Review of Bakemonogatari

This review is for the series as a whole. If you're like me, the kind of watcher who's into "intelligent" romances (my usage of "intelligent" is no more than an aesthetic description here, btw), there will be material here for you that you will love. I love those parts myself. However, if you're not into 20-minute long recitals of worldbuilding explanations that frequently put the entire world at stake, it will be a little rough for you to get through it. I've always felt that after a certain point, the higher the stakes of a story, the harder it is to relate to and reallycare about. I found myself watching the later seasons just wanting them to go back to the smaller scale interpersonal drama that the series opens on, and tantalizingly, it consistently shows up here and there in small portions. It just gets increasingly clear that's not the main story the author wanted to tell, instead opting to telling a story about the world, the nature of "oddities" and the plot that's affecting all of it. It made me feel a little misled, and, though I did like the series overall, I feel like I wasted a lot of time watching it because my expectations were betrayed. If you're like me, keep that in mind.

Also, the loli/incest shit gets completely out of hand to the point that it's clear the author is proud of normalizing it. Just based on that alone I can't recommend you watch it, and especially not that you pay for it.