Review of Bakemonogatari

tl;dr: A series of simple but excellent character introductions in an incredibly uniquely made show. Bakemonogatari is over a decade old at this point, but it’s still relevant today as the start of the Monogatari franchise that ended only a few years ago. The Monogatari franchise is the franchise that I’d say that Shaft is best known for, wherein while there is obviously room for disagreement over what their best anime is, this is definitely the franchise that really let them flex their creative muscle and show that they’re capable of creating things no other studio possibly could. The only other anime from them I’ve seenthat gave that impression is Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei which isn’t anywhere near as popular. But I digress as this is a post about Bakemonogatari after all. I actually already watched Bakemonogatari and it’s sequel Nisemonogatari about a decade ago when they were airing but to put it lightly they were far above my paygrade at the time and it felt like they pretty much half went over my head so I kind of dropped it at the time with the plan of picking it back up eventually. It’s been quite a while since then, I’ve watched way more anime, and my weeb level for lack of a better word has grown considerably so I decided it’s a good time to jump back in.

My impressions on a rewatch are just as much amazement as the first time. This series is incredibly familiar feeling in that it in a way does feel like it’s just the same tropes commonly found in anime thrown together in an especially interesting manner. But at the same time, how they’re thrown together is so interesting that that in itself is enough to make the anime truly unique and stand out as exceptional. The story is about a guy named Araragi who helps out five girls with various supernatural problems they’re having with each getting an arc centered around them. Each of these arcs is used to show the development of some sort of relationship with Araragi, flesh out some basics to their personalities, establish their supernatural related quirks, and show some degree of links between them and each other as well as other side characters. It is important to note though that despite this season being fifteen episodes, ultimately this just feels like an introduction to all of them. It doesn’t feel like any real development has really occurred in any of them, nor does it feel like their was any intention for such a thing to be felt. This is very clearly just the beginning of a story, or rather with there being a number of side characters touched upon but not delved into yet, it doesn’t even feel like the complete beginning of a story. Still, what it has pulled off so far is quite impressive, with the stories despite often being ultimately pretty straightforward and simplistic still being the type of story that easily resonates and thus pulling the viewer in and getting them heavily invested in the cast which should serve as a solid emotional foundation for what’s to come. Plus, even though they’re pretty simply, they do draw on interesting myths and such, wherein it feels like a lot of these are rooted pretty deeply in Japanese culture and language and thus hard to appreciate as someone unfamiliar with them at a decent level, but what I did understand found quite interesting in that it gave everything an edge of mystery that worked quite well in supporting the character focused stories that the narrative was trying to tell.

While the story and writing itself is an important part of this, the adaptation I think is also incredibly important in this regard. In terms of art style, animation, music, and just general atmosphere and style it’s very unique. Anime usually tries to show what’s happening by directly portraying the events to the viewer. There is obviously a lot of skill that goes into deciding how this is done and there is a lot of stylistic choices that have to be made, but ultimately what you see is what you get. This anime is different in that it doesn’t seem to be trying to directly show anything, but rather simply convey the story through animation. This differentiation sounds trivial but is critical. What is being portrayed on screen isn’t supposed to be interpreted as what’s actually happening. Thus, the creators have a lot more freedom to portray things however they want. For example, outside of characters that matter everyone is either a cardboard cutout or is straight up not shown with the city just being shown as straight up empty most of the time. Architecture is often abstract. Character designs are incredibly basic and plain in a sense, but the art style and how it’s used somehow makes them stand out. Movements and actions are heavily exaggerated. The color palette changes constantly. Text is constantly flashing on screen. It’s very much a work of art that is beyond my ability to really describe properly, but with the layman language I have at my disposal the best way I can describe it is that it truly does feel like a work of art more so than any other anime I’ve seen. The soundtrack and sound design are also exceptional and work really well in that regard. The anime is also interesting in that it gives each arc it’s own OP which are all wildly different, while using the same core ED, though with different variants, which feels like a minor change but is another thing to add to the pile that overall are enough to make the anime feel just really special in every way.