Bakemonogatari – Review

Bakemonogatari has quite a bit of meta-fictional humour but it’s disappointing that it rarely goes beyond finger-pointing. Most of the time it just makes obvious references to other animes or acknowledges its anime-stereotypes.

Since the next winter-season will have Nisemonogatari airing I’ve thought that I should rewatch Bakemonogatari. The first time I watched it was when it aired and I’ve thought it was quite a good series. Of course marathoning it gave me a different impression than what I’ve seen the first time around. And if I had to decide whether watching the whole series in three days or watching one episode each week is the better way to enjoy this series, I would say the latter. The Shaft-style simply gets a bit repetitive if you marathon it. Bakemonogatari still had the Shaft-style reminding me of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and I think it was a good decision of Shaft (and Shinbou) to abandon that style when they made Madoka because if Bakemonogatari showed us anything then that a dominating Shaft-style no matter how well-done isn’t suitable for telling a story longer than a few minutes. The question now is whether Nisemonogatari will be like Bakemonogatari or whether it will follow in Madoka’s footsteps regarding its Shaft-style. In my case I hope for the latter.