Kizumonogatari is another light novel to Nisio Isin's monogatari series. Published after Bakemonogatari while chronologically taking place to time before Bakemono's story and therefore being its prequel. Characters are about same age as in Bakemonogatari so chronologically these two are really close to each others.
Story answers questions like how did Araragi and Tsubasa Hanekawa met, why did Araragi became vampire, who actually are Shinobu and Meme Oshino and how did things end up to the situation like those were in Bakemono. Actual plot is all about Oshino Shinobu (the young blond girl sitting in the corner in Bakemono) and her "relationship" to Araragi.
I have always respected Nisio Isin as a story writer, that guy has balls and Kizumo is yet another one where he really shows them. No other writer makes whole chapter about breast massage between serious moments, and just to quote Araragi: "Possibly she possesses a bust that cannot even be compared to. Moreover the shape was also splendid." While story is beautiful and emotional, making that could be stupid, that could ruin the story, but NO. Nisio Isin really knows what he is doing, he makes it all work (if that is enough of a word to describe it). All in all, everything in Kizumo is completely brilliant.
Have you ever heard of a main character who is mad at story writer because he makes story to weird to be adapted into an anime? Well Kizumogatari has that. Araragi stopping Meme doing certain things because they can't have anime adaption otherwise. Actually, he says it like "You can't adapt this into an anime, you just can't!" SHAFT is making the anime adaption btw. Because Kizumonogatari is so high quality light novel, the anime has every potential to be great. By great, I really mean great. I'm really strict when it comes to rating, atm less than 4% of the manga I've read has gotten rating over an 8 from me. Kizumono is a 9 all the way.
I didn't write to much about the actual story since I don't want to spoil anything. Imagine that all I said are just nice adds and the actual story is the one that makes this great. The point is; you don't want to miss this. The level of brilliantness and uniqueness is to high to be ignored since Kizumonogatari really is outstanding. The mean score is currently 8.70/10 on MAL, to me, this is one of the really rare ones which actually deserves it. Feels like I couldn't give this all the praising it deserves, I still hope I actually convinced someone to read this.
