Monogatari is a Japanese light novel series written by Nisio Isin and illustrated by Vofan. The plot centers around Koyomi Araragi, a third-year high school student who survives a vampire attack and subsequently finds himself helping girls involved with a variety of apparitions, ghosts, beasts, spirits, and other supernatural phenomena.
The series began as three short stories serialized in Kodansha's Mephisto magazine between the September 2005 and May 2006 issues, which were later collected in a light novel volume published in Japan on November 2, 2006. Kodansha released 29 volumes in the series under its Kodansha Box imprint. Each of the 29 entries in the series share the common title suffix . In 2015, Vertical licensed the novel series for English release. The company began its paperback line with Kizumonogatari on December 15, 2015, and later released the Bakemonogatari novels in three volumes: the first in December 2016, the second in February 2017, and the third in April 2017. As of December 2020, the novels in the series up to Zoku Owarimonogatari have been translated.
Nisio Isin has also penned a number of short short stories and other related works set in the same fictional universe.
In addition to being sold as individual volumes, the English novels have been combined into box sets with additional original artwork by VOFAN.
The English audiobook version of Kizumonogatari was released on May 25, 2016, by Bang Zoom! Entertainment with narration done by Keith Silverstein, Eric Kimerer, and Cristina Vee. The audiobook for Nekomonogatari (White) was released on April 9, 2019, with narration done by Cristina Vee, Eric Kimerer, and Erica Mendez. The audiobook for the three volumes of Bakemonogatari were released on March 24, 2020, with narration done by Eric Kimerer, Cristina Vee, Erica Mendez, and Keith Silverstein.
The Japanese audiobook version of the entire series began release by Kodansha via Audible on February 17, 2021. Each novel features narration by the voice actors/actresses of the anime adaptation. It released one novel each month until June 16, 2023, with the second volume of Shinomonogatari.
Kodansha revealed that was scheduled to be released July 3, 2024 (). The book contains 39 short stories, 33 of which were previously released and 6 new stories. On June 12, 2024, Kodansha announced that the book would be delayed after it was discovered that a story that should have been included was inadvertently left out. The publication date was later confirmed to be September 11, 2024.
is a collection of short stories featuring characters from Nisio Isin's other works. Twelve of these stories were first distributed in Japanese cinemas during the Japanese theatrical releases of Kizumonogatari Part 1: Tekketsu, Kizumonogatari Part 2: Nekketsu and Kizumonogatari Part 3: Reiketsu. A collected volume of these stories, alongside three previously unpublished ones, was published by Kodansha on February 6, 2019. ()