Review of Bakemonogatari

Maybe Miyazaki was right. Maybe anime was a mistake. I know he didn't technically say that - shut up. Bakemonogatari, huh? I implore somebody to explain the appeal of this show to me without resorting to one of these three talking points: 1) "You just didn't understand it." I like to think I'm more media-savvy than most yayhoos you could pull off the street, and I don't think Bake was just some unfathomably deep show that a mere peon like me couldn't begin to properly comprehend. The fervor I've seen surrounding this show reminds me of when Rick and Morty's popularity was at its peak. "To befair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Bakemonogatari..."

2) "A Westerner wouldn't understand the wordplay." Honestly, fair enough. I wouldn't. Though, as much a dumb Yank as I am, not understanding that something Koyomi said has a different/dual meaning depending on if it's written in Kanji or Hiragana shouldn't be enough to torpedo any enjoyment I could potentially find in the show. Also, imagine this in reverse. Imagine an American show relied so much on "witty" wordplay that it was considered impossible to translate effectively to an Asian market. Perhaps the majority is different, but I couldn't imagine holding that over some Japanese dude's head and telling him that, effectively, he's dumb for not getting it. Especially when a majority of his gripes aren't with the wordplay.

3) "It's not what you wanted it to be." Looking at Bake's tags on MAL, I'm told that it's three primary genres are "Mystery", "Romance", and "Supernatural". Simply put, the mysteries aren't compelling, the romance is abysmal and the supernatural elements left me, at best, whelmed.

I feel like, on a basic level, Bakemonogatari simply (and severely) misunderstands what it even is. I think words are great. I’m using them to write this review to you right now. I use them in my everyday life to describe sensations, emotions, communicate outside events, make requests, tell jokes, etc. The power of the spoken (or written in this case but whatever) word is a truly beautiful thing. With that, Bakemonogatari has too many fucking words. I know the Monogatari series is adapted from a series of novels, but even this isn’t how most literature works. People DO stuff in books. It’s not just two characters sat on opposite sides of a room talking at each other. This is how Bake feels, though.

There is seldom an unexpressed though in this show. Almost nothing is left up to interpretation, which is odd considering how much I see people describe this as something you have to pay the utmost attention to or else you’ll be totally lost. Yeah, you do have to read a fuck ton, (assuming you’re not fluent in Japanese) but characters arduously spell out motivations and themes all the time. You really don’t have to do much digging.

Bear with me because this next metaphor is tortuous and probably poorly thought out (kind of like the show). Chris Benoit’s 400th concussion probably didn’t have the same effect that his first did. After performing the diving headbutt for the 10,000th time, it probably all blurred together in a cranium-contained soup. That’s what the dialogue felt like in Bakemonogatari, akin to suffering numerous traumatic head injuries.

That’s just the effect it had on me, though. As part of the bigger picture, each line (no matter the importance) might as well have been a drop of cum in the ocean for all it mattered. At the end of episode 5 there’s a pretty big reveal concerning a main character and it had, no joke, literally no effect on me because it was conveyed almost solely through dialogue. The intended reaction was likely shock, but I just couldn’t be bothered. Most of Bakemonogatari is characters standing in a (somewhat) visually interesting liminal space talking to each other about, effectively, nothing. The more the characters talk, the less their words mean, and this phenomenon is observable by the second.

Speaking of the environments though, they’re interesting for all of 5 minutes. Then the horror sinks in as you realize you’ll be staring at the same fucking playground equipment/classroom/bus stop for the next episode and a half. 12 Angry Men this isn’t. The height of Bake’s cinematography ambitions is frequent extreme close ups on the characters faces and reusing the same establishing shot 37 times an episode. Before long, I knew not to get excited when something interesting happened because it was bound to be fleeting.

The show does play with its visuals in some interesting ways though. Live action cutouts with cool 3D graphics laid over them are sometimes a welcome change, but I feel it’s ultimately distracting from proceedings more than enhancing them most of the time. Instead of just, I don’t know, animating the main characters doing interesting things (or changing the scenery up more than once per 3 episodes) to keep our eyes entertained while they drone on endlessly about fucking nothing, the show cuts to some abstract rendering of their feelings that’s usually accompanied by an incredibly obnoxious sound effect.

The show also has this stupid ass gimmick where, dozens of times an episode, a black or red or gray frame with some Kanji character will pop up with a stupid ass sound effect to...? Apparently it’s to convey some character’s emotion. Okay. What a dumbass way to do that. Adding to that, there’s a bunch of times where, for a single frame, a wall of text will show up. Why? If I have to pause to read it, that ruins immersion and pacing and if I don’t I feel like I’m missing out on information. It’s a lose/lose situation.

Bakemonogatari feels like someone who’s only read books (no, plays) and has never seen a movie/TV show attempted to direct an anime, and every once in a while their drink would be spiked with PCP. It also feels like that person has never once interacted with another human being. The relationships in this show are underwhelming on an almost primal level (I don’t know what that means either). Koyomi and Senjougahara’s relationship simply isn’t compelling. She’s a tsundere and he’s basically a decent guy (not fucking really but I’ll get to that), so we’re really breaking new creative ground with this pairing as you can see. She bullies him, threatens him physically and belittles him at every chance she gets. He almost cheats on her in nearly every episode. I almost thought the show would do something with this, obviously, being a relationship born NOT out of any genuine connection, but instead out of trauma (Senjougahara) and apathy (Koyomi) but, alas, I was being too kind. It’s played entirely at face value. Anytime Koyomi said he loved Senjougahara, I’d think to myself “BUT DO YOU THOUGH?”

One of the running gags is literally just (ironic???) pedophilia. Anytime Koyomi sees this little girl, Hachikuji, he makes a big show of fondling her chest and trying to get a look at her panties. I’m not usually one to saddle up on my moral high horse, but seeing people in threads describe these scenes with words like “lolled at the beginning with the loli groping ^^ haha that lucky bastard” and “Araragi abusing Hachikuji was the best part” AND “Hachikuji getting rape in the beginning was lol”. Essentially, if this is what people who enjoyed the show are saying... I don’t know, maybe as a society we should rethink bullying.

And what’s the point of these scenes anyway? Koyomi never receives any substantial punishment as a result of these scenes, so as a condemnation of pedophilia it’s nothing. Is it literally just for a laugh? If we’re supposed to buy Koyomi and Senjougahara as a healthy, loving couple then why does he nearly cheat on her in every episode and why does she never get over her tsundere tendencies? Why does this show not take advantage (or only half take advantage) of being presented in an audio/visual medium? What’s with all of the dialogue that goes nowhere? What’s with the frequent sexualization of minors?

Despite all of that, Bake probably isn’t the worst show I’ve ever seen. Its art is cool (think flat, boldly colored liminality) and its music is great. It’s just filled to the brim with so much nonsense and junk that serves no purpose. The mysteries aren’t compelling as a result of being brought up, discussed, and resolved almost entirely through dialogue. The characters are as deep as they are likeable, which is to say not at all. I don’t know, maybe if I watched the 10 other series and 5 connected movies they’d be fleshed out, but I literally can’t think of anything I’d want to do less.

Scores:
Art (7/10)
Music (8/10)
Characters (1/10)
Story (3/10)
Objective (3/10)
Subjective (2/10)

This feels like a practical joke that, somehow, managed to get massively popular. I pray I never find myself on the same wavelengths as this show or its more problematic fans.