KABUKIMONOGATARI

Officially the second part of MONOGATARI's second arc, KABUKI dives into the past of one of the MONOGATARI's first heorines - Mayoi Hachikuji. With an animated series by SONY, KABUKIMONOGATARI is a must read for BAKE fans, and a must for fans of Japanese YA fiction.

How far does one go to help a lost child? In the case of returning narrator Araragi, the answer is too far, across the veil of time. Dutifully (if unknowingly) following up on Hachikuji's cheeky foreshadowing, he concerns himself with his young lady friend and her fate in this installment of the cult-hit series, heroicallyunable, once again, to find his own way home.

Thus the tale is also, ormore so, about the journey itself,the dark honeymoon of a trip he takes into the past with the dweller in his shadow, Shinobu.Even among a cast that routinelydisrespects chronology with their meta-commentary, she takesthe cake, or the donut, by rewinding the clock for a perverse roadmovie, one that by and large goes nowhere, spatially.

It's Kabuki not as in the theater, but with the characterfor "tilt"-as in a slantedattitude toward the world, the posture of a bohemian. Or, perhaps, of a legendary vampire who once sought death, and of a high school senior who once tuned out life doing theirdandy best to attend to anembarrassing wealth of aberrations in a provincial town.