As someone with limited knowledge of this series, I went into this first volume confused and left confused. But lets start with the good.

The art is BEAUTIFUL It's a sight for sore eyes, really. Disclosure, I haven't read very many super recent manga (stuff from the last five years or so) and that may be heightening my perceptions but I love the use of shadows and often quirky details. Everything looks clean and the sense of scale is palpable. Honestly, this art style is too good for the standard sized manga volume with soft beige pages. It would look best on a high quality 10-inch tablet to really showcase the level of detail.

I like the character designs, they remind me vaguely of the Persona series. If you're a fan of tsundere girls and risque shounen romance series that are on the darker side with some action sequences, I think this would be easily recommendable. It's very fast-paced and the ending hints at deeper character development in subsequent volumes.

But for some drawbacks, if you're not into that any of that aforementioned stuff this is not a series that I think would change people's minds.

As previously stated, I am still utterly confused by the story and its aims. And finally, the inside of people's mouths being put in mortal danger seems to be a terrifying trigger point for me so hopefully future volumes don't have as much of that.

Note : Thanks goes to Netgalley and Kodansha for providing an e-ARC of this title for review.

About a year ago, I read the light novel version of Bakemonogatari and I loved the story. The concept is so unique and I still find myself fascinated by it. The story loosely ties in Japanese folklore and tells the story of how a crab god stole the weight from a teen girl, leaving her 9/10 of the weight she previously was. It sounds like a very strange story, but it is absolutely so interesting to read. I think that the art was a beautiful depiction of how the story is told in the light novel, and it does an amazing job of telling the same exact story with illustrations to back it up. The strangeness of the storyline draws you in and keeps you reading, and the added humor creates an even better experience. Overall, I thought this was a great read, and I recommend it to anyone it to anyone who is looking for a manga with light fantasy elements to it.

Hmm, I've never watched Bakemonogatari and thus wanted to give it a try like this. A boy named Koyomi Araragi ends up saving a girl named Hitagi Senjougahara by catching her when she slips. But oddly enough, the girl basically weighs nothing and Koyomi isn't normal either as a vampire has bitten him. These two end up trying to solve why a crab took Hitagi's weigh, we have summons and whatnot and that's basically the first part. Of course we get psychological and even philosophical stuff during the series and it all seemed quite interesting. The problem is that everything moves so fast that it's hard to grasp the whole thing. The story starts from nowhere and the rhythm is off. This could all work in an anime, but in manga it's just confusing.

The art looks nice though and the view angles work well. I'm not really fan of ecchi myself and the need to show girls off feels detached from the series. The accidental humor and shame gives nothing and somehow degrades Hitagi's character. The clumsy boy and cool girl combo is overused and the sexiness feels stupid. The plot is interesting and this would've been way much better if it was seinen.

This is quite possibly the weirdest manga I’ve ever read and i’ve read a ton of weird manga.
I like it though.
It’s fun, quirky, and the art is really good.
Looking forward to more!

Amazing illustrations and a fun story to boot!
A good, light hearted, and interesting start to this story set in a world where the supernatural exist and japanese high schoolers are just trying to make it in their day to day lives with school, homework, and the things they can't explain.
I'm very much looking forward to the next installments and continuing this story. I'm a big fan of horror manga, so this is right up my alley and I will most certainly recommend to my managa loving patrons at the library.

Different take on vampires, it has a lot of room to grow the story line into something great. This was a free book by publisher but the review was not paid.