Spoiler scope: No spoilers beyond what's in episode titles and opening credits.
The Monogatari series is one of the longest-running and most narratively ambitious shows in modern anime — and it is, by a significant margin, the franchise most likely to send a new viewer into a state of paralysed indecision. The shows are produced by SHAFT under director Akiyuki Shinbo, the source novels are written by Nisio Isin in clusters, and the anime entries air in the order SHAFT chooses, not the order Nisio Isin published the novels, and not the order the story actually happens in.
There are, accordingly, three watch orders that get debated online: chronological, release, and a hybrid path. We've used all three over the years. Below is the order we currently recommend to a new viewer in 2026.
The short answer
Watch in release order, with one specific exception (Kizumonogatari) inserted as a prequel. That order is:
- Bakemonogatari (2009)
- Nisemonogatari (2012)
- Nekomonogatari: Black (2012)
- Monogatari Series Second Season (2013) — covers Neko White, Kabuki, Otori, Onimonogatari, Koimonogatari
- Hanamonogatari (2014)
- Tsukimonogatari (2014)
- Owarimonogatari (2015)
- Kizumonogatari film trilogy (2016–2017) — or watch this between Bakemonogatari and Nisemonogatari if you want chronology
- Owarimonogatari Second Season (2017)
- Zoku Owarimonogatari (2018–2019)
- Monogatari Series: Off & Monster Season (2024–)
Why release order is the right answer
SHAFT and Nisio Isin worked together on the novel-to-anime sequencing. The information that gets revealed in Bakemonogatari's second arc is, in the original novels, presented later in the timeline — the anime's first season is structured around delaying that information for impact. Watching Kizumonogatari first, in chronological order, gives away a major mystery Bakemonogatari is built around hiding.
The release-order path also tracks how the production team escalates the show's visual grammar. Bakemonogatari is restrained, dialogue-driven and famously fond of single-frame title cards. By Nekomonogatari Black, the show has invented its current visual register; by Monogatari Series Second Season it is at the height of its powers. Watching it in release order shows you a studio teaching itself how to adapt one of the densest pieces of dialogue prose in modern Japanese fiction.
Where chronology actually helps
The one strong argument for chronological order is the Kizumonogatari trilogy. Kizu is set before Bakemonogatari and explains how the protagonist Koyomi Araragi met the vampire Shinobu (then known as Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade). The novels were written first; the films were produced almost a decade later because of long production delays at SHAFT.
If you watch Kizu first, you understand the Araragi-Shinobu relationship in detail before Bakemonogatari ever shows it. If you watch Kizu after, you watch Bakemonogatari with the same delicious uncertainty its Japanese audience had in 2009 — you know something happened, you can guess at it, and you don't get the full picture for years.
Both choices are defensible. Our recommendation is to watch Kizumonogatari after Owarimonogatari, where the films were originally screened in the international release window. If you have a strong preference for chronology, watch Kizu between Bakemonogatari and Nisemonogatari — that is the lowest-cost detour and it doesn't damage anything significant.
What's covered in each entry
Bakemonogatari (2009)
Twelve episodes plus three OVA episodes. Five arcs introducing Senjogahara, Hachikuji, Kanbaru, Sengoku and Hanekawa. This is the show's stylistic and thematic introduction — long, dense conversations between teenagers about apparitions that are, structurally, manifestations of the speaker's emotional problems.
