Shinobu Oshino

Overview

Summary

Gallery

"It's difficult to change the world on your own, but twisting it a little might not be all that hard."

— Shinobu Oshino

Shinobu Oshino
Kanji Name	忍野 忍
Kana Name	おしの しのぶ
Romaji Name	Oshino Shinobu
Character Information
Alias	Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade Acerola Rola The Iron Blooded, Hot Blooded Cold Blooded Vampire Aberration Slayer Princess Fair
Age	598
Gender	Female
Personal Status
Classification	Aberration (Vampire)
Status	Alive
Relatives	Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster (Former Master) Seishirou Shishirui (First Thrall) Koyomi Araragi (Second Thrall, Master) Meme Oshino (Bound by Name)
Abilities	Vampirism
Professional Status
Occupation	Koyomi's Partner Princess (Formerly)
Equipment	Heartspan Dreamspan
Media
Work of Origin	Monogatari Series
Novel Debut	Bakemonogatari (Part One)
Anime Debut	Bakemonogatari Episode 1
Manga Debut	Bakemonogatari Vol. 1, Chapter 1
Voice Actor	Maaya Sakamoto

Appearances
Novel Appearances
Series	Monogatari Series
Volumes	Bakemonogatari (Part One) Bakemonogatari (Part Two) Kizumonogatari Nisemonogatari (Part One) Nisemonogatari (Part Two) Nekomonogatari (Black) Nekomonogatari (White) Kabukimonogatari Otorimonogatari Onimonogatari Tsukimonogatari Koyomimonogatari Owarimonogatari (Part Two) Owarimonogatari (Part Three) Zoku Owarimonogatari Wazamonogatari Musubimonogatari Shinobumonogatari Yoimonogatari
Anime Appearances
Series	Bakemonogatari Nisemonogatari Nekomonogatari Kuro Monogatari Series Second Season Tsukimonogatari Owarimonogatari Koyomimonogatari Kizumonogatari I: Iron-Blooded Chapter Kizumonogatari II: Hot-Blooded Chapter Kizumonogatari III: Cold-Blooded Chapter Owarimonogatari Season Two Zoku Owarimonogatari
Episodes	Bakemonogatari Episode 1, 7, 11, 15 Nisemonogatari Episode 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11 Nekomonogatari Kuro Episode 2, 3, 4 Monogatari Series Second Season Episode 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 Tsukimonogatari Episode 1, 2, 3, 4 Owarimonogatari Episode 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 Koyomimonogatari Episode 1, 2, 5, 9, 11, 12 Owarimonogatari Season Two Episode 1, 2, 5, 6, 7 Zoku Owarimonogatari Episode 3, 4
Manga Appearances
Series	Bakemonogatari Seishun Kijinden! 240 Gakuen
Volumes	Bakemonogatari Vol. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 Seishun Kijinden! 240 Gakuen Vol. 1, 2, 3
Other Appearances
Miscellaneous	Hyakumonogatari Audio Drama Okitegami Kyouko no Bibouroku x Monogatari Commercial

Shinobu Oshino (忍野(おしの) 忍(しのぶ), Oshino Shinobu), first known as Princess Rola (ローラ姫(ひめ), Rōra Hime), then as Acerola (アセロラ, Aserora) and then finally as Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade (キスショット・アセロラオリオン・ハートアンダーブレード, Kisushotto Aseroraorion Hātoandāburēdo), is a character from the Monogatari Series. She was born as Princess Fair (うつくし姫(ひめ), Utsukushi Hime), the princess of an unknown country, cursed by a witch to have her immense inner beauty visible to everyone who interacts with her, thereby provoking them to commit suicide in the name of her glory. After her entire country was wiped out by her beauty, she went on a journey in search of a way to reverse her curse, and met Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster, a vampire who turned her into the legendary Iron Blooded, Hot Blooded, Cold Blooded Vampire (鉄血(てっけつ)にして熱血(ねっけつ)にして冷血(れいけつ)の吸血鬼(きゅうけつき), Tekketsu ni shite Nekketsu ni shite Reiketsu no Kyūketsuki), who would go on to live for 600 years. Eventually, after meeting Koyomi Araragi, she becomes his partner and loses her legendary powers, becoming a little girl.

Personality

In her inital appearance, Shinobu was completely mute, not speaking at all, except for a few occasions. Even so, she is normally very talkative, and could not stand being silent for more than a few months. She has a haughty and arrogant demeanor, being very prideful and overly confident in her own abilities. She also speaks in an archaic manner, reflecting the first time she visited Japan, when she learned the language. Due to Araragi's influence, she occasionally displays childish behavior, reflecting her form, such as when her pride is broken by Yozuru Kagenui standing on her head, and she is driven to tears. Even so, in times of need, she is levelheaded and acts as a leash on Araragi's more emotionally driven actions that may bring him physical harm. She doesn't show much interest in people other than Araragi, rarely remembering their names. After becoming more accustomed to human society, she starts using modern devices, like portable video game consoles, and ocasionally dropping more modern slang terms, which contrast with her normally archaic speech. After eating donuts for the first time, she became obsessed with the treat, often trying to negtotiate and blackmail Araragi into buying her more of them. Her favorite flavor is Golden Chocolate, and she favors donuts from the chain restaurant Mister Donut.

Shinobu has a very deep and complex relationship with Araragi. After the boy decides to throw his life away to save her, she feels gratitude and the desire to connect with another human being for the first time in centuries, breaking her vow of never making another thrall in her life. Although she grows attached to the boy during their time together, she realizes that, since he wants to return to being a human, she can't be together with him, and reveals her monstrous nature to him in an attempt to get him to hate her, so that he would kill her, thereby achieving her initial goal of committing suicide. Although fooled at first, Araragi, with the help of Tsubasa Hanekawa, eventually realizes Shinobu's true intentions, and decides to save her, reducing her to the form of a little girl. Angry at Araragi's actions and her new powerless form, she becomes mute for a long time, trying to make Araragi regret his actions. Even so, she still holds affection for him, and eventually, the two come to a reconciliation, agreeing to not forgive each other and move on. Having been tied together, the two come to hold a bond more powerful than anyone else, with both of them declaring that they would die together. Even though she still hides some of her true feelings from Araragi, she naturally opens up more to him throughout their time together; Shinobu is initially aggressive and confrontational towards him, needing to mask her real intentions behind her "evil vampire" mask, but later becomes able to share her true feelings much more openly. She comes to hold a lot of pride for Araragi as her master.

Shinobu is afraid of facing her own feelings, and uses her nature as an aberration and her arrogant demeanor to mask her emotional weakness. Because of her centuries of isolation, first due to her curse and then due to her vampirism, which prevented her from ever connecting to any human being, she became extremely emotionally fragile, in contrast to her physical power as a vampire. This inner weakness shows through multiple times throughout the story, beginning with her response to Araragi preventing her attempted suicide, after which she goes mute. During this time, she also develops a deep jealousy, seeing Araragi ignore her while he helps all the other girls he meets with their problems. Eventually, she runs away, and plans to destroy the world if Araragi never finds her. Though this crisis is averted, she has to confront this possible future when she and Araragi travel to the past. In seeing what she could have done, she shows immense regret and admits to her fault in not trying harder to connect with boy and to throw away her pride. The full extent of her weakness and attempts to shield it, however, is seen during the incident in which Seishirou Shishirui regenerates. Shinobu wishes to avoid the man completely, afraid of possibly deciding to abandon Araragi as a result, but Suruga Kanbaru reveals the vampire's insecurity and fear for what it truly is, and she eventually decides to eat her first thrall herself, expressing how much she missed him for a single brief moment.

Shinobu is described as someone carried along through life by her whims. While she was still a human, her personality was much more altruistic and kindhearted, possessing a "beauty" which would come to curse her. Deathtopia, trying to reduce the girl's inner beauty so that the curse wouldn't be as effective, teaches her how to act like a haughty vampire, personality traits which she would later come to bear, although she can't initially be convincing in her act. She sees the purebred vampire Deathtopia as someone to be admired, who lives by her own terms, and continues to respect her for the rest of her long life. Seeing how a vampire makes deaths have meaning by eating them, she comes to desire to be a monster herself, and asks Deathtopia to bite her. Towards Meme Oshino, she feels frustration at having had to listen to all of his aberration stories all the time, calling him a brat. She has a rivalry with Yotsugi Ononoki, who disrespects her during their first confrontation, calling her a "grandma", and the two continue to dislike each other, even after Yotsugi becomes friends with Araragi.

Appearance

Shinobu's appearance often changes, due to her vampiric abilities allowing her to alter her age, length of hair and other physical traits. Her most common appearance is that of a little girl, around eight years old in terms of physical age, with golden eyes and waist length golden hair, which spikes up at the bottom into thick strands. In this form, she is shown wearing a variety of differently colored sleeveless dresses: first, a pink dress with a white underside, worn alongside a dark green aviator helmet and goggles, a white dress with pink ribbons and white sandals, a black dress with a white underside and pink high heels or a green dress with white polka dots, a four leaf clover on the top section and pink sandals. Additionally, while she was still a full powered vampire but missing her limbs, her child form looked different, having short hair in a bob haircut and wearing a sleeveless light red frilly top with a sweater collar and a dark red ribbon, under which she wore dark wine red shorts. After travelling to the other timeline with Araragi, Shinobu was briefly shown wearing a pink kimono with a bat and crescent moon pattern and a red sash. She also tied her hair into two buns and wore traditional japanese sandals.

In her fully powered adult state, she has the physical age of a woman in her late twenties, with a tall and voluptuous figure, possessing the same golden eyes and even longer golden hair, which curves up into sharper spikes on the ends. As an adult, she always wears her signature red dress with sharp black frills at her waist and chest, and a white section along her torso. She also wears white gloves that go up to her upper arms, and black stockings, alongside white high heels. As seen in the other timeline, after her attempted suicide, she is shown in a torn up and bloody version of the same dress. When seen as a human in Koyomi Reverse, she wears a pure white frilly and puffy dress, alongside similar white gloves that go up to her upper arms, but showing her fingers.

She is seen as a teenager a few times throughout the story, first when she recovers two of her four missing limbs. During this time, her body becomes more developed and taller, though still not to the level of her fully adult state, and she ties her waist length hair into a ponytail with a red ribbon. She is shown wearing a dress with a beige bodice with a red section in the middle of her chest. The skirt section of the dress is frilly and a darker shade shade of gray, with a black section at the bottom. She also wears red gloves that go up to her forearms, as well as red high heels. When she turns into a teenager to prepare for her fight against Yotsugi, she boasts a different style inspired by Karen Araragi, wearing a similar side ponytail and a purple hoodie with a donut on the zipper over a black shirt, alongside a black miniskirt, black stockings and pink shoes, as well as a green transparent bracelet on her right hand.

After recovering her leg, Shinobu briefly physically ages up to around 13 years old. During this time, her hair becomes a similar length to her regular one, but is less spikey and shows off more of her forehead, and she is shown wearng a lose fitting white dress with a ribbon tied to her left wrist. She is shown transforming to a similar age while on their journey back to the past, this time imitating Tsubasa Hanekawa in her appearance, with large rimmed glasses and hair tied into two braids, wearing the uniform of Nadeko Sengoku's middle school.

Background

Shinobu was born as Princess Rola, royalty of an unknown country, around 600 years in the past. She was extremely beautiful, so much so that the Emperor awarded her with the title of Princess Fair. Rola became tired of the way people treated her, nobody ever truly looking at her for who she was, only ever thinking about her outer appearance. One day, an Old Witch sneaked into her castle, curious about the rumors of the beautiful princess, and met Rola, who told the witch about her problem. In response, the witch decided to use a spell to make Rola's inner beauty visible, so that people would only ever be able to look at it. However, the spell had dire consequences, as Rola's inner beauty was so radiant that, upon seeing it, every human felt the desire to commit suicide in her name, to offer their lives to her. Soon enough, everyone Rola interacted with died. Rola wished to get rid of the curse, but the witch had also died by cutting off her own head, so there was nobody to cure her. Eventually, Rola's entire country was killed by her beauty.

When seeing what she caused, she thought that she should die, but the strength of her heart wouldn't let her commit suicide. Crying in front of the witch's severed head, her tear briefly revived the witch, who spoke to her, telling her to go on a journey, away from any humans, never making any bonds, in search of a way to help those that die because of her beauty. Listening to the witch's words, she took on the name Acerola and went around the world. Eventually, she arrived at Corpse Castle, the home of the Death Prepared, Death Inevitable, Death Certain Vampire, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster. Deathtopia wanted to eat Acerola, but, because of the princess' curse, every time she tried to attack her, she would end up killing herself and coming back to life. Deathtopia took Acerola in, trying to find a way to remove her curse, and Tropicalesque Homeawave Dogstrings, Deathtopia's servant, upset at his master taking a human in, tried to kill her, but ended up destroying himself beyond repair. Afterwards, Acerola requested Deathtopia to turn her into a vampire, figuring that, if she had no intent to kill her, she could touch her without the curse taking effect. Deathtopia succeeded in turning Acerola into a vampire, and gave her a new name: Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.

Now a vampire, Kissshot didn't let her victims go to waste like before, instead eating them. The curse also stopped taking effect once she became an aberration. She then traveled the world, carried by her whims. Around two hundred years later, after visiting Antarctica, Kissshot realized that her power was weakened by the lack of humans, and decided to randomly jump anywhere in the world. She arrived in Japan by coincidence, falling into a lake and creating rain. Because the surrounding region was experiencing a drought, the rain saved the surrounding people, and they, in turn, mistakenly thought her to be a deity and started worshipping her. Enjoying the attention and luxury this brought her, she pretended to be a goddess for about a year. During this time, she also met Seishirou Shishirui, a specialist who enlisted her help many times in defeating evil demons around the area. However, at some point, in response to Kissshot faking the status of god, the Darkness started gradually eating all of the people who worship her, until the entire area was empty. Seishirou and Kissshot began investigating, and the Darkness attacked them too, eating most of Seishirou's body, leaving only a severed hand. Kissshot, in order to escape, jumped away from the Darkness and arrived in Antarctica again, where she turned Seishirou into a vampire by biting his hand, due to loneliness. Seishirou, however, distressed at what he had become, blamed Kissshot, accusing her of being behind everything and betraying them, and eventually killed himself by jumping into the sunlight. Kissshot, left with his weapons, Heartspan and Dreamspan, swore to never make a thrall again.

Four hundred years later, searching for a place to die, she arrived back in Japan, unconsciously attracted by Seishirou's ashes, which had drifted there. Once she arrived in Araragi's town, her heart was stealthily stolen from her by Meme Oshino, without her noticing. In a weakened state, she was ambushed by the three vampire hunters, Dramaturgy, Episode and Guillotinecutter, who stole her limbs from her, leaving her to die. Then, Koyomi Araragi ended up finding her, and decided to sacrifice his life to save her. Moved by this action, she decided to break her vow and turned him into her thrall instead, avoiding death.

Abilities and Equipment

• Vampirism: Having been bitten by a powerful purebred vampire, she herself became a legendary vampire, her powers overshadowing most other living vampires, including Dramaturgy. Her immortality is so strong that, at full power, she can instantly recover from a severed head and other such injuries, and can survive in the sun for a fairly long period of time. Additionally, she is immune to most typical weaknesses that vampires have, being able to show herself in mirrors at will and to enter buildings without permission.
  • Matter Creation: One of her abilities as a vampire is matter creation, being capable of creating any object at will. She most often uses it to create clothing out of thin air, though she also sometimes uses it to create things like game consoles. When she was at full power, she once created a castle for herself out of thin air.
  • Energy Drain: A natural skill for any vampire, she can drain aberrations of their energy and eat them, a skill she uses to neutralize Black Hanekawa.
  • Charm: A natural skill for vampires, which allows her to turn the opposite sex into her slaves by essentially brainwashing them. She has never been shown to use this skill.
  • Time Travel: A skill she was shown using at Koyomi Araragi's request, while in her weakened state, using not her own power but the power found at North Shirahebi Shrine. Even though she can open up a portal to the past, as well as travel across worldlines, she didn't seem to know how time travel actually worked before using it.
• Demon Sword: Heartspan (妖刀(ようとう)「心渡(こころわたり)」, Yōtō Kokorowatari): One of the demonic swords inherited by Kissshot from Seishirou Shishirui. Also occasionally called the Aberration Slayer (怪異殺(かいいごろ)し, Kaī Goroshi), it is a magical longsword that has the ability to destroy any aberration. It has an amazing sharpness, so much so that, when wielded by Shinobu, it can cut an aberration without it even realizing it or feeling any pain. The sword can only affect oddities, so, when used against a human, it will simply pass through them, leaving behind no damage.
• Demon Sword: Dreamspan (妖刀(ようとう)「夢渡(ゆめわたり)」, Yōtō Yumewatari): One of the demonic swords inherited by Kissshot from Seishirou Shishiri. It is a magical shortsword that has the ability to heal any aberration, bringing them back to life.
• Curse of Beauty: A curse given to Rola by the old witch. It is said to "make her skin invisible, showing her heart", effectively making people ignore her physical beauty and instead see the fairness of her heart. However, her heart is so beautiful that everyone she comes into contact with wants to offer their lives to her, as they judge that nothing else they own is worthy of her. While normal people are practically brainwashed when in contact with her, the curse affects aberrations in a different way. While Deathtopia, a vampire, has no desire to kill herself for the sake of Acerola, and can hold a normal conversation with her without any effects on her mind, when she tries to attack Acerola, her attack is instead reflected, making her kill herself, thus not allowing any oddity to harm her. Although the curse detects intent to harm and reflects it back onto the attacker, it doesn't prevent Deathtopia from interacting with Acerola entirely. When she tries to protect her, she can touch her without any issues, and she was also able to turn her into a vampire, at the girl's request, when she had no desire to harm her anymore. Aditionally, the curse's effects are lessened when the human isn't looking directly at her, shown by how, when interacting with Araragi during the events of Koyomi Reverse, he is able to speak to her for a few minutes without killing himself once she covers herself with a curtain.

Quotes

• (Shinobu's usual laugh) "Ka ka!"
• (Shinobu's usual reaction to eating donuts) "Panaino!"
• (Shinobu trying to convince Araragi to abandon her) "No matter what bonds you forge with others, time will tear them apart. Well... Doesn't thinking about it make you sick?"
• (Shinobu's reconciliation with Araragi) "We can't let the past be mere water under the bridge. Even so, there's no reason that we can't come together."
• (Shinobu's justification for helping Tsukihi Araragi) "The sun is my enemy, but the moon has been good to me."
• (Shinobu to Araragi) "It's difficult to change the world on your own, but twisting it a little might not be all that hard."
• (Shinobu's declaration to Araragi) "If you were to die the day after tomorrow, I shall live for three days time and tell a tale about you to someone. I shall recite the story of my master with pride to a listening ear."
• (Shinobu's monologue about Araragi) "Once upon a time, in a certain place, there was a weirdo called Koyomi Araragi. And he is still around to this day. And they all lived happily ever after."
• (Acerola to Deathtopia) "I am attempting to become such a monster myself—I wish to become like you. To become a cool, tough, kind, and beautiful vampire like you."

Trivia

• Shinobu's surname, Oshino, means "hidden plains".
• Shinobu's first name means "endurance" or "hidden", and is written with the same kanji as the "oshi" in Oshino, making her name a palindrome in Japanese. Additionally, the kanji 忍 is written with the radical for heart 心 under the radical for blade 刃, echoing her vampire name, Heartunderblade.
• Kissshot's first vampre name reflects the idea of a prince curing a curse with a kiss, a popular motif in fairy tales, in reference to her original ailment. It also echoes the name of Kisshouten (吉祥天), a Japanese deity of beauty.
• Kissshot's second vampire name, Acerolaorion, is made up of two terms: Acerola, which was Princess Rola's original alias, and refers to a cherrylike fruit also known as the Barbados cherry; and Orion, the name of a constellation, which was, itself, named after a hunter in Greek mythology, reflecting Kissshot's nature as a hunter; a vampire.
• Kissshot's vampire surname, Heartunderblade, reflects her nature to hide her true feelings, her heart, under the mask of a murderous aberration, a blade. It also echoes the weapons she would later acquire, two magical Japanese swords.
• Shinobu's catchphrase, "panaino!", is a contraction of the phrase "hanpa dewa nai no", meaning "that's not half bad".
• Shinobu's voice actress, Maaya Sakamoto, refuses to sing character songs, so Shinobu's arcs are the only ones that don't have the usual style of opening.
• In the Bakemonogatari drama CD, Shinobu was voiced by Aya Hirano, but all her other appearances were voiced by Maaya Sakamoto.
• Hachikuji and Shinobu both have a translucent green bracelet in their designs, an accessory which the character designer Akio Watanabe puts on a lot of his characters.