Review of Bakemonogatari

*Spoiler-free review* I started watching this after finding out how highly praised it is. I came out... feeling that - at least this first season - didn't really deserve the praise it gets. Don't get me wrong; for all my criticism towards Bakemonogatari, I did somewhat like it because of what I perceived as its strengths. However, many things did still bug me. First things first, this anime is condensed into different arcs, each one about a different aberration haunting a different girl each time. It does seem to have an overlaying story, that being Araragi Koyomi's complex and supernatural life. Each arc focuses on aspecific character; the girls he finds and has to help.
I enjoyed the mythological aspect to it, and how the conflicts never seemed to be truly solved, something I hope will be expanded upon in further seasons.

As for the art and animation... it certainly had Shaft's unique style. It was beautifully animated, and the few fight scenes were incredibly fluent. However, something that threw me off from the start were their choice of adding pictures with text and rapidly switch between them. At first, I thought I seriously had to read them to understand the story better, but was later told by a friend that it wasn't necessary. That, and the fact that they changed style a lot - references I never caught - lowers this score for me.
The character designs are very nice though, at least in my opinion.

The sound, particularly the voice acting and the opening and ending were great. The reason why it's not higher is because the OST barely stood out to me during the actual anime, and to me, that's a big part of how I rate sound.

As for the characters... Frankly, I didn't like most of them so far. Araragi was blatantly creepy in how he treated Mayoi and Sengoku at times, which I hate. Other than that he seems like a decent character, but things like that bug me a lot.
Then we have Senjougahara, a sadist tsundere that I dislike a lot so far, mainly because I can't relate to her and never really find her remarks funny, as I can only see Araragi's and her relationship as an abusive one. Hopefully that changes as well.
The other characters had some good moments, but were generally not really interesting. I did like Sengoku and Shinobu though.

Overall, the humour often flew over my head or was tied to sexual jokes which I don't often appreciate or like. Many of the references eluded me as well, as I'm not that well-versed in different titles. The fan service in general threw me off as well, especially as it never seemed to serve any purpose other than... well, fan service. Unfortunately those are probably the main problems with the series in my opinion, but that being said:

I did enjoy it overall. After the second arc ended and the third one began, I got more interested in the series as a whole. I enjoyed Kanbaru's and Sengoku's arcs the most, and the conclusion of Hanekawa's wasn't bad either.

All in all, I give it a low score, but only because I personally didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped. I will continue watching regardless in hopes of it getting better, and I'd say to give it a shot, especially if you're into fan service and harems, but also if you like witty conversations and tsunderes.