Review of Bakemonogatari

Bakemonogatari, or referred to as ghostory, more like Baka-monogatari or god-no-story. Oh my where do I begin, I'm sorry to say but this show, for me of course, is not good. Sure I might be slightly 'normie' for disliking the show and believe me, I do see why people would like this. Just for me however, this show struck me as a failure. To begin and to start with the review, let me just point out the repetitiveness of the show plot. It goes like this, it's always a abnormal anomaly occurs, it involves a girl that eventually leads to our main character, character of coursehelps and goes straight to Oshino Meme for help. After Meme analyse the issue, tells Araragi then Araragi proceeds to tackle the issue, which results in him getting destroyed and having his ass saved by someone else. That's it, this applied all except the problem involving Senjougahara. Other thing is that why is our main character so fucking unlikable, he is inconsistent in his character and sometimes act so retard. Example, take episode 13, to start the episode he straight off gropes Mayoi (snail girl) just because he was excited from his date with Senjougahara? Well I know in reality this is sicking, I do not really care if this applies in anime. All I want to know is how this in someways 'funny', like what were they even trying to get to the audience with that. Another thing is that, the plot is so easily read like a book. This is how it always goes, before the 'issue' happens, concern arises, and when the concerns arises they are quickly dismissed by either our main dude or the person in trouble. This eventually leads to the concern then turning into problems and giving the audience a ' I fucking called it / I fucking knew it' moment. Moreover, the show tries its best to act smart or cool, an example of cool is the constant zoom shots of the eye, face, or actions and for smart is the heavily packed writing the characters are saying. I saw other reviewers dismissing the writing as ' not understandable' or ' don't know what they are saying' but I can assure you the writing is actually quite impressive at times, definitely you can see the thoughts going into the writing. However, it has come to my attention that a lot of the writing is just to delay or to drag as long as possible. I can understand what the characters are saying but it all eventually leads to the same expected outcome, so I see the heavily packed writing as a way to drag the show till it's 15 episode mark. Plus we even got a recap episode which clearly shows the studio trying to drag. Other issue also involving the drag is the pace, for example in episode 3, in which the playground scene, we literally just spent a one and a half of episodes on the same exact location. Lastly, one more thing I want to call the show out for is the attempt of it being meta, like constantly through the show there are moments where the characters call out being in an anime or manga or breaking 4th wall. However, it doesn't do well at all, I clearly see them playing victim to these cliché. They call out these cliché but in return continue to fall into the same act that they called out for, just speaks to me as mocking themselves for being unoriginal. At this point, I have nothing to say but all this issues led to the downfall of the show, I will list the good things in the scores.

-SCORES-

Character- 3/10: Sorry but, there's not much good things to say about them, I guess if I had to say one it is that Tsubasa was pretty cute. To fill this part let me add in more goofs the show had to offer. Why is all of them trying so hard to be sexual to our main character, then expecting him not to think of lustful thoughts and then scolding him when he does. Dude what?

Art- 7/10: This is where the show is at man, the does those 'experimental' scenes involving real human figures and I must applaud for that, not many anime has those doings. However, this is of course not the best I've seen, shows like FLCL or Tatami Galaxy does a much better job. Other thing I like is the repetition of objects like the same model car or the bike. With the isolated background that are colored off just gives it that lonely feeling to it which is cool. It reminds me of Girl's Last Tour. Hell I don't even mind the idea of only using the main characters with no supporting or extra characters, this definitely gives that isolation feel the show, just can't say the characters they present are all that good tho.

Writing- 3/10: Lots of the issues are above, can't really say much of which I like. I guess if I had to pick one positive is that errrr.....

Sound- 7/10: Yeah I can definitely appreciate the OST, however there are cheap tricks used during scenes. An example, when a serious scene happens, boom the 'serious piano theme' kicks in. I can't help but just sigh at all this cheap tactics used to try to move the audience. But man does the show knows how to pick good intros and even the outro. Especially in episode 9 with the snake girl, I can help but just dance to that shit. And lo and behold there is where all the memes come from, plus Oshino Meme! Clever use of name.

Overall, I think the major issue of the show is that the studio thought it was possible for the adaptation from the manga. I have not read it and I see that it is highly rated on MAL, so what I am thinking is that this show was not meant to be adapted or even if it is just doesn't come out as well as in manga. Definitely in manga you can go at your pace and it would certainly be much faster. However, having watched this, this might just be a calling not to continue the series for me, I would have to get very desperate on anime to continue this series. But I'm pretty sure that time won't come soon.

Strong 3 to a light 4