Review of Bakemonogatari

First, let's get something out of the way, for me, Bakemonogatari is a Quentin Tarantino movie in anime, is stylish, sexy, brilliantly directed and with an even more genius script. A dive to Bakemonogatari is seeing a world of quick shot changes, subtle messages in every frame, weird creatures, and much more, all done with a sense of style that you don't see so often these days. A magical world of puns, mystic crabs, demon monkeys, ghost, curses, and everything weird that you would find in a glossary about Japanese folklore. Bakemonogatari is an adaptation by the homonymous light novel written by Nisio Isin releasedin the summer of 2009 and produced by studio Shaft. The story centers around Araragi Koyomi, a third-year high school student who survived a vampire attack and barely recovered from that encounter with the help from the odd figure of Oshino Meme, someone who seems to be knowledgeable in all that is supernatural, and is now barely human anymore. You can break the series in 5 arcs, in all of them the order of events is basically the same, Araragi meets a weird girl, turn out she was cursed/haunted by some sort of spectrum, Araragi goes there does... Whatever it is that Oshino Meme says he needs to do, and the girl is saved. A structure that, at first view, is simple and that could become really boring if it was a regular shounen, that's definitely not the case here. The main force that powers the Monogatari series is its dialogues, Nishio-sensei is a master of that art (just like Tarantino, hence the comparison). The conversations between characters always feel like a fight (shot composition helps a lot with that, more on that later), both characters use all their wit to out spoke the other, creating this sense of battle and making things interesting, even though the scene is just a talk about cleaning a room that's too crowded with books. All that accompanied by a sense of humor based on puns; that, unfortunately, loses a lot of its meaning during translation, but still is really enjoyable, especially the talks between Araragi and Hachikuji or Senjougahara; and based on absurdity; because the conversations can go to some absurd places when you're to outsmart someone who is clearly more clever than you.
But not everything is perfect, even though the script for the show is consistently good, the plot sometimes feels a little weird, especially at the end of each arc, when they're trying to solve the curse of the girls. To be specific here means talking spoilers, so let's be a little more general. The problems, the ghosts, in Bakemonogatari are never, at most part, just a random encounter with an apparition and now you're haunted, they have a reason to be there, a hypothetical example is saying that someone who is too greedy would be haunted by a spirit who eats money. And this way of approaching the supernatural can lead to some really interesting character development because to overcome their problems the girls, and Araragi himself, are forced to grow as characters, and even though that growth is still there in a way or another, the way that they attain this growth is a little too "Deus Ex Machina". As I said before, Araragi goes to Oshino Meme who points the way to solve a problem, after that, all you have to do is follow the instructions given by Oshino and there you have it, the ghost is gone. I'm not saying it isn't fun tough, far contrary, the climax of each arc always has high stakes for the ones involved and the struggle of Araragi is real, even though that's not true for the one afflicted by the curse.
From a technical standpoint, Bakemonogatari is brilliant. The original light novel is written in a first-person view, this poses two problems for any adaptation. First, you don't go around thinking or saying: "how beautiful is this grey room with 10 chairs and 5 tables all arranged 50cm apart..." you get the point. The books don't tell where the characters are, how they positioned on the room or even how is this space, is all left to the imagination of the reader. And the second problem is what makes the first problem, not a problem, at least in the light novel, there's a lot of inner monologues, discourses that are, sometimes, important to the scene and that are not that easy to adapt without straight up reading them on the anime. Both of these things pose a problem for any adaptation, but Bakemonogatari goes around them flawlessly. The director, Shinbou Akiyuki, uses of everything on the book of good direction, the shots are quick, well composed and cut together in a way that makes everything more amazing to look, along with the often weird art and animation, and I say that as a compliment, everything on the show serves as a way to create an atmosphere of bizarre, that matches all well with the stories that are happening within the narrative. All the scenario although rich is a mere addition to the real focus, the characters. Character design is solid, especially in the case of Hachikuji, even though it can get on the generic side, not that this is a problem especially when considering the incredible work of animation put on every one of them whenever the director decides to use a different shot to say something about that character state of mind, when trying to fill in the gaps left by the first-person view of the book. There are often monologues, between, and during, character interaction, their voice is really well done, especially the one for Senjogahara Hitagi that has done a fantastic job impersonating the self-proclaimed tsundere. And as a plus, props for the one who had the idea of inserting quotes from the book between shots. Is a really cool flavor effect for the whole show
All things considered, Bakemonogatari is a really good show, with a fantastic script and direction and a plot that, although interesting, leaves a rough impression sometimes. The formula for the episodes may not be of everyone's taste, what is understandable, is a weird show, but a fantastic one in being that.