Summer’s anime left me very much “meh”. Nothing seemed interesting enough for me to follow but I’m checking them out anyway. Out of the shitty list, I found one gem, surprisingly. Bakemonogatari vaguely caught my interest initially with the wordplay on the title. Bakemono= Monster, Ghosts etc and Monogatari= Story. Hence, the combination word is Bakemonogatari, Ghostory. Nifty! (Can’t help it, I adore Japanese wordplay despite my limited understanding of them.) Anyway, the story line seemed alright to me too since it deals with ghosts and supernatural stuff, just my cup of tea. So I’m expecting some ghostly stories… typical of the kinds you get in Summer, nothing special. Boy am I sorely mistaken. Bakemonogatari is ANYTHING but ORDINARY, it is just BEWILDERING.
Ok, a quick introduction to Bakemonogatari is probably needed for some. “Bakemonogatari centers on Koyomi Araragi, a third year high school student who is almost human again after briefly becoming a vampire. One day, a classmate named Hitagi Senjōgahara, who infamously never talks to anyone, falls down the stairs into Koyomi’s arms. He discovers that Hitagi weighs next to nothing, in defiance of physics. After being threatened by her, Koyomi offers her help, and introduces her to Meme Oshino, a middle-aged homeless man who helped him stop being a vampire.” (Taken from Anime News Net) That said, let’s go into the review of it.
The opening stunned me. Check this out.
(O.O) ZOMG. Barely six seconds into it and I was already given a full upskirt panty shot. Pink lace!!! GAWD. I was half-tempted to just press the cancel button. “Not another anime targeted at hormonal fanboys!” Anyway I pressed on and braced myself for an onslaught of camera angles deliberately directed at boob shots, butt shots and the blah blah blah. It didn’t come… ok it did, that was later and they were artistically done. (>.^) The execution of the opening was very very unique, the only reason why I bore through with the panty shot. The slow progressive scene of a boy and girl passing by each other on the opposite side of the road really caught my attention; it was so strangely peculiar.
I guess I was rewarded for not being too quick to judge. The opening was grotesque, artistically and beautifully grotesque. The abstract display of blood, mutilated bodies and random words flashing rapidly with the accompaniment of pounding music was a visual and audio assault.
But the anime was bewildering. Utterly incomprehensible. I was given random shots, girls falling from the sky, long drawn conversations, strange characters… It was really mind-boggling. I found myself going, I don’t understand this at all!!! It was like a really abstract and darker version of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (as if Setsubou was not abstract and bewildering enough) BUT! If you press on, you will get drawn into the plot development and the interesting execution of the graphics.
Bakemonogatari is something different and it takes patience to really appreciate it. First of all, the anime is rather slow moving. It gives really abstract shots that focus on landscapes, silhouettes, close ups, backgrounds and even random objects, leaving you BEWILDERED. Secondly, plot is developed by character conversation, thus they are long drawn, once again, leaving you BEWILDERED. Thirdly, the anime reveals hints and glimpses of things that are crucial to later plot development (you never really notice it till it hits you later), so till you notice them later, you remain BEWILDERED. Lastly, one of its major attractions lies in its wordplay, puns and spoofs of other anime or anime in general. For example, there is a blatant spoof of Full Metal Alchemist in one of the conversations. In another, the heroine openly discusses her “anime characteristics”, commenting that characters like her are usually labelled as “tsundere”. Humor is dry and subtle most of the time.
Bakemonogatari is not your run of the mill kinda anime. It is strange, peculiar, different and pleasantly (or not, depending on your tastes and preferences) surprising. Each “Ghostory” reveals a lesson of sort at the end of the day, and they are pretty good “revelations” (Note episode 2). Kinda reminiscent of Natsume Yuujincho but much, I repeat, MUCH darker. You don’t get the light fluffy feeling you’d get in Natsume. No way in hell. But it is good! However, the only thing I’m afraid is that it might get repetitive… aka Jigoku Shoujo kind of repetition *roll eyes* I don’t think it might be the case though. The stories are supposedly interconnected, so there might be some general plot to hold everything together… But I guess only time can tell.
Verdict? Watch it. I highly recommend it. Give it at least 2 episodes worth of your time. It just might prove to worth every minute of your time, as it did mine.
