猫物語（白）

NEKOMONOGATARI: SHIRO

NOVEL

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
1
RELEASE
October 27, 2010
CHAPTERS
40

DESCRIPTION

A tale of heroine Tsubasa Hanekawa from her own perspective, in her own voice—if that can hold true for a damaged soul who, depending on who you’re asking, suffers from a split personality or a supernatural aberration. The bone-chilling brokenness of her household, where father and mother and daughter keep three separate sets of cookware in the same kitchen and only ever prepare their own meals, and the profound darkness nurtured in the genius schoolgirl’s heart, come to life, if that is the word, through her self-vivisection.

(Source: Kodansha USA)

CAST

Tsubasa Hanekawa
Hitagi Senjougahara
Koyomi Araragi
Mayoi Hachikuji
Suruga Kanbaru
Karen Araragi
Tsukihi Araragi
Izuko Gaen
Episode
Araragi no Haha
Kako

CHAPTERS

RELATED TO NEKOMONOGATARI: SHIRO

Cover Art for Monogatari Series: Second Season

ANIME ComedyMonogatari Series: Second Season

NOVEL ActionNekomonogatari: Kuro

NOVEL ComedyKabukimonogatari

MANGA ActionBakemonogatari

REVIEWS

inspirashamul
100/100
Hanekawa's shitty home situation makes mine feel small in comparison.
This volume is situated perfectly in place to really drive in home how positioning a story or an arc is vital to the heights that Tsubasa Tiger or Nekomonogatari (Shiro) reaches.

My home life was at its worst when I watched the anime portion of this in the end of December 2021. The original plan for the Monogatari Series was to watch the respective arc in the anime and then read the LN version then watch the next arc rinse and repeat. I had followed this from July of 2021 with Bakemonogatari all the way until the end of the First Season and times were going well (Nisemonogatari was a struggle in both mediums though). Then the first arc of Second Season hit. Hanekawa's message about having her own room with her heart filled with all the scars and dirt and pain and suffering. That she was ready to stop turning her eye are throwing away the filth to compartmentalize things. It hurt me to watch that. I graduated college in May 2019, dropped out of the future schooling that I had secured twice, and worked at the bottom of the ladder when I was scheduled to be at the top due to feeling like an imposter having it all. I had tossed away the freedom I earned through college to go back to my helicopter parent's house as a failure for the next 2 years.

I binged the entirety of Second Season and then I binged the entirety of Final Season for the anime. It was glorious. I got to see these characters face external and internal struggles that seem impossible and change whether for the better or the worse it didn't matter because at their core, they are just them. Hanekawa is Black Hanekawa and the Tyrannical Tiger. She lives in all 3 versions and whatever other versions that may arise and that is ok. We are allowed to live imperfect lives as long as we can keep going. Moving out of my household in May of 2022 and reading this volume of the LN within 2 weeks of moving into my own apartment is just perfect timing. The freedom that I gained from my own space (about 40 tatami mats) is liberating and way more than I could hope for. I do not still have a stable job in a career that I want and eventually I will run out of my funds, but that is just the price of a peace of mind. Of being able to wake up in the morning and not having to look behind your shoulder all day in hopes to please someone else. I am able to live for myself and it is the happiest I've ever been even if there are plenty of bad habits I need to stop (like binging anime and manga and LNs the entire day).

Back to actually analyzing this volume since I have just been rambling about myself and pushing Hanekawa's struggles aside. This volume is the next manifestation of Ii from Zaregoto and the blueprint for Ougi. Because it is at the start of a whole season, every little stage is set with introductions of key figures like Gean who works wonderfully as a foil to Hanekawa by knowing everything confidently while Araragi is absent until when needed to the point that it really did feel like a century before he showed up. The proximity to Nekomonogatari (Kuro) to juxtapose the extremity of pure white and pure black emotions and Hanekawa's is a brilliant move. I could go on and on about the structural reasoning of transitions between arcs but it would require a lot more time and space so that is all for now. I am excited for 2 other big arcs this Second Season and hopefully I'll whip something up of a review about them that talks a lot less about me.

If you made it this far, thank you! I am just using this as practice for writing scripts on my videos so they are not going to perfect but maybe one day. This is probably my top 1/2 arc in Monogatari thus far.
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MikeSlav
80/100
"Flames are a part of civilization, no matter what the flames may be"

Nekomonogatari (White) is the 5th entry in the Monogatari series and the beginning of the Second Season. Serving as a change in the series, Nekomonogatari (White) features a different narrator - that is, Hanekawa - narrating the events of her meeting a tiger aberration.

Though not a direct sequel to Nekomonogatari (Black), the novel deals mostly with the same problems, that being Hanekawa's family issues, along with her personal problems. Although obviously not her final appearance, Neko (White) serves as a sort of conclusion to Hanekawa's character arc.

In the novel, it is revealed that the tiger that Hanekawa meets is, in fact, an aberration that was created from herself (just like Black Hanekawa, who returns in the novel for a third time), serving as an avatar of her envy or jealousy. All of her feelings of jealousy towards people with happier situations than her own, when it comes to family, love, or just in general, end up building up as a fire burning in her heart, therefore manifesting as an aberration that burns all places Hanekawa has been in and in which she has felt some sort of jealousy.

One reason the novel is called Nekomonogatari (White) - aside from the "neko" part, which should be obvious (it means "cat" fyi, just in case you didn't know) - has to do with Hanekawa and how she presents herself. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, Hanekawa is a person who both consciously and unconsciously hides away her negative emotions and pushes them to the side, and accepts all things as they are, therefore leaving her as just white or transparent. This explains why some characters frequently think she's terrifying in a way. As Senjougahara tells her, "You're not a good person, just dull when it comes to darkness." While Nekomonogatari (Black) served to show that Hanekawa has a dark side to her (hence, "Black"), Neko (White) is her finally trying to come to terms with that side of her, and accepting all her emotions.

Throughout the novel, it is also made obvious that there are certain events happening in the background, as Araragi is absent for the majority of the story. This, along with the fact that other characters are involved, like Shinobu, Mayoi and Kanbaru, leaves you, as the reader, even more curious as to what's going on in the background. The involvement of newly-introduced Gaen Izuko - Oshino, Kaiki, and Kagenui's senior - and half-vampire Episode, also just adds more to the mystery of the events. All of this already adds some questions to the Second Season, which will end up being answered later in the series.

To conclude the review, while the moral of Neko (Black) could be the fact that all people have different or darker sides of them, and that it's not wrong to ask others for help, the moral of Neko (White) would be that embracing or coming to terms with all those sides of ourselves is crucial to helping ourselves, and that there's no point of putting up a facade of a perfect human being.

Next up, Kabukimonogatari!
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