Review of Bakemonogatari

There will never be an anime quite like the Monogatari series ever again. It's so much more than just "lolis and waifus dude". For a casual highschool drama it had ridiculous amounts of depth and character development. It actually gave a shit you know. Instead of making these one dimensional cliches you see in every other anime, bake went the extra mile. This series consumed most of my adolescent years and shaped my entire outlook on anime. It is an amazing show. Bakemonogatari and Welcome to the NHK are to me the top 2 dramas with slice of life elements and (out of the ones I've seenso far) with inspiration and a clear message behind them.

Shaft has perfected the way of telling a highschool drama because they've been doing it for decades. Bake is the result of years of hard work culminating into the perfect highschool drama pseudo-slice of life anime. Not to mention the unique gorgeous artsyle that makes every character pop out of the screen and the legendary cast of VA's that voice them is just the cherry on the top.

Bake may have had it's ups and downs (Monogatari second season and first half of Owari in my opinion being the weakest of the series) but it is an artistic masterpiece. When you're first watching it, it can drone on for too long and get lost in itself telling you an extensive story but I guarantee you, you've never seen an anime quite like this. Stick with it. This series dipped my toes into something incredible that otherwise would be unbeknownst to me. Bake will forever be immortalized in my heart as my favorite long running series of all time and I doubt anything that I'll see from this point forward will change that. The Monogatari series was and is a much needed breath of fresh air in an otherwise oversaturated and generic genre.