Bakemonogatari is a…
..well
it’s a thing.
It's not quite an action series, though it has that,
not quite a solely supernatural series in the traditional sense,
though it features that heavily,
and it's also not quite a romantic comedy,
though that depends on your definition of romance.
So really, it’s a THING,
adapted from the Light Novel of the same name by writer NisiOisiN
whose name I'm not going to attempt and bucher pronunciation of.
and that was adapted back in 2009 by studio SHAFT and its resident artiste
Chief Director Akiyuki Shinbo.
Bakemonogatari is a series, and now an entire anime franchise,
that people have sworn by as one of their favourite anime since its inception
due to its interesting characters, unique visual style,
and its PLOT.
But largely it’s a series I’ve previously avoided for a variety of reasons.
Being an Aniplex property has made actually getting a copy
of it stupidly expensive historically,
half the franchise’s story is tied up into several films that
have even worse availability in the West, and to be honest with very few exceptions
I’ve found that any work with Akiyuki Shinbo attached gets
far more praise for being “deep” and “meaningful” than it actually deserves.
But today, it’s high time that I finally take a look at a series that’s
now over a decade old and see not only how it holds up compared
to the many shows that have followed in its wake,
but also try to imagine how the me of ten years past might have enjoyed it.
so, ladies, gentlemen, and others, my name is Arkada
and welcome to Glass Reflection where today we are looking at Bakemonogatari.
Let's Jam.
Bakemonogatari is a series I wouldn’t necessarily describe as “Good”.
It is not a series I would actively recommend to people,
nor is it one that I personally found engrossing as something to watch.
But it is a series that is interesting. It has many elements to it
that it wants to explore and I can’t say that it doesn’t
find unique ways to showcase those elements.
But the show, to me, is a constant battle between two things:
Wanting to show how intelligent it actually is,
while also showcasing how much of a pervert the main character can be.
The series is a combination of Character arcs involving supernatural
elements loosely strung together by connection to our protagonist Araragi.
Araragi is a half-human former vampire oddity who,
while still having his humanity,
also retains several vampiric abilities from his backstory such as regeneration.
Instead of realizing how dangerous and deadly interactions with the
supernatural world can be and just walking away from it, he decides that,
despite not being an expert in supernatural dealings,
he should take it upon himself to become chief Exorcist of the area.
Thus he involves himself in many a supernatural phenomena likely
to get him killed. As long as it’s service to a woman in need.
I’ve known for a long time that Bakemonogatari has been a staple,
as it were,
for the slew of anime about a protagonist whose sole job throughout
the series is to solve the problems of various female characters.
While it’s not the originator of this format by any stretch,
because Visual Novel adaptations have been a thing long before
Monogatari came along, I don’t think it’s actually true to say that Araragi
as a protagonist is actually there to solve problems.
Even if that's what he sometimes ends up doing.
The first arc of the series even takes great pains to specify this with
a famous line of the series stating that the only one
who can solve the problems of these characters are the characters themselves.
It’s this inner reflection that the characters have to face which
makes the show worth watching, as they wrestle with their internal problems
and the more supernatural external results of that.
But even then I constantly have to question if anything actually gets solved.
More often than not in this first season, the root cause of any problem
is not the issue that gets resolved.
Instead, they only patch up the more obvious symptoms of the greater problem.
Senjogahara’s home life that caused her supernatural weight problem isn't really dealt with
only the weight issue itself.
One could make a clear argument that Araragi was one of the major problems with
Kanbaru to begin with, and Hanekawa’s problems are less solved and rather
just further repressed by Shinobu until presumably a later arc can finally deal with it.
For the show’s talk of having the heroines being the only ones
that can solve their problems, there’s plenty of unresolving to be seen,
and when things do get fixed it actually is Araragi that resolves the situation.
Well, sort of resolves.
Much of this initial season had me asking what his purpose actually is.
He mostly just seems to be a ferryman of sorts to guide the characters to Oshino,
who ends up providing the solution more often than not that Araragi just acts upon,
usually unsuccessfully.
For a series known for having the word “story” in its title though,
I actually found that the overall story is actually one of the least interesting things
about it.
By contrast, it’s the individual stories that are much more potent entertainment.
It reminds me of why I love shows like Mushishi,
with it’s taking of Japanese folklore and turning that into supernatural phenomena
that the mushi master Ginko attempts to solve or mitigate with his knowledge.
Every arc of Bakemono brings in a new supernatural problem.
It’s not necessarily an original problem, as like Mushishi there are plenty of
references to myths and folklore.
If someone tried to tell me that Bakemonogatari was the originator of the Monkey’s Paw,
I’d look at them and laugh.
But, to be fair, Bake takes these tales and reimagines them into more modern settings,
and it was one of the best things about the series.
AND THEN THE SHOW HAD TO BE ALL ***UAL ABOUT IT.
*sigh* So...
There is a particularly negative discourse to be had when it comes to
discussing Bakemonogatari and its more sensually charged content.
Some people believe that the constant pantyshots, naked women, and harrassment of
underaged characters are not really important to the plot necessarily,
but are rather just jokes and are not to be taken seriously.
That they are just the aspects that need to be included in order to make the series
cater to a larger audience, when its “deeper themes” would have lost them otherwise.
Other people are of the mind that it’s all intentional, and the risqué content is
itself a reflection of the main character’s repressed desires
and is absolutely essential for the development of the characters.
“It’s a deconstruction of fanservice in anime!”
they might say.
There are also some people that say the show is not ***ual at all
That is an opinion I've seen, and really
I think that if that's one you hold you might need
to get your eyes checked.
possibly.
But this is why coming up with my own take hasn’t been easy,
mostly because I see both the truth and the flaws to many of these arguments.
So here’s how I choose to look at it:
You can say that Senjōgahara walking around naked has some secret meaning,
how her comments about clothes being too heavy given her weightless nature
point to something more. And you might be right with that.
But I’m not one to say that someone's view of the scene is wrong by not picking up on that.
It’s an issue I have when writers are being vague about something.
If the meaning is not explicitly clear, then really whatever meaning
that any watcher takes from it is just as valid as the next.
I don’t believe that anyone looking at this scene who writes it off
as fanservice is necessarily wrong in that assumption,
nor do I disagree with any essays people have written on this scenes
hidden message about the characters. We all have different takeaways
and that leads us all to having different opinions on the series itself.
Which is great! If we all had the same opinion,
I’d be out of a job…
So yes, there are plenty of sensually charged representations and scenes in Bakemonogatari,
and this first season doesn’t even have “The Scene”.
And fans knows exactly which scene I’m talking about.
However you interpret these scenes is entirely up to you,
but they are important because, honestly, how you react to them and whether
or not you enjoy them is going to be the biggest indicator for your
enjoyment level of the series as a whole.
I don't necessarily like them, and more often than not I found that they
led me to an even worse opinion of Araragi as the series progressed.
Sneaking up on an underaged girl, only to grope her and then question
why she fights back will have that effect.
But there are times when I did feel like a meaning could be taken from it,
if only the show didn’t flaunt it's fanservice so much as to make me tired of it.
It’s the difference between opening a bag of chips and just eating a
handful versus downing the whole bag.
Moderation is key.
The show’s lack of it at times is what ultimately made it a harder
watch for me than it could have been.
And I’m sure that there are plenty of people down in the comments
now mentioning how I watched the show wrong,
or how I just don't understand, but eh,
can’t win ‘em all.
I said near the start of the video that Bakemonogatari is a series
that’s very hard to recommend.
That’s an opinion that shouldn’t be controversial either.
I'd like to hope.
I’m not just talking about the show’s fanservice moments,
though that is a turn-off for many, but just how most of the rest of the show is presented.
There are entire episodes that are not much more than two characters
having a long and involved conversation about highly detailed subjects
that only loosely tie into plot events, and for many that is not
something that’s easy to follow.
It has a very Seinfeld nature to most of the conversations and one could
largely describe them as just circular conversations about nothing,
but at least Seinfeld had a layer of humour to the nothingness that made
the dialogue more interesting.
You almost need to rewatch some Bakemonogatari scenes multiple times
just to get a grasp on where and why a conversation takes a particular turn,
which only slows down the experience.
Only to then have to stop the experience entirely to be able to read all the text.
Not only are most of the conversations very word heavy,
but most scenes are constantly overlayed with smash cuts to text-filled
screens with descriptions, inner monologues, and the like that are never
on screen long enough to read them properly.
Watching on a computer is almost essential to be able to pause quickly
enough to catch the text and then read it, but that slows everything down even more.
I’d never say to skip the text though, because all of it is purposeful
and it might be easier for native Japanese readers to get the jist of the
text as it quickly passes on, but I never could with the English text.
It might just be subliminal and if that's the argument you're gonna go for then sure.
But I feel like, it's there for a purpose, and I should be able to read it.
This whole experience just exemplifies the kinds of things you have to be okay
with in order to get the most out of the series,
and the type of mindset you need to be in before even starting the first episode.
If you’re not prepared enough for that, then there’s a good chance
you might come away with an even less impressed outlook on the series than I did.
It’s probably why I took so long in actually attempting to tackle the series as well,
because I knew of all of this years ago.
Watching Barkmonogatari and then moving on to the rest of the Monogatari series
is a commitment.
I said that I’d try to imagine how myself 10 years ago might have enjoyed it,
but I have a feeling I would have liked it even less then.
I had a big problem with harem tropes back in the day, and while it’s still a sticking
point that I’ve kept, I’m not as harshly against them as I once was.
Like, I still don’t want to watch Love Hina again though.
I can appreciate it for what it was and how it affected the medium,
but it doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it.
Which is really a summary of my thoughts on Bakemonogatari as a whole.
Bakemonogatari is a visually impressive series at times,
and I can appreciate it for its rich characters and many of its
themes and takes on the supernatural.
But that’s as far as I go.
As for the rest?
Well, it’s indeed a thing. I guess.
And so, with all of that in mind, after meticulously considering my thoughts
on the categories of story, characters, animation, sound, and my own personal enjoyment,
which after not inflicting the rating with possibly needless amounts of fanservice
because I respect it more than that has me awarding Bakemonogatari with a rating of…..
Okay, let’s back up a second and talk about something.
People know that I have ratings that I like to give shows. There’s “skip it” if
I hated
it and found it deplorable, “watch it” or stream it if it's interesting enough to see
but not absolutely amazing.
“Buy it” because even if you can’t physically own it anymore it has enough
to it to be worth having it on your shelf either physically or digitally,
and finally there’s the rating of Certified Frosty, a rating for - and I quote -
“The best of the best, or those shows too important to ignore.''
It’s that last line, that last caveat to the Frosty rating that has me really
conflicted with how I want to rate Bakemonogatari.
Because I didn't necessarily enjoy the experience,
but I can see where others would and that normally would have me giving it a
"stream it" rating accordingly.
Buuuuuut...given the show’s reputation, even though 10 years ago I would never
even have considered such a thing, it does qualify as an anime that
one might say is too important to ignore.
But for the microcosm that is this video, I don’t think my solution is an easy one
because it requires more thought then I currently have time for in order to compete in this video.
Really I need to re-gig the rating scheme to account for shows that either are
or slowly becoming classics. Shows that are important to the anime lexicon,
even if I particularly don’t find it entertaining.
So when I eventually DO fix the rating system, maybe by just calling it a
“Classic” Rating or something, then Bakemonogatari will fit under that.
For now though it’s just getting a Watch it rating.
It’s hard to recommend given its content, but still neither irredeemable or not worth
watching.
Now, since the series is available from Aniplex, it’s been a bit of a pain to own.
Their box set for Bakemonogatari was one of their first in North America and
it’s never dropped in price. So even while later entries of the Monogatari
series are a bit more reasonably priced - for Aniplex anyway -
this first entity is the outlier that makes it difficult to own.
Thankfully though, it is streaming currently over on Crunchyroll BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT
Aniplex never gave Crunchyroll the Blu-Ray rips, so it’s probably one of the worst
ways to watch it.
Not only is the quality capped at 480p, but as with so many SHAFT shows
there are plenty of changes to the Blu-rays of the series that were not in the original
TV broadcast. So owning the Blu-rays would be preferable,
but it’s a significant financial commitment.
As far as alternate recommendations, my answers are somewhat obvious.
First, My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU is an example of a series that does similar things,
but is far more palatable for most people. I personally found it far more entertaining.
But it doesn’t have any of the supernatural elements that I actually enjoyed from Bake,
which leads to my second recommendation of Rascal Dreams of Bunny Girl Senpai.
It took what I liked about Bakemonogatari and then just fixed a lot of the things
I didn’t like. But I’ll get into that a bit more tomorrow because
you voters decided that I should review them back-to-back.
Lastly, I want to give a very special thank you to my patrons,
who not only support my work in general, but who also allow me to do what I do.
I love and appreciate you all. Specifically though, as I like to do,
I want to give particular shout-outs to patrons
Calhoonboy, Richard Emil Bradley, Hector Montemayor, Siri Yamiko, Ryeban Boneapart, and Rune Jakobsen
for being especially awesome. You guys are great!
And until next time – ladies, gentlemen, and others –
watch more anime…
and stay frosty.