Bakemonogatari Review (Anime)
It’s been a long time coming but I finally watched Bakemonogatari and, well, read for yourselves. If you’re a huge lover of Monogatari, you may want to steer clear.
Monogatari is Talking: The Animation, and as that title suggests, there’s a lot of talking and a lot of characters repeating themselves across episodes. I love a lot of talking and I’m not new to it, having played plenty of text-heavy games, but Bakemonogatari felt as if it were hand-holding me on the off-chance I might not understand it’s less-than-complex themes; the characters speak a lot but say very little. It might sound like I downright hate it but I don’t, however, I’m struggling to see how the series is deserving of the lofty praise that it gets.
The story doesn’t go anywhere quickly, and it’s unclear what the overall goal of the show is, but the characters are slowly developed through conversations and experiences. I struggled to connect with the cast, but I can’t say I disliked them as they’re all unique to one another, and I began to slowly warm to them throughout the series, of which Bake is only a small part of. The main character is Koyomi Araragi, a survivor of a vampire attack which left him with rapid regeneration powers, but other than this he’s a typical teenager who’s interested in women and is somewhat socially awkward. Hitage Senjougahara is also a major character in Bake, a beautiful looking girl who’s been inflicted with a curse which causes her to be weightless.
Much of the show focuses on Koyomi’s and Senjougahara’s relationship, although there are several episodes where she doesn’t show up much at all; I’d have liked more of this as they both seem pretty awkward when it comes to love, and I found it enjoyable to watch in that aspect. Senjougahara’s old friend Kanbaru appears and has secrets of her own, and she becomes a prominent and one of the more lively and humourous characters in the show. If you don’t enjoy the character relationships presented, then you won’t enjoy Monogatari whatsoever.
There are many arcs covered in the series which can take a while to really get going, which is more noticable as character development is sparse too. I got slightly more involved as the series went on, especially as the story begins to amp up halfway through, but each arc feels as if it begins and is resolved the same way with an Oddity (a demon of sorts) attaching itself to a character, then Koyomi gets involved and occult specialist Meme Oshino gives him advice on how to resolve the Oddity.
The visuals are hit and miss, with the characters looking fantastic but the surrounding environments tend to be bland and non-detailed, opting for a more artistic approach with contrasting, fading colours and ever-changing art styles; it won’t be for everyone, but I did find it nice when it changed a bit more frequently, but some episodes take place in one main location and so I found myself wanting them to actually move away for a change of scenery. The characters are well-thought out in design though, and I love their designs and how Shaft managed to implement a part of each characters curse to their physical self, be it via a stapler, markings or physical manifestations,and I hope you notice these if you choose to watch it.
I mostly enjoyed the visuals though and they were one of the shows strongest points, but I didn’t really find it funny when the quality dips in favour of exaggerated, children’s cartoon-like faces and proportions in an attempt to give humour to some scenes; the visuals are usually great, and this took me out of the experience and had me rolling my eyes often. The humour shines best in Monogatari via wordplay and references, and not via its visual humour which I felt was sorely overplayed by the time I got to the end. There are rapidly moving shots at the start of each episode, but you don’t need to pause as the information isn’t required.
Being Shaft, the camera angles shift constantly and, of course, there’s their trademark head tilt which you’ll either find charming or annoying; Shaft do tend to overuse these, and I couldn’t help but once again roll my eyes when it happened a little too often, as if they were trying to add depth to a show that really isn’t quite deep. There’s plenty of fan-service too which doesn’t tend to bother me, and I was aware of it going in, although I’m not comfortable with a young girl, aged around ten-eleven, being sexualised at some points in the series, especially when it had nothing to do with the story. There’s a scene where another young girl is mostly naked, but it’s needed for the story due to her Oddity, so I could accept it as part of the story.
On a positive point, the audio is fantastic in both voice-acting and music. There’s no English dub, but the Japanese voice-over is great and features my favourite female seiyuu, Yui Horie, as well as other talented folk. The music is varied and catchy, with poppy songs used for the OP’s and ED’s, of which there are many and they’re all outstanding in both visuals and audio, and the background music in-show tends to fit the mood whether it’s relaxing piano or much harder to fit a fight scene, or raise tension and suspense.
Although I do have some problems with Monogatari, mainly due to its excruciatingly slow pacing in both story and character development, I still found some enjoyment in the series. Bakemonogatari has fifteen episodes, the last three of which are ONA’s (Original Net Animations) that would’ve been made to release on the internet although may have aired on TV first – I’ve no idea why this is, but it seems like a strange decision as the last three episodes directly follow on from the other episodes; it could’ve been half the amount of episodes and told me as much as it did, though.
Bakemonogatari certainly isn’t for everyone but Shaft know that, but I’m not entirely sure who they’re catering to, either. I hope that the other seasons impress me more because although I’ve enjoyed this series, there are way too many issues I have with it to be able to confidently recommend it, especially as I’d paused so many episodes as it slows down too often and, dare I say it, I was bored probably at least once per episode; I had to pause it just so I could go back to it and pay attention, otherwise I think I’d just go into a daze. I can name other shows that do plot, character development, mystery and paranormal better, and if it wasn’t for Shaft’s quirks then I’m not sure if Monogatari would be where it is today. Not every series hits its stride at the beginning but Bakemonogatari is supposedly one of the best seasons in the series, yet it’s average at best.
“Did you know every time you sigh, a little bit of happiness escapes?”
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