Manga like Orokamonogatari

Koyomimonogatari

Also known as Koyomimonogatari: Calendar Tale.

Status: Finished
Genres: Comedy , Mystery , Psychological , Supernatural

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.



Note: The English release was split across two volumes, instead of the original singular volume.

Tags: Curses , School , Achronological Order , Urban Fantasy , Episodic , Philosophy

Mikkakan no Koufuku

Also known as Three Days of Happiness.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Psychological , Romance , Slice of Life , Supernatural

HOW MUCH IS LIFE TRULY WORTH?
Kusunoki used to believe he was destined for great things. Ostracized as a child, he held on to a belief that a good life was waiting for him in the years ahead. Now approaching the age of twenty, he's a completely mediocre college student with no motivation, no dreams, and no money. After learning he can sell his remaining years-and just how little they're worth-he chooses to divest himself of all but his last three months. Has Kusunoki truly destroyed his last chance to find happiness...or has he somehow found it?



Tags: Tragedy , Philosophy , Urban Fantasy , Primarily Adult Cast , Urban , Male Protagonist , Seinen , Hikikomori , Heterosexual , Writing , Suicide , Photography , Drawing , College , Mopeds , Autobiographical , Amnesia

Owarimonogatari

Also known as Owarimonogatari: End Tale.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Mystery , Psychological , Romance , Supernatural

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.



Tags: Philosophy , Achronological Order , Coming of Age , Detective , Vampire , Urban Fantasy , Primarily Teen Cast , Tragedy , Afterlife , Primarily Female Cast , Heterosexual

Nisemonogatari

Also known as Nisemonogatari: Fake Tale.

Status: Finished
Genres: Action , Mystery , Romance , Supernatural

Unlike ne’er-do-well former vampire Araragi, his two younger sisters Karen and Tsukihi, who attend a private junior high, are little balls of energy and charisma that their peers look up to. That the “ka” in Karen and “hi” in Tsukihi are both written with the character for “fire” isn’t the only reason they’ve come to be known as the Fire Sisters. Karen is the brawn and Tsukihi the brains of a vigilantism that the pair sees not merely as defending justice but as justice itself. They can’t encounter a harmful fad without trying to hunt down a specific source that had a motive for spreading it. In their big brother’s humble opinion, there is something fake and precarious about it all.



Tags: Urban Fantasy , Ensemble Cast , Youkai , Primarily Female Cast , Male Protagonist , Nudity , Vampire , Primarily Teen Cast , Female Harem , Philosophy , Family Life , Super Power , Meta , Urban