Review of Bakemonogatari

Spoiler-Free Review Disclaimer: At the time of writing this review, I have ONLY watched Bakemonogatari The monogatari series has always been very intimidating to me due to the sheer size of the franchise however over the last week I started with Bakemonogatari. Having watched it now, I can confidently say that this show is worth your time. While the show can just be summed up by “vampire makes a harem”, the show is so much more than that and is really something amazing. Story: The story of Bakemonogatari is oddly structured as it while it features the same protagonist, there are multiple small stories to be told here eachfeaturing a girl with an issue that Araragi helps overcome. Each small story is thought out in meticulous detail and requires full attention to understand everything that is going on sometimes and had me making sure I was absorbing every small bit of information that was given to me as it would somehow impact something later on despite the insignificance of it. This show is very dialogue heavy and quite complicated because of that however, if you pay attention you should not be completely lost.

Art:

The art of the show is something incredibly unique and is a joy too look at. It goes hand in hand with the plot to really show how the characters are feeling at points effectively as well as genuinely looking beautiful anyway. The animation is consistently high quality and I never found it to drop in places really at all. The show demonstrates clever visual techniques like cutting to a quick visual slide every so often to show what Araragi is thinking or using a mixture of real-life images in the openings of the show in combination with the usual art style. The show tries new things and it executes it extremely well.

Sound:

While the sound did do a good job to create atmosphere for scenes. I never found it to be outstanding. To give credit where credit is due, it does use a variety of audio techniques like muffling the music and random silences to suit the atmosphere of the show and it does work extremely well. The music is nothing memorable in my opinion, but it does the job and it does it well.

Characters:

As there are a lot of important characters, I am only really going to cover Araragi and Senjougahara specifically and the rest generally. Don’t get me wrong, all the characters in the show are incredibly well written, it’s just that I would be here all day otherwise.

Araragi:

Araragi comes off as your generic perverted protagonist. And while some of that is true, he shows to be so much more than that as the show progresses and becomes a character that is both relatable in a lot of aspects. He cares about the outcome of each of the 5 girls and does his best to help always despite what his perverted exterior shows. He is a good protagonist for the show as you see him grow and play off of the other characters to an incredible extent, helping the other characters shine as a result.

Senjougahara:

Senjougahara plays perfectly off of Araragi as they are quite different in a lot of aspects. She is a self-proclaimed tsundere and teases Araragi constantly. She keeps all of her emotions hidden which explains why she is always so brash to Araragi despite caring about him. An analogy of a crab would be very applicable here due to her being hard on the outside and soft on the inside emotionally. The show gives her a reason to be like this and makes you sympathise for her.

The rest:

The other characters, while all as notable as each other are all very well developed and each of their problems link very well with their characters metaphorically. I never found any of the characters to be annoying and they all bounced of Araragi very well with a lot of funny interactions.

Enjoyment and Overall:

I enjoyed this show a lot and for someone who was intimidated by the series initially, I would recommend it to anybody who was looking for something deep and thought-provoking even if they do not want to invest to deeply into the series anyway. The show is really special and has definitely solidified its place as one of my favourites.