Bakemonogatari

Two guys and eight girls provide us with an atypical anime experience, long nonsensical dialogues, and wacky Japanese humor. We end up watching a strange fantasy romance; maybe we'll like someone, maybe we won't. Basically, there's no one who prompted too much hatred. The play with colors, the unusual presentation of certain situations, the openings that hopefully tell us something more about the girls with "weirdness"... all of it made Bakemonogatari special in my eyes. But then it suffers all the ills of poor taste, boredom, messy static, none of which really holds your attention after you’ve been watching it for a while, and so basically this series, despite its interesting visuals, has become something I watch in the background while I do something else. It didn't captivate me enough for me to pay 100% attention. I understand that it can feel impressive; yet it stopped working on me after the first few episodes. A better 3 stars. But it does make for a very good AMV. ;-) (04/27/2012)

So I finally got into Monogatari series, of which I once saw an episode, and found it very strange, confusing, and, overall, very odd. Back then, I had only just started watching anime, so something this unique easily put me off. However, the more anime series you watch, and the more often you encounter the typical tropes and repetition of various concepts and formulas, the more you are hungry for originality. With this show, I got it in spades. So I will praise it and start with what I enjoyed the most, and that was the dialogues. It has been a long time since I devoured every word of the first five episodes and was incredibly entertained by every interaction between Araragi, Hitagi, and Mayoi. The verbal exchanges were spicy, funny, and totally hit the spot. Likewise, I was able to fall in love with both girls awfully quickly, and I enjoyed all the episodes where Hitagi was in the main (or even important supporting) role immensely. Another great thing was the soundtrack. I appreciated every opening as there was not a single one that I did not like, and the way each episode had its own opening so you could tell which girl would be in the lead role for that episode was just a great idea. What I had to get to grips with quickly and what I found very strange at first were all the edits. They were quite unexpected at first, although a while later, I noticed that they did not bother me at all, which did not ruin the atmosphere; they added to it. Also, right at the beginning of each episode, I wanted to read a lot of text, which often made me get up and stop the video, even though I liked these introductions too (except for perhaps the speed with which they were delivered). On top of that, the different combinations of animation styles and generally different styles of expression in general (real footage, photos, animation, modeling, etc.) all made watching something incredibly interesting, and I was blown away by all of it. Sure, it has its shortcomings. Over time, it becomes apparent that the concept of the narratives is still repetitive; also, the monkey and snake episodes did not get me as much as the others. However, it does not change much of the outcome. My first glimpse into the world of Monogatari is incredibly fresh, original, funny, and brilliantly crafted, thus a clear five stars. 9.3/10. (07/18/2017)