Review of Bakemonogatari

Back when I was still relatively new to anime in the early 2010s and active in various online communities, there was this popular show that everyone was hyping up: Bakemonogatari. People especially seemed to love this tsundere/kuudere purple-haired girl. Naturally, since a lot of my online friends were into it, I figured I should at least give it a try. While the anime had its moments, I can't help but feel that not only is the show itself way overhyped, but the main heroine… I just do not get the love for her at all. Hitagi Senjougahara is the first major heroine you meet at thestart of the show, and honestly? She’s an annoying bitch who never got better for me. The only positive I can give her is that she and the main character get together quickly, which is cool and all, but… all of her dialogue just feels like it's pandering to masochists who enjoy being verbally talked down to by an “attractive” girl. Look, I can enjoy my quirky anime girls, but someone who's a consistent bitch for no reason—especially when other heroines have deeper issues—just never sat right with me. I never understood why people love this girl so much beyond the fact that they like getting talked down to.

It’s a shame because I think the rest of the show is generally fine, though I still have issues with it.

I don’t think the main character, Araragi, is anything special. In fact, he’s pretty cringe a lot of the time, though he does have his moments. And honestly, with his personality, I can kind of see why he’d be part of the target audience that enjoys Senjougahara’s bitchy attitude. So I guess, at least from that perspective, their pairing makes sense?

What doesn’t make sense is how the Monogatari series ends up becoming this weird pseudo-harem where he keeps helping other girls with their problems despite having a girlfriend super early on. Sure, his relationship with Senjougahara is clearly dysfunctional with how much of a bitch she is to him, but the way he just keeps getting involved with other girls while she barely factors into it never made sense to me. And all the abuse he gets? Just why?

As for the other heroines introduced in this first season, they’re… alright, I guess. Hachikuji is kind of a funny loli at times, Kanbaru is a somewhat likable lesbian tomboy, Hanekawa is the most sane and likable (if a bit boring at times), and Nadeko… okay, basically everything about her arc is uncomfortable to me.

Speaking of uncomfortable, I’m no weird anti-perverted Puritan—I’ve watched my fair share of dumb ecchi “slop.” But with Bakemonogatari, even as early as season one, I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be a dumb perverted quirky show with Shaft-style animation and head tilts, a story where the main character tries to legitimately solve girls' personal issues (sometimes with magic action), or some weird pseudo-psychological show where characters attempt to be witty and poetic with how much they talk.

I’m all for mixing genres, but this just never made sense to me for Bakemonogatari. I can’t help but feel like the series is trying to do too much and ends up kind of a mess—but people love it because they love the characters.

But yeah, as you might already tell, I think the show in concept and sort of in execution is just okay. I don’t mind a story where a guy helps out a girl, with some goofy, quirky humor, occasional dumb perverted moments, and some legitimately interesting psychological stuff.

Unfortunately, I just think whatever positives this series has are heavily brought down by the (lack of) likability of a lot of the cast. Sure, they get the job done, but for every likable interaction or interesting psychological development, there’s something cringe holding it back—like Kanbaru beating up Araragi, Nadeko’s middle school craziness, Araragi’s sexual harassment comments, etc. With more charismatic characters, maybe these moments could have been funnier, but I just think almost every joke fell flat.

And as I mentioned at the start of this review, I think Hitagi Senjougahara is, at least in my opinion, the most overrated popular anime heroine of all time. I can at least get the appeal of other popular anime heroines like Kurisu from Steins;Gate, Zero Two from Darling in the Franxx, Holo from Spice and Wolf, Taiga from Toradora, or Yuno from Future Diary, even if none of them are in my personal favorites.

But Senjougahara? She’s just an unlikable sadist bitch in every scene she’s in. Anytime she showed up, I visibly groaned, and she alone heavily brought down my enjoyment of the show. I seriously can’t shake the feeling that her dialogue is just pandering to masochist weebs. If she were removed from the show, my enjoyment—especially in this season, where she’s the most prominent—would go up quite a bit. Thankfully, future seasons heavily limit her screen time.

Even then, I just don’t think Bakemonogatari is all that great, even with Senjougahara removed. It has some interesting ideas—solving girls’ psychological issues with Araragi’s sacrificial attitude at times—but I just don’t think any of the characters are particularly great, so I couldn’t get into any of the arcs as much as I wanted to.

Bakemonogatari clearly appeals to a lot of people online. It has a very high rating, but I know there are others in the same boat as me—people who just don’t like Senjougahara and, in general, don’t think the flow of the series is all that great. And I’m here to represent why some people may feel that way.