Monogatari Series: First Season
| Symbolism is one of the literary devices which purpose is to attach or depict an idea to a subject or object. Characters usually use symbolism to give a part of their characteristic, for example Violet’s prosthetic metal arms symbolizes her incapability to feel emotions, Kiritsugu’s cross command seal symbolizes his twisted point of view of justice, Itachi’s crow symbolizes his trickery over tragedy, etc. In this blog, I will be talking and analyzing the symbolism that Koyomi Araragi uses, his hair. Keep in mind that I may be exaggerating as Araragi’s hair wasn’t clear in the source material, but this is my interpretation of Koyomi Araragi’s hair. *CONTAIN SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY* Monogatari is a series that uses an effect on hair often, whether how Araragi’s hair tail acted to give a visualization of what he is feeling, but there is a deeper meaning of his hair besides that. If you look closely at Araragi on Kizu and Bake :   Araragi’s hair on Kizu was covering his right eye, while his hair on Bake only allowed his right eye to see (covering his left eye). The thing is, Araragi on Kizu was shown to be incapable of seeing what is right, and this will be explored more in Owari regarding his backstory. However after his encounter with Hanekawa, he began to see what is supposed to be “right.” At the end of Kizu, he did something that seemed to be selfless but actually selfish to Shinobu, and he thought it was the “right” thing to do. Now that is the reason why his hair covered his left eye and only allowed his right eye to see after the event of Kizu and why he often became simple-minded when it comes to helping others. He didn’t think of the future, he didn’t think of the consequences, he didn’t think about others, he only thought about what is RIGHT in front of him at the moment. This can be seen at events like Shinobu Time, Shinobu Mail, etc I don’t remember the specific. He purposely made himself to lack the depth of perception to see things as a whole, to ignore how reality works, because that’s how he is. Was that the right thing to do? You think it yourself. His only vision (ONE right eye) showed that he believes humans and appreciations shouldn’t be conflicted and functioned as a ONE, hence why he helped humans to be freed from appreciations and helped appreciations too. Afterall, he only thinks that what is RIGHT in front of him is the RIGHT thing to do, that’s why he did all of his actions (Shinobu Mail explains the events regarding appreciation revolving around Araragi). If you pay attention to detail, part of his hair is covering his scar from Shinobu. This shows that everyone, even Araragi himself, the person who “saved” a lot of beings has a story from an untold perspective in his world. This idea would later be developed as the core theme of Second Season where we can see collections of untold stories of the cast. The last part that I want to show you is Araragi in Hana :  Ignore the fact that they did him dirty, but you see how my boy has long hair now. Monogatari uses hair as a symbolism of growth and moving on. This could be seen by what happened to Senjougahara, Hanekawa, Sengoku, and Kanbaru, all of them got their hairs cutted. However, why didn't Araragi cut his hair? It’s clear that Araragi has grown in term of time (obviously) and as a character from a person who hates his life and wishes everything is just a dream (Kizu) to a person who wouldn’t really care if everything in his life is a dream because it’s all wonderful to him (Zoku Owari), but you need to remember that each person has their own dark side. Araragi not cutting his hair shows that he accepted his dark side (parallel to how he accepted Ougi). It shows that even if you want to do the right thing, you should think about the other side as well. Hence why, Araragi told him that he needs to save himself, that is by accepting what is dark inside him. Araragi didn’t want to lose these moments he had made. The amount of events in his life may provoke his mind (Araragi shown to be full of regrets and have the fear to move forward in Zoku Owari) but in the end, he is still him. Thank you for reading :)  Blog version : https://myanimelist.net/blog/Aruchemist |
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| Can you do Saitama hair analysis next? |
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| I mean, there's so much to analyse about araragi or the mono series, but bro went for hair only. Nice tho, araragi getting highlights. |
itsrj20Jul 23, 2022 6:31 AM
 • Watching this season • My Anime list • Comment |
Attackonfiller said: Can you do Saitama hair analysis next? Oremonogatari said: can u release the pube analysis dlc pls Nah, too deep bro I can't. |
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itsrj20 said: I mean, there's so much to analyse about araragi or the mono series, but bro went for hair only. Nice tho, araragi getting highlights. I'm not going to write down an essay of 50 pages on all of Monogatari, plus Araragi's hair and the assertions (open for interpretation actually) it made are detailed already anyway. |
AruchemistJul 23, 2022 7:00 AM
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| very interesting analysis… |
Friends are nothing more than the people who you spend the fun, yet meaningless times with. When those times get rough, they aren’t there to support you. My Mushoku Tensei Review |
| I thought people in the thread would become toxic again but I'm positively surprised. Great analysis, I wouldn't have the commitment to look as deep into this even though it's my favorite anime |
| they deleted my signature again so i'm not making a new one |
| and I only noticed that araragi's hair tail gets stiff and pointy when he has a boner. damn, nice job. |
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adeeb91 said: very interesting analysis… m4ci3x said: I thought people in the thread would become toxic again but I'm positively surprised. Great analysis, I wouldn't have the commitment to look as deep into this even though it's my favorite anime INSANELYWP said: never thought about araragi’s hair before. interesting analysis bernkastelrika said: interesting thank you for this analysis fyrflys said: and I only noticed that araragi's hair tail gets stiff and pointy when he has a boner. damn, nice job. Glad you liked it :) |
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Ulises1264 said: And What about tsukihi's hair Sorry, I don't remember. |
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