Review of Bakemonogatari

Let's talk about this show, for real. Let's start with the good: Openings: I wouldn't say I love all of them, but the fact that a show with 15 episodes has 5 OPs is at the very least worth some praise. Art: The style is pretty iconic, and it's clear that a lot of anime have tried to replicate it. The voice acting is also pretty phenomenal. Now for the meat of the matter. Is the monogatari series well written? If you know anything about this show, you know that people praise it for having some of the best dialogue in anime, but is that right? Well, kindof... I'd say it's about 40% well written, 30% fluff and 30% dumb. I think the illusion of "well written" comes from the speed at which it comes at you. But just stop and think about how many times throughout this series a conversation is there just to exist and it doesn't further any plot or character development. It happens kind of a lot. Now, not everything needs to be analyzed word for word and be perfectly written. But so much of this show just feels like being lost in a conversation and then coming out of it realizing it didn't matter whatsoever. Don't get me wrong I think a lot of this show can be very smart, but I think something becomes clear if you've seen one of the author's other works.

Pretty Boy Detective Club is in essence very similar to the Monogatari series, but gender swap, and that's kind of it. PBDC is pretty bad, to put it mildly, it's bland, uninteresting, and kind of dumb in places.

So...what's the difference? I think it's that the monogatari series is supernatural. Not only that, but it is fairly unique in its ideas. I firmly think that a lot of the "well written dialogue" comes from a sort of creator trick.

Lots of words + Unclear world mechanics = seemingly smart dialogue.

What I think is clever about this series is that it's so vague that anything can happen and still kind of fit. It's so purposefully empty so that anything filled is "interesting". To me, written dialogue is not only a lot of words, but meaningful words that expand on a character's ideas and how they fit in the story. I feel like you could swap out who says what in this show and it wouldn't make a difference half the time. Every character is able to spew out exposition regardless of their personality and I think that's a bit lame.

It's like there are two modes: Character mode & Plot mode, and there is extreme dissonance between the two.

Lastly, I hope I'm not in the minority here, but the themes of sexual assault are not very funny.