Monogatari series: Off & Monster Season (Limited Edition Blu-ray) Unboxing

Monogatari series: Off & Monster Season (〈物語〉シリーズオフ&モンスターシーズン) is a 2024 television anime series based on NisiOisin’s light novel series Monogatari Off Season & Monogatari Monster Season with illustrator Vofan. The series was directed by Midori Yoshizawa and produced by studio Shaft, with chief director & series composition writer Akiyuki Shimbou, series composition writer Fuyashi Tou, script writer Miku Ōshima, character designer Akio Watanabe and music composers Kei Haneoka & Satoru Kōsaki. The series first aired in Japan in July 2024.

Background:

“Now that he has graduated from high school, Koyomi Araragi’s story ends here. His story is truly over now, but the stories of the girls Koyomi saved – their stories – are not over yet. This is the prequel or sequel to their stories and their struggles.

Orokamonogatari: Now in her third year of middle school, Tsukihi Araragi spends her days living her life unchanged from day to day. Yotsugi Ononoki continues to keep an eye on Tsukihi but makes a big mistake for the first time as she loses focus. To correct the situation, she heads over to Nadeko Sengoku’s house…

Nademonogatari: Nadeko Sengoku, who is now in her third year of middle school, spends her days drawing for her future. Suddenly, Nadeko is faced with a time limit on this. The method she took to get out of the situation is to draw the “Four Nadeko Sengokus”… Youth is “unmanageable”, even for oneself.

Wazamonogatari: The Death-prepared, Death-inevitable, Death-certain vampire, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicide-Master, suffers from an unprecedented food shortage. It was all because of the “beauty” of one girl… How did the apparition king of apparition killers come to be? It’s a hellish spring break, and its prequel.

Shinobumonogatari: An incident occurred in which female students of Naoetsu High School turned into mummies one after another. Koyomi Araragi, now a first-year university student, runs around where “he” spent time as a high school student to discover the truth behind the incident with the specialist Izuko Gaen. The name of the suspect who was at the top of the list in the investigation was Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicide-Master… Did you think youth was “just” dazzling?”
Plot Synopsis via Aniplex’s Monogatari Website, July 2024.

Monogatari is a unique franchise to me because of the story-telling. It’s mainly dialogue driven with a lot of visual references to Japanese culture and word-play, which is challenging to translate given it could be interpreted in many ways. The dialogue that displays on-screen is also quick so subtitles can even struggle, which is why I always consider the franchise to not be accessible for newcomers of anime, especially as there are no English dubs produced.

Despite this I have managed to get a clear idea of what’s going on and been watching the series as the home video releases progressed, from Bakemonogatari and Nisemonogatari all the way to Monogatari series: Final Season with Zoku Owarimonogatari. There’s been many arcs adapted by studio Shaft and they’re all really good. I recall back in the day that the story was intended to stop at Monogatari series: Final Season and the anime adaptation was also going to stop right there, but here we are with more stories being brought to anime form.

After 18 light novel volumes between 2006 to 2014, NisiOisiN resumed the story with more ‘seasons’. The first is Off Season which had four volumes between 2015 to 2017, and the second is Monster Season which had six volumes between 2017 to 2021. Unless I’m mistaken, the Monogatari series: Off & Monster Season anime only adapted four stories from the different chapters that have been featured here which is interesting (unless they’re all included but noted under the four arcs heavily featured).

The Monogatari franchise lead Koyomi Araragi takes a backseat this time because his story has mainly been covered from the previous seasons, and what we have instead are other characters who have been featured before either in an arc or as a side character here and there. These include Koyomi’s sister Tsukihi Araragi, Nadeko Sengoku, and Shinobu herself as well as Izuko Gaen and Yotsugi Ononoki.

Aniplex of America licensed the Monogatari anime instalments as they went along which includes Monogatari series: Off & Monster Season where the series simulcasted on Crunchyroll. Because the series is known for its word-play and such, there was no English dub produced. At the time of this write-up, the season has yet to receive a home video release in the UK also.

Limited Edition Contents:

We have a pretty interesting approach for Monogatari series: Off & Monster Season this time around. The Monogatari franchise started off being released as big box sets with Bakemonogatari and Nisemonogatari, and then from Nekomonogatari Black onwards it was released per story arc in cardboard sleeves. Aniplex of America did eventually release big box sets for Monogatari series: Second Season and Monogatari series: Final Season after Japan finally produced their own (however Kizumonogatari and Nekomonogatari Black didn’t receive such treatment; the latter of which was actually combined with Nisemonogatari in Japan’s box set).

This anime season has four story arcs, but Aniplex of America instead went with Bakemonogatari’s approach by releasing all of the arcs into one big box set instead.

The limited edition Blu-ray release is presented with a rigid box featuring a obi-strip wrapped around the set (like the previous Monogatari releases have done), an Amaray case housing the discs, a 62-page special booklet and 14 flimsy art cards. The special booklet that includes designs and information about the characters, illustration artwork and credits.

The rigid box has clean artwork with the title on the spine, and the obi-strip has the information and specs. The limited edition Blu-ray set was released for an SRP of $159.98.

I acquired Monogatari series: Off & Monster Season from the Crunchyroll Store alongside a few other Aniplex of America releases as part of a catch-up haul.

Physical Contents:

Rigid Box with clean artwork
Obi-strip for information and specs
Amaray case packaging
62-page Special Booklet
14 Art Cards

On-Disc Contents:

Distributor: Aniplex of America
Released: 10th March 2026

The limited edition Blu-ray release for Monogatari series: Off & Monster Season contains all 14 episodes plus the A Cruel Fairy Tale: The Beautiful Princess ONA special across four Blu-ray discs; one for each story arc with Disc 1 for Orokamonogatari (Episode 1), Disc 2 for Nademonogatari (Episodes 2-6), Disc 3 for Wazamonogatari (Episodes 7-8 & Special) and Disc 4 for Shinobumonogatari (Episodes 9-14). The discs were authored and encoded by Aniplex of America.

Audio options available are original Japanese audio with English subtitles only. No English dub was produced for the series.

The white subtitles are unlockable during playback, and the Blu-ray discs are region accessible to players set to A & B.

Blu-ray Specs:

Languages	Japanese
Audio	Japanese Linear PCM 2.0
Video	1080p High Definition Native format 1.78:1 aspect ratio
Region	A B
Subtitles	English
Locked Subtitles	No
Discs	4 (2 BD-25s, 2-BD-50s)