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In the first episode of Nekomonogatari (Black), we see this drawing of Araragi
during his conversation with his sister at the beginning.

![Depiction of Araragi Koyomi.](https://i.stack.imgur.com/sL6PV.jpg)

The text here states, according to the subtitles (and reading the text right
to left):

> IT'LL WEAKEN ME AS A HUMAN (COLOUR ART WORK)

I don't imagine the actual text here to be particularly significant though.

In either case, this reminded me a lot of Chinese socialist posters used for
propaganda, but I am not sure if "interpretation" is correct, given that I
haven't really been exposed to anything similar from any other East Asian
countries (namely Japan, in this case). Is my interpretation correct, or can
this drawing of Araragi also be interpreted as a reference to some non-Chinese
drawing style (perhaps of the variety used for propaganda in another country)?


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monogatari-series
Is this supposed to be a reference to Chinese socialist posters?


While I have not seen this episode yet, let me chime in to confirm that this
image looks awfully close to typical war propaganda posters. They do not have
to be [Chinese](http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2011/08/glorious-socialism-
chinese-ladies-in.html) actually, [Russians looked the same, as did those by
Western countries at the
time](http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2010/08/propaganda-posters-of-world-war-
two.html).

The drawing style was, as far as I know, mandated by the circumstance around
the second world war, meaning they all look similar. The messages are also
(maybe surprisingly) similar, as is the facial expression of energetically
staring into the upwards, far distance.

The text in the example given is Japanese, which I sadly cannot read.

Chinese and Russian as well as other socialist propaganda made particular use
of red colors:

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zVVSG.jpg)
([source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Propaganda_Poster_Art_Centre,_Shanghai,_China.jpg))

For comparison, American propaganda from 1944 often used the same painting
technique:

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CdosG.jpg)
([source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1944_JonWhitcomb_USNavy_%283214638694%29.jpg))


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