Welcome to the first installment of my arc-by-arc analysis of the Monogatari series! Thank you for joining me on this journey. This project is intended to be a companion piece to the series, progressing in tandem with instead of in retrospect of it. Due to this I’ll be keeping spoilers past the current arc to a minimum. Feel free to watch it alongside reading these dissections.
So without further ado, I present to you the first arc of Bakemonogatari: Hitagi Crab.
And so Monogatari begins. A winding story of oddities and the people possessed by them. A tale spun through mountains of symbolic dialogue and stylistic visuals. A journey that is as unapologetic as it is layered (and often misunderstood because of it).
More precisely, this is Bakemonogatari, the first in a span of series that make up the Monogatari franchise. It’s not the chronological start of the story but rather the logical one, establishing the tone and cast of characters we’ll be following throughout its run.
We begin with Hitagi Crab, discovering what it truly means to be weightless.
Cancer the Crab
Hitagi Senjougahara is emotionally repressed of her own volition. Due to an attempted rape by a member of her mother’s cult between middle and high school she became possessed by a “Heavy Stone Crab,” a god that steals its victim’s weight. This happens on both a literal and metaphorical level, the latter coming in multiple forms.
The obvious metaphor is presented in plain sight by the series: Hitagi’s weight equates to her emotional burden. By not confronting it she’s able to feign contentedness but it’ll always hang over her, it’ll always be present. This is shown in how Hitagi still maintains 5kg of her weight. She can never get rid of all her troubles no matter how much she forcefully disregards them. It’s as oddity-exorcising expert Meme Oshino says: Hitagi can only free herself from the crab’s grasping claws if she braves her fears head-on… sort of. Meme didn’t account for Koyomi Araragi.
Koyomi is the key to Hitagi’s mending process; he’s there for her every step of the way like nobody else had been. In the time since she was nearly raped she protected herself by building impenetrable walls around her. We’re talking walls so thick that Koyomi had never interacted with her before despite the two being in the same class for three consecutive years. With newfound resolve he goes full Gorbachev and tears down those walls by reminding her of the healing qualities friendship has, namely that by confiding in others you don’t need to shoulder all the burden by yourself. This is why once she proclaims Koyomi to be her friend at the end of the arc her physical weight is added to his own (although this is entirely flavor, a continuation of the metaphor; don’t expect the series to address this again).
So, why make Hitagi’s oddity a crab? The answer is steeped in a less obvious metaphor that requires some setup.
Hitagi Crab is very much a story about the namesake character breaking away from her archetype. Initially she’s what Koyomi coins to be a “tsundra,” a term that from my research seems to be created by and used exclusively in this series (and at that only in this instance). As such there’s debate over the origins of the term with some fans arguing it’s a play on “tundra” while others believing it to be a combination of “tsun” and “dragon”. Regardless, the intended meaning is a character that’s hostile both inwardly and outwardly, a good description for Hitagi when we first meet her.
Through Koyomi’s aforementioned friendship the “dere” (feeling of love) inside of her is unlocked. She becomes a tsundere, still deflective of her emotions but with a newfound warmness beginning to shine through. When she later crushes the crab god by foot like Hercules did in Greek mythology she frees herself from the constraints of archetypes entirely. The significance of this is that the crab is the physical embodiment of a tsundere with its hard shell and soft inside.
Hitagi’s birthday is July 7th, making her astrological sign Cancer (it should come as no surprise that Cancer too is depicted by a crab). The traits of the sign can be seen as incredibly tsundere: the “tsun” being tendencies towards moodiness, insecurity and suspicion while the “dere” is represented by loyalty and emotionality. Hitagi is unlike many other Monogatari characters in that she has a defined birthday which makes author Nisio Isin’s intentions in using the crab even clearer.
We shouldn’t discount the literal idea of weight loss either. In the first episode there’s a seemingly offhand line from Koyomi’s best friend Tsubasa Hanekawa about how Hitagi is much more attractive now than she was in middle school. Given that the crab possessed her in the transition between middle and high school it can be interpreted that Hitagi’s perceived increase in beauty is in direct correlation to her weight loss. Yet this is strange as by all accounts the loss of weight doesn’t manifest itself in her appearance. Perhaps the real meaning behind Hanekawa’s comment is that society derives beauty in people we can admire from a distance without the baggage that comes along with emotional involvement. Hitagi’s transition from an athletic and social middle schooler to a high schooler that lives in seclusion only served to made her more enviable; she became a flawless object of envy to her beholders.
Later in the first episode, Meme states that the crab can take the form of a rabbit or beautiful woman outside of Japan. This represents the insider-outsider dichotomy that Hitagi personifies: the crab form of the aberration is withholding her status as a member of Japanese society and until she faces it she’ll be viewed as an outsider, only a beautiful woman.
Fanservice Is Not Fanservice
Consider this my mission statement for the entire Monogatari series: the so-called fanservice always serves a purpose. It’s the most misunderstood aspect of the franchise, often pointed to by its decriers as the reason they dislike the series. What they fail to understand is that Monogatari is all about the exploration of sex, sexuality and everything that comes along with it. It posits that our base instincts are the key to everything we say, think, feel and do.
The big “fanservice” scene in Hitagi Crab revolves around Hitagi and Koyomi preparing for the exorcism. We begin with Hitagi showering.
Hitagi’s arms cover her breasts as she recounts her misfortunes through voiceover. It’s supplemental imagery that gives us a peak “behind the curtain,” showing us that she’s only been using a standoffish personality to cover up how scared she is. Only by showing Hitagi through the vulnerability of nakedness can we see this side of her. It’s also worth noting that the water droplets reflect her upside-down as if she’s sinking…
…which you can see more clearly here.
Next, this screencap is a great example of the double entendre that seeps through Monogatari’s every pore. The context of this dialogue is Hitagi talking about her dad yet the animation shows Koyomi. By bringing him into her most personal of spaces she’s clearly put a lot of trust in him, even equal to her trusted family member.
The scene continues with Hitagi dressing in front of Koyomi much to his abashment. Her personality spins right back to curt and controlling the moment she exits the shower, overcompensating more than usual due to her vulnerable state. It ends up working because her innate sexuality has a grip over the embarrassed and sexually immature Koyomi. However, she too shows her own sexual immaturity by looking to Koyomi for validation of her beauty, asking that he compliment her body. Her facade breaks for a fleeting moment when he doesn’t immediately respond. These two are more similar than they know, even if they’re yet to fully realize it.
This scene which is often written off as dumb fanservice does more to develop the characters and their relationship than any other scene in the arc. This is a trend we’ll continue to see throughout the series.
Staple Stable
One of the hallmarks of the Monogatari series are its arc-specific openings, each sung by their respective focal character. In this case we have Hitagi’s “Staple Stable,” a song echoing the friendship she finds within Koyomi. The title itself holds a lot of significance in that Hitagi has stapled herself together like patchwork in order to maintain stability.
Speaking of staplers, school supplies play a large role in Hitagi Crab. They come to represent Hitagi’s defense mechanism as she uses them to fend off Koyomi after overhearing him discuss her with Tsubasa. She literally staples his mouth, symbolic for trying to keep him from spreading rumors that would put a spotlight on her. By the same token Hitagi must drop her defenses before meeting with Meme, handing her bucket load of supplies over to Koyomi in her first act of trust towards him.
Repression Through Religion
That the crab is not just an oddity but also a god is important in understanding what the arc has to say about giving oneself to a religion or ideology as a coping mechanism. When Hitagi’s mother does this in response to a severe illness Hitagi suffered from as a child it only leads to the ruination of her and her family’s lives. Her emotional investment in the cult creates a power imbalance where she simply can’t cope without it. She’s lost to it forever.
In this flashback, Hitagi’s mother can do nothing but pray as she watches her daughter nearly get raped. She has no other way to deal with difficult situations.
This is why praying to the crab god as Meme suggests fails. The series posits that prayer only serves as another method of rejecting one’s burden and that you instead need to face them head-on.
The Hand Speaks
One of the cool visual storytelling techniques used by director Akiyuki Shinbo in Hitagi Crab is to show hands from a first-person perspective in relation to another character. Here are two examples:
Koyomi’s pen breaks his eye contact with Tsubasa as they talk about Hitagi. He’s in his own world, thinking about this mysterious girl that has only ever existed to him in body up until this point (much to Tsubasa’s chagrin as we’ll find out in future arcs).
Here, Meme’s hands are placed in the foreground over Hitagi’s breasts as he tells her he’ll give her a discount on his exorcism services. We all know his reasoning without any character having to say it outright because the visual speaks for itself.
Next Time on Monogatari…
Phew, and all that was only two episodes! Next time we’ll dive into Mayoi Snail where our leads grow closer and we meet a fifth grader with a surprising past. Read it here.
See you then and as always thanks for reading!
Thoughts That Move 
This made me want to re-watch the series.
I always appreciate extra layers of detail and metaphor (especially visual metaphors) – and the multiple levels of meaning behind the Hitagi Crab is most certainly appreciable. Particular examples you mentioned that stood out to me were the comparison of crab to “tsundere” (and Senjougahara’s breaking from the archetype), similarities between Senjougahara and Arararagi and the visual metaphor between Arararagi and Hanekawa.
On a broader note, there is concern for the well-being on a societal (and possibly global) level in regard to how sex and sexuality is viewed. There is a large judgmental taboo and awkwardness surrounding it, which makes displaying and discussing anything to do with it unbelievably frustrating. In the current day, it’s a nonsensical and antiquated mindset that obstructs progression and hurts more than it helps (if it all). It’s level of prudish that borders on severe detriment in many cases, and definitely needs to be rectified soon.
I think after reading this I have gained more of an likeness toward Senjougahara than initially (I did like her, but not that I have a greater understanding, there’s more to appreciate about her character).
Interesting dissection. Look forward to the rest!
~ Ace
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Awesome! It’s one of the most rewarding rewatches in anime due to its density. Even after rewatching these episodes twice for this analysis I feel as if I could still go back and uncovered more at a later date. The series is an endless well of wonderment which is why I love it so much and why I’m doing this.
You’re right about the prudish nature of society. People have been hardwired to think sex and expression of sexuality is bad. It’s weird when juxtaposed against the ideals of having a positive body image… why can’t that include sexuality? What’s so wrong about something we all do, something that’s innate to our race and existence? If we didn’t have sex then we’d have no human race! It’s not something that there’s an antidote for on a societal scale but the best we can do is promote strong uses of it in our media and explain why sexuality makes them work.
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One thing I noticed on my recent rewatch is just how utterly silly and contrived the setup for this whole thing is. Araragi figures out about Senjougahara’s weightlessness, triggering this whole arc, because she slipped on a banana peel. Nisio Isin is essentially admitting “Yeah, it was always going to be some contrived bullshit excuse to get the characters together” by making the inciting incident so cartoonish.
A lot stuck out during Hanekawa’s conversation with Araragi in the first episode as well, particularly the point-of-view shots. Araragi is deliberately avoiding looking her in the eye, and visibly starts when she mentions Golden Week (Oshino brings it up later as well). Hanekawa also mentions that it is “unusual” for Araragi to take an interest in others, which is particularly telling since that’s about all he does for the rest of the series. You can already feel the effects of the later Tsubasa Family arc on Araragi’s personality and his relationship with Hanekawa.
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Hey, thanks for the comment!
I avoided talking too much about Tsubasa because as I said in the opening blurb I want people to be able to watch the series alongside reading these posts. The conversation between the two is very much steeped in foreshadowing what’s to come (or what came before) and I found it more interesting to focus on Hitagi here. You do make good points, just ones that we haven’t quite gotten to yet in the context of what we’ve seen so far. And yeah, I love the point-of-view shots, especially that one I used with the pen breaking Koyomi’s eye contact with her. Shinbo knows his way around a scene and how to make the visuals speak just as loud as Isin’s wandering conversations.
I’m actually glad that you brought up the banana peel. I initially discussed it in the “Crab” section but cut it for length. Here’s my take on it though: it’s not contrived at all but actually the “world” telling Hitagi that she can’t live reclusively forever. Think about it: somebody had to drop that banana peel there for Hitagi to trip on. As inadvertent as it might have been she was ultimately influenced by an outside force despite her attempts to avoid such interaction. It’s the perfect way to set things in motion, playing into the themes of the arc.
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On Hanekawa, I agree with your decision. Breaking down all the interrelated parts of each arc, the allusions to the before and after, would make for extremely bogged down analyses. At the same time, the decision to overwhelm the viewer with suggestions about the characters’ history is very deliberate. Even a first time viewer would notice this, and keep that history in the back of their mind.
Your point on the banana peel is also well-taken, but it is important to ask “Why a banana peel?” What caused her to fall could have been any loose object, someone bumping into her, a fleeting noise that distracted her and caused her to lose her footing, anything but the most cliched slapstick comedy prop imaginable. Including something like this is an example of the tongue-in-cheek nature of a lot of Monogatari’s meta humor, and a sign that it never takes itself one hundred percent seriously. Along that line, I’ll be interested to see you sustain the bold claim that ‘all’ of Monogatari’s fanservice has meaning behind it. I am inclined to agree on that, but there will be more time to talk about it later.
For now, good post! I particularly like the crab metaphor as it relates to the tsundere archetype, which is new to me.
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Of course. I’m not saying that it isn’t deliberate for the series to put those allusions in but it was also deliberate for me not to harp on them here. I found discussing Hitagi to be much more interesting and as you say it’d bog down the analysis. I’m sure I’ll be focusing on the way the franchise interweaves its narratives in future though.
You’re right, the fact that it’s a banana peel was likely played for humor. I do recall Koyomi having a banana chair in his room in Nise- which maybe plays into the meaning of the banana peel in some way? We’ll see. Admittedly I’m not sure if there’s anything more to it other than a combination of both our points so I’ll need to think about it as I go.
As for the claim of “all fanservice,” I’m willing to eat those words if beyond the “first season” of Monogatari (Bake-, Nise- and Neko- Kuro) I find it to be false. In truth I haven’t seen past those. My current plan once I reach Second Season and beyond is to watch the full series and then go back to analyze the arcs. I considered watching it all before starting this project but it simply wasn’t feasible and I don’t think it hinders the work too much given my approach. Regardless I’m confident I can hold up that claim for the first three series. I’m particularly excited to do it with Mayoi Snail given its particularly controversial “fanservice.” 🙂
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As someone who has just recently got into this franchise, I had an absolute blast reading this analysis.
There were a few things I’d picked up here beforehand, but your analysis has a lot of things I didn’t notice before and they’ve really helped enhance what was already a fantastic arc in my eyes.
I look forward to seeing your analysis of the later arcs, particularly Nadeko Snake.
An excellent post and incredibly in depth! I’ll be sure to share this around as much as I can.
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Thank you, I appreciate this. I’m glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
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This was a wonderful post to read. I’m considering following alongside your posts and rewatching.
I guess all I can add is that the staplers seen in Staple Stable sort of resemble crab pincers.
I’m looking forward to the Mayoi Snail arc post!
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That’s a good point and honestly something I should have throw into the “Staple Stable” section. I’m glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
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nice anime post i like you ideas, but do you know about solo leveling manhwa, its fire go read guys.
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there was nothing about discount tho
especially this thing about meme arms after reading LN seems like bullshit tho
buy good interpretation
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I found this blog as I was researching for my translation project, and even though I hoped for more of a light novel analysis, seeing the story also from a directorial perspective is really helping me roughing up my own adaptation.
There is however one bit where I have to disagree- the idea of breaking archetypes.
In my opinion rather than deconstructing archetypes is more that nisioisin thells the story from Araragi’s pov, who in his fantasies forces real people into anime tropes (hell the very first line in the whole light novel series begins with”if I were to describe her as a character”
Nisioisin is not saying Senjougahara isn’t a tsundere, but rather that this is real life and she’s just some girl araragi labeled as such, so of course his real life tsundere isn’t as pleasant as she looks in anime and of course there’s a reason she ended up becoming this way.
Araragi is disappointed by real life for sodachi related reasons so at first he receeds from society like before the events of kizu, after hanekawa broke him out of his self isolation (and enabled by his newfound knowledge of the existance of aberrations) he decides that if real life isn’t enough then he’ll be larger than life, and become a hero.
That’s why he seeks out archetypes, or maybe more appropriately he’s projecting them on the people in his life, he’s trying to live a fantasy, and that’s his problem until the very end.
If he’s the hero then of course the aggressive senjougahara is a tsundere and he must save her.
Of course, as senjougahara opens up he realyzes rather quickly that the issue is serious here and takes a step back from his saviour complex and even lets oshino deal with the crab when it gets violent instead of charging in himself (and would you look at that, this is the only time in bakemonogatari he holds himself from playing the hero AND the only time a girl he “saved” actually resolved her issues. Coincidence? I think NOT!)
All the other girls end up playing along his fantasy for a reason or another so in the end Senjougahara is the only one that can see trough his facade giving one extra layer to their top tier relationship, and because if this he will be treating only her as a fellow human being rather than a trope.
Now I know I make it look like Araragi is the bad guy here but I really don’t think that, to me he’s a good and selfless kid who’s still growing up and looking for his own identity by borrowing traits from the characters in the media he consumes, he’s really just as immature as all of the girls, and it was a powerful moment when at the very end he manages to move past all of this in his own way, by saving a girl, while really saving himself.
Of course this is just my interpretation so feel free to disagree but the girls don’t break tropes, they never were tropes in the first place
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It’s great that I can com to these analysis when reading the series for the first time.
Do you think that you only watching the anime limits your understanding of the series?
I just finished the Hitagi Crab section of the light novel after never watching the anime and had some interesting thought.
For example the fanservice paragraph of is fun but the way I read it could made it out to be tied into the theme/idea of facing your problems directly. Araragi’s embarrassment causes him to look away from Hitagi and make callous comments. What he thought was her bravado of showing of her body actually turned out to be her standoffish and inability to let others in because she wanted to hide her scar.
It will be interesting to read about the fanservice defences because the lack of visuals in light novels makes me feel the anime and novels could derive different meanings.
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