Review of Bakemonogatari

TL;DR- After a bad encounter with a vampire that left his life hanging by a thread during spring, koyomi araragi is a third year highschool student who is in th no man's land between a vampire and a human. Due to this, he has some vampiric powers such as regeneration bestowed upon him. He now becomes a sort of supernatural apprentice to the man who saved him, meme oshino and the story follows araragi trying to solve 5 not-so-ordinary girls problems who are dealing with a different yet supernatural trouble of their own. The story is very conversation driven to the point where the storyitself is only second to the character development and them talking. Can araragi help these girls with their problems when he has some of his own?

Similar-

Katanagatari- made by the same author with a character driven plot that isn't too focused on comedy, the similarities include the wacky camera angles to the hectic dialogues that send you on an emotional rollercoaster. There's no end to the innuendos in both of these series and both touch on the randomness and meaninglessness of life and the universe.

My teen romantic comedy snafu-Similar main lead who had given up interacting with people and similar main female characters i.e. tsundere service. Both series have witty dialogues with well-crafted characters down to the supporting characters being fleshed out well. Talks that are seemingly meaningless are laced with extrapolations of life and show meaningful conversations about friendship and values.

Art- Baring in mind that the art is second to the conversations in this verbose anime, the art is brilliant. From the weird and unconventional cuts to the bizarre scenes and camera angles that are still being used in filmography to this day, it's honestly mind-blowing. The character designs did well to mirror the emotions in each scene with odd poses being thrown into the mix during monologues to keep the scene interesting enough but not enough to detract from the brilliance in writing. They also combine real life photos in cut scenes which is an interesting take since usually this is shunned away from when producing anime. Talking about the scene cuts, they usually are extremely fast blocks of text on plain background that aren’t necessary to read but foreshadow or show jokes depending on the scene. Studio SHAFT really outdid themselves with this gem.

Music- Background music in this anime is almost like an afterthought which usually I would rain hell on but in this anime in particular it was much appreciated as it reduced the amount of strain on me whilst i was watching. That's not to say it was bad, it was simplistic so it complemented rather than dominated so it was the path in the right direction in my opinion. The op’s are funnily enough sung by the main lead voice actress which is unexpected yet very welcomed and each separate voice actress did good with the singing and the lyrics matched the character that the corresponding ep was covering. It even birthed this meme. The ed song was something that grows on you-literally- as you gain more information as at first it makes no sense but then the ed has parts that you would only understand fully if you complete the series which kept it fresh for me.

VA- Voice cast has a star studded line up and does justice with how the conversations are poised to give meaning to each word, with monologues being rife with double entendres and innuendos to how they conveyed emotions all across the spectrum. The subtle nuances and recognisable vocal cues are brilliantly used. Taking into consideration the fact that a lot of tongue twisters that I had a hard time reading were said without tripping up is a sight to behold and deserves a hats off from me chief. A major problem however, is that since the conversations are so important, when they are translated into english most of the meaning is lost but that's not to take away from the brilliant voice acting, hell they even mention it in a passing joke on a sequel and joke about it, breaking the fourth wall.

Themes

As the title and thumbnail suggests, bakemonogatari faces the problem of escapism we have in society. Simply put, escapism, according to oxford dictionary, is the tendency to seek distractions and relief from unpleasant realities especially by engaging in fantasy or seeking entertainment. Simply put, it's the idea of running away from your problems, hoping that they’ll somehow solve themselves if you leave them alone. We see this trait constantly throughout the main characters. In the crab arc, this was senjougahara running away from the weight of her bad memories she had with her mother coming from the time she had joined the cult. This arc thus focuses on not escaping from our memories, no matter how painful they may seem as these memories are the building blocks of who we are today. The Mayoi snail arc covers araragi showing escapism from his family due to what happened in owarimonogatari- remember how I said this anime isn’t in chronological order- and how he grew apathetic towards society as a whole. Essentially this arc, focused on hachikuji, shows that life is finite so we shouldn’t try to escape from our familial responsibilities as we only have so much time we can spend with them . The monkey arc focused on kanbaru shows how we shouldn’t run away from our own thoughts, however malicious they may be, as our thoughts don’t make us. There was this quote I once heard and I think it sums this situation up brilliantly. We make our actions but in the end our actions make us. Senjougahara closed herself up after being scammed- comes later into the series- so she neglects her duties as both a senior and a friend to kanbaru so kanbaru desperately wants araragi to disappear since he accomplished what she couldn’t but ultimately she accepts him and understands what she was running away from. For the snake arc, sengoku is trying to escape from the ideals placed upon her by her parents and peers. For her this manifests as a snake slowly constricts her thoughts and desires as she is essentially forced to live life as though she is a doll even if she wants to be something else- see monogatari s2 for that. The final arc, the cat arc, shows how Hanekawa was running away from her homelife and this stress. Her homelife wasn’t the best, especially when you consider the fact that she doesn’t live with her biological parents but with her step-father and step-mother. She kept on accepting the abuse thrown at her since she believed that it was the only way for her to live peacefully, but that caused pent up stress to manifest as her alternate form. Ultimately, by accepting both halves of her and facing her home situation head on, she was able to be in more control of the situations. But the weird thing is, escapism isn’t bad. Studies have shown that escapism is becoming ever more prominent in our day to day lives, from books, to sports, the games and even the youtube video. A study done by LSE shows that internet use increases the more someone has either high stress or low self-esteem and that this use suggests that it is a coping strategy. According to welldoing.org, the way to get away from escapism is through mindfulness. We need to understand the situation we are running from such as painful memories from the crab arc, identify situation which we try to escape, like interacting with your family from the snail arc, find the mood that triggers escapism to occur, like jealousy from the monkey arc and then remember how we feel after we come back to reality, such as the slow constriction of ideals being removed in the snake arc to the acceptance of your stress in the cat arc.

Thoughts

Bit of trivia for you. Gatari is the voicing form of Katari. Kataris are tales which are passed down generations through speech. "Bakemono'' means monster and "monogatari" means story. Thus, you get "Bakemonogatari'' which is an anime that contains tales of monsters. This was taken from another review by the name of NurseNitsuj. Anyways, the anime did well to portray a so-called tsundere girlfriend without falling flat on its face and funnily enough, follows harem tropes which I noticed during the writing of this video but didn’t feel like it when I was watching it and honestly not even now. Sure it follows a guy helping girls and is surrounded by girls who tick the boxes of tsundere, fan service queen, seemingly moe but really yandere childhood friend, athletic tom boy and a loli who all enjoy the company of the male lead but at no point did it seem like a harem to me. This anime was meant to stand out and redefine its genre and it sure as hell did subvert expectations especially when you consider that the source materials aren't written chronologically yet nearly all of them have been adapted to anime form.

Overall, I enjoyed this anime as it shows the brilliance of gripping conversations and the importance of facing your problems as best as you can as escapism usually leads to more bad than good. Take a moment to think about when you have try to escape from a situation, if you learnt anything from it make a mental note since anything you can learn from that allows you to become a better person surely is good for you.

Links

190014942.pdf (core.ac.uk)
Why Escapism can be Harmful (welldoing.org)
5-Henning-100-120 (psu.edu)
Full article: Mapping the extended frontiers of escapism: binge-watching and hyperdiegetic exploration (tandfonline.com)