Monogatari Series: Off & Monster Season Episodes 4-6 Blu-Ray Changes

#feature #sidebar #anime February 22, 2025

by Sarca

I had originally abstained from making this, a sequel to an article I made on the first three episodes, because my friend Animmony did a very thorough comparison over at his blog. However, I realized that I had kept up with the TV corrections in lieu of Moni-san not always having the time, and the reach of the Japanese blog may be limited as far as overseas reach. So, I've decided to share some of the corrections made in Monogatari OMS BD Volume 3 (Nademonogatari BD Volume 2).

The first thing to note is that, like episodes 1-2, the corrections in the television broadcast of Monogatari OMS episodes 4-6 (Nademonogatari episodes 3-5) were relatively non-existent and limited to a couple of frames of extremely minor compositing adjustments and an otherwise random correction to Nadeko's surprise cosplay as Inspector Zenigata from Lupin III (the Zeniga-Nadeko is real).

If you're looking for a more complete look at the corrections, please see Moni-san's blog linked above, as I'm just going to be picking some of the standout ones.

Episode 4

The most immediately noticeable differences are changes in highlights and color—the contrast of the pictures on the screen especially.

Light flares and corrections to the faces, especially changes to the shadows, are also quite identifiable.

Something I've recently taken a keen eye towards, especially in looking at the works of SHAFT-related directors working outside of the studio (see: Yuki Yase, Kousuke Murayama, and Kenjirou Okada) is the use of gradients and foreground shadowing (silhouetting)/backlighting and how these end up being composited. Notice in this image that the chair color is also changed to yellow, which is the color of Araragi's chair in the first place, and this is true for all cuts involving this chair.

A lot of quality of life drawings changes. The shapes of the shadows are given a more natural feel and attuned to the Akio Watanabe style. Swimsuit Nadeko is basically redrawn, notice her hands, face, shoulder, collarbones, and hair. Some effects and extra visual flare is added to the cuts like the Nobuhiro Sugiyama-esque Sangatsu-like drawing.

Episode 5

Episode 5 basically right away has a number of minor corrections, but the most striking corrections appear during Kiss-Shot's brief cameo. During this segment of Nadeko and Yotsugi talking while going to the library, there are various more compositing changes like the distortion of Nadeko and Yotsugi's reflections on the cars and car mirrors, and the aforementioned foreground silhouetting.

The library itself has some minor changes to the background design and layout, but is most significantly where the core compositing changes can be found.

Episode 6

There is one significant change in a whole animated sequence in this episode, that being the action scene at the start. Besides that, a lot of corrections similar to those already pointed out.