Review of Bakemonogatari

Shaft. A studio mostly known for its comedies, lolicon fanservice and other forms of softcore pornography. I don't know why this studio is praised so much, but at least it did seem to make some effort in a select few titles in recent years.. And this is one of them. This is a spoiler free review. *Story* Where do I start? In the story section I usually like starting with the setting, but in this case It’s hard to describe what the setting is like. From what I can gather though, it’s basically modern day Japan but with a bunch of random supernatural elements combined in to one(or what they call "oddities"). You have vampires, Gods, Devils, ghosts, curses and what not.

The story itself is basically separated in to a few different arcs. Each arc focuses on a different character that is introduced (all of which are female of course). And our self insert protagonist attempts to solve each of their problems. There's always some cool twist that's presented at some point at each of these arcs that you likely won't see coming. These twists are each heavily dependent on the supernatural elements that are introduced out of thin air, but are still cool. On the other hand, there's rarely any tension in it, since the main character is basically immortal and he heals faster than Wolverine.

Another thing is that each of these arcs have little to no relation to one another, so the story here is almost episodic in a way. Also the characters that each arc focuses on have little to no role in later arcs. Even though it obviously tries to contrive a role for them once in a while it turns out insignificant for the most part. So the whole thing plays out like a harem or a more bizarre version of Clannad or Air. You know, it's about a guy going around and solving girls' problems. How exciting!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that makes the story bad, but that's pretty much how it plays out and what you can do with such a premise is pretty limited.

On the more technical level, the story is generally paced ok, but it's far from perfect because it seems too rushed in some arcs and pointlessly sidetracks in others (the final arc). But in general it's not a very eventful watch, it's mostly just people talking (which is the appeal of the show). On the other hand, I like the way it handles and explains its supernatural elements and even the harem itself seems to be excused in a way at some point (but that excuse later turns out to be a lie, which is disappointing). Besides that though, the whole thing still seems random and the big picture is still vague. I could be wrong, but my guess is that there's no big picture here, and this is just random stuff left and right?

Even if you haven't watched this show yet, I'm sure you've heard about the witty dialogue it has, am I right? So yeah, it is witty and for me it was enjoyable to an extent. But beware, because a great deal of it is just pointless and hardly relevant to anything. It's pretty much like if I were to start talking about what I ate for dinner last night in the middle of this review and then say "but I digress" and then continue with the review. Or in the show's case, continue with plot exposition that is also pointlessly extended at times. I did enjoy it to a certian extent, but it did get a little tiresome after a while. To be fair though, it could be argued that some of this dialogue at least helps you know the characters better.

Lastly, the series ends openly without addressing a certain elephant in the room (well, it's definitely something that sits in a dark room), but maybe this part of the review will be edited after I watch the next seasons.

So overall I guess there's some sort of story going on here, but not much.

*Characters*

In order to tolerate the characters in this show you need to have a certain mindset. They basically behave in very bizarre ways, it almost seems as if they're in some sort of play or something. They don't really question any of the weird stuff that goes on in their world. They just blend in to the weirdness so I don't find them very accessible.

The main character is basically a self insert kinda guy. He's somewhere between an average joe, a loser of some kind and a pervert? I guess... I just don't know what to make of him. One minute he's being all kind and chivalrous, the next minute he randomly harasses a little girls' boobs.. So yeah, whatever.

The rest of the characters are basically harem stereotypes and fetishes, but they're very well done. you have a tsundere, 3 lolis ( 5 if you include 2 little sisters), a tomboy, a big breasted glasses girl and some weird infodumping guy who's not expanded upon much yet. Yet, they're all very quirky, eccentric and fun to watch.

All of the (female) characters have interesting backstories that are presented through narration. This is by far my favorite part of the show. The backstories are usually very dark and creepy. And even if I still can't relate to the characters, their backstories do wonders in making you more interested in them and in helping me understand the problems they face.

But like I said earlier, they don't play any meaningful role past the arcs dedicated to them, so that's unfortunate. Their presence loses its importance later on so they don't leave much of an impact on me.

Another thing I didn't like is that they took these stereotypes a little too seriously, I think they should've made fun of them a lot more, like in Shaft's other work, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. The thing is, when I started watching this show, I thought I was In for a satire of these stereotypes so I was a little disappointed that they seem to take them seriously just as often as they make fun of them.

Overall though, I still think they're some of the best made and most entertaining to watch harem stereotypes I've ever seen.

*Art*

I personally prefer a more realistic type of artstyle, but I admit that the character designs are very creative. There's a lot of variety in terms of their features and they're all very sexy looking.
In general though, whenever I think of this anime's art I think dark colors and shadows everywhere which is normally something I like. But this show isn't all that dark to begin with so I think it overstayed its welcome.
The backgrounds are very interesting and surreal, I really had fun looking at them. By far the most interesting part of the artwork for me.
Since the series has a great deal of dialogue, there's not that much to animate. However when the characters actually move, the animation seems pretty fluid and the few battles it has look pretty cool and bloody.

One thing that was irritating though is the directing. The camera hardly ever stays in one angle for more than 5 seconds, there's a lot of awkward zoom shots and weird camera angles. They also keep showing flashes of written texts on the screen too fast for you to actually read it. All of this while not much of importance is happening on screen.
Don't get me wrong it didn't bother me too much, but it still feels overly stylized and exhausting for the eye after a while.

*Sound*

The openings were relatively good j-pop songs, but they're not particularly memorable because they each last only a few episodes and most of them don't really fit the tone this show is going for either.

The ending song is a pretty good and memorable rock/pop song and did stick with me, but that's probably mainly because it was there through out the entire show.

The soundtrack, sound effects and voice acting sound great to me. No complaints here. I'm sure the voice actors worked very hard on this one as well.

*Enjoyment*

Yes, I guess did enjoy it to some degree. The supernatural stuff is interesting and some of the characters are fun, though the directing did get on my nerves sometimes and the dialouge did feel tedious a lot of the time.

EDIT: *Sequel and Prequel*

Almost all of the above also applies to the Nekomonogatari prequel. But I disliked it, since all it did was contribute a little more insight on a character who already has a 5 episode arc dedicated to her in Bake. And there was no comedy beyond the first episode, the pacing was slower than usual and it had lolicon/incest fanservice (classy!).

The sequel Nisemonogatari is just awful: It went totally overboard with the fanservice to the point it became cringe-worthy, it had a very flimsy plot that felt significantly more stretched out than usual, it doesn't contribute enough to fleshing out the characters for its length (though it did flesh out the little sisters and introduce a few more). Furthermore, some characters even seemed to behave out of character and randomly did stupid things they normally wouldn't do for the sake of more fanservice (as if there wasn't enough already), which is not a worthy cause.

*Overall*

Despite all my whining it was still a fine series. It definitely stands out and is well worth watching. Just go in expecting a well made harem, and you probably won't be disappointed.

Bake: 6.5/10
Neko: 5.5/10
Nise: 4/10