses she is in love with him. As Araragi responds to her feelings, the two start dating and he often asks her with help with studying. Although Araragi initially has dates with Senjougahara, Araragi requests her girlfriend's aid into improving his academics as he had poor interests into school before meeting her. The prequel novel Kizumonogatari later reveals that after being attacked by a vampire during spring break and becoming a vampire himself, specialist Meme Oshino helps him become human again, though Araragi retains several lingering side effects and vampiric powers such as enhanced regenerative abilities. Araragi occasionally visits Oshino in order to get rid of Apparitions following innocent people, which often result in Araragi sacrificing himself for their sake as he is unwilling to hurt others.
The prequel novel Kizumonogatari portrays Araragi as a lonely student who only befriends Tsubasa Hanekawa despite his reluctance to form bonds. Araragi then encounters Shinobu for the first time as "Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade". Kiss-Shot asks Araragi to give her his blood in order to save her life, and when he does, Araragi finds himself reborn as her vampire subordinate. He then asks Kiss-Shot how he can revert himself and she answers that he has to find all of her limbs that were cut by her killers. Araragi and Oshino succeed at fully restoring Kiss-Shot. Despite lacking skills as a martial artist, Araragi's new body strengthened by Kiss-Shot allows him to easily defeat the other vampires hunting his master. Kiss-Shot admits that she was going to throw the fight, and explains that she has to die to restore a subordinate's humanity, but could not do so for her previous subordinate because she was too scared of death. Oshino proposes a solution that will "make everyone miserable": Araragi will suck out Kiss-Shot's blood only to the point that she is too weak to hunt humans, leaving them both quasi-versions of vampire and human. The prequel Nekomonogatari has Araragi confused about his feelings for Hanekawa before the beginning of Bakemonogatari with his sisters believing he is only sexually frustrated. Eventually, when learning of an Apparitions Hanekawa has, Araragi realizes he does not love Hanekawa and instead just wants to help her in a heroic complex.