Review of Bakemonogatari

Since there's no singular "Monogatari" page I can write for the whole series on here, I'm just going to do it on this first season. As such, I'll try to avoid spoilers but there may be some. The Monogatari series is an ambitious, wonderful and well-written tale from the genius behind Medaka Box, Nisio Isin. It provides a great insight into sections of Japanese culture, religion, and identity, whilst also mixing in a unique art style and writing form. It's story and actual animation is brilliant, and the characters are often engaging and well written. The soundtrack is also absolutely wonderful, and the humour is usuallyquite good.

However, the series is hugely let down by several factors that significantly harmed my viewing experience - the first and most foremost being the extremely excessive fan-service, more often than not focussed on underage children to a creepy degree. Devoted fans will complain your ear off that it's "part of the character building" and "it's for laughs", but I don't particularly find paedophilia funny. More to the point, if all the fanservice was removed, and the sexual fantasies of certain characters were removed from the story and replaced with the other forms of humour seen throughout the series, the series would be all for the better.

The series has several other flaws, but none as concerning as the one prior. The timeline is all jumbled up - again, devoted fans will just say that it's part of the experience, but I myself found it irritating, particularly with Neko. Several characters will appear without explanation and disappear for several seasons, until suddenly turning up again as if nothing has happened. In particular, one important character is suddenly essential to the plot, and has apparently known and talked to the main characters, having even given them advice and items, without any warning, and is only explained after another four seasons. Some characters also receive little to no characterisation, often with large regret in my opinion - in particular, two characters from the final seasons could have deserved a lot more screentime and character building.

In many ways, I absolutely love the Monogatari series, and in other ways, I utterly despise it. An artistic masterpiece with good humour and a thrilling, intriguing story is let down by poor characterisation, a messed-up timeline and absolutely disgusting fanservice. But that's just my opinion.