Bakemonogatari is Brilliant… But It Put Me To Sleep. Twice.
Posted by 0rion on August 13th, 2009 - 6:36 pm
And yet I’m still watching it, anyway.
That’s not hyperbole, either. This series literally made me fall asleep on two separate occasions when I was trying to watch it. Just, face on the keyboard snooze. I don’t know if it’s something subliminal in the funky music or what, but it’s practically an Aria-class sedative drug. Maybe I’m just hypnotized by the trippiness of the whole thing.
All that isn’t to say that Bakemonogatari is bad, though. To the contrary, while the series definitely has its share of flaws, I’d say so far it’s one of my favorite shows of the summer 2009 anime season.
The characters and dialogue are definitely the show’s strong point. Ararararagi seems to take all the surreal circumstances around him in stride, narrating with an almost Kyon caliber dry wit. His back and forth verbal sparring with Hachikuji and Senjougahara alternates between awkward and hilarious constantly, and the show actually has a fair number of terrible groaner puns, although many of them get lost in translation.
If nothing else, Bakemonogatari is certainly the leader this season for spawning memorable lines and internet meme fodder (although “Kyon-kun denwa” x 16 does give it a pretty good run for its money). Rararagi’s conversation with Hachikuji after he accidentally cops a feel while fighting with her was hilarious, as was Senjougahara’s unexpected confession.
“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself after touching the chest of a delicate young girl?”
“Mmm… arigatou?”
* chomp *
“By the way, Araragi – I love you.”
* awkward pause *
“…congratulations.”
Also obligatory Engrish is obligatory.
Hilarious. Although a bit cringe inducing at times, the sheer ridiculousness and over-the-top surreal nature of the conversations never ceases to entertain. Shinbo & Co. seriously had waaay too much fun making this series.
Let me just begin by performing a judicious demolition of any ideas that my commentary regarding this series is unbiased. In other words, this show could be about kids playing with dirt in the middle of a parking lot and I would probably still watch it because I am so unashamedly drawn in by the art style.
Wait, that isn’t what the show is about?
.
.
Everything about Bakemonogatari is so creatively implemented right from the get go. For example, I loved in the first episode the steady-cam first person shot from Arararararagi’s perspective as he talks with Hanekawa. The show really makes an interesting usage of mimicking film cinematography particularly with the multiple jump cuts, rack focuses, and steady-cam shots.
All in all it’s rather impressive. Another aspect of the animation that I found fascinating was the tendency to radically alter the cleaner, simplistic lines of the animation and show a short burst-sequence where the artistic style, particularly the facial features, of a character displayed a rush of extra detail and precision. Notably, this was often used for fanservice oriented moments, but nonetheless the effect was quite engaging.
One of my favorite scenes was when Senjougahara is pleading for the crab to return her weight, and suddenly it appears as an outline of kanji taking the shape of the crab. It was interesting to me because the symbolic effect of the “weight of all the thoughts and memories” was more compelling specifically because we don’t see the crab itself, only its symbolic construct.
The show is also aesthetically interesting when comparing the jagged and starkly contrasted colors of the background and character art. Similarly to xxxHolic in this regard, SHAFT has done an amazing job at flattening the various layers of any given scene composition. Along with additional usage of collage-esque clippings from real photographs, newspapers, etc. it produces a truly engaging melange of different art mediums.
I’m afraid I can’t really agree to all that, myself. While SHAFT definitely exhibits creativity, even that level of creativity can’t fully salvage your series when your budget for the episode is like $18 bucks. Especially after the first 1.8 episodes were so visually excellent, it just comes off looking like they spent all their budget on beer and have no money left over for key animation. I mean, the least they could have done is sent me some. Sheesh.
Sure they do an excellent job with the keyframes they do make, but the whole 5 centimeters frames per second minute thing starts to wear on me after a while, and I’m not the only one who thinks that way.
OK, OK, that was kind of a low blow. To be fair the show actually looks quite good. The cinematography is creative, and the character designs are gorgeously detailed. I just wish they wouldn’t cheap out so much, but I suppose I’m expecting too much, since it’s just SHAFT being SHAFT, really. I don’t know why I’m still surprised by how they do things after all these years.
At any rate, one of the things we both are in agreement upon is that the story, and particularly the character dialogue, is so quirky and amusing that even if you find the art style unbearable, the show is still definitely worth watching simply because the stories are told in such an entertaining fashion. Much like Kyon’s wonderfully wry narration, Aragi has similar points where he interjects his own witty thoughts concerning the situation at hand. All in all, it just makes the storytelling enjoyable without seeming smug or heavy-handed.
While I definitely have mixed feeling about Bakemonogatari from an animation / music quality perspective, I certainly can’t deny that it exhibits a certain rare genius in story and character. It’s just believeable enough that you relate to and empathize with the characters, but at the same time just unbelieveable enough that you don’t take it too seriously.
I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something about Bakemonogatari that I find irresistably fascinating. Each week I’m drawn back in for another episode of insanity, like a moth to flame. Fortunately, it seems like it’s not just me – Senjougahara Fascination really is taking the blogosphere by storm.
During my exchange year in Paris, I had 3 hour courses in small groups and there was this professor who talked really fast. (And when a French person speaks French really fast, it means it’s speed light talking.) In every single one of his classes, I fell asleep after about 2 hours. He even gave me a nickname that was something like “the girl who sleeps”. The sad thing was that his class wasn’t even boring or anything, it’s just that it was too much for my brain to compute for 3 hours straight. I have a feeling that Bakemonogatari is a little bit like that.
With that said, I need to go and watch more than the first 4 minutes of the series.
You guys spent most of your post on praise – but I definitely empathise with the sleep part. I think that outside of the good moments – which are really good – much of the show is simply something of a drag, only good for the stylistic elements and very little else.
I agree with Sasa. I rather like the dialogue, but the visuals are so fast and unusual that I start to feel fatigued. It’s like binaural beats, except it’s for the eyes.
No way! I could watch Bakemonogatari with all its dialogue and bizarre visuals for hours on end and never get the least bit sleepy. And I have to disagree on the budget point. Outside of Gainax, no one else uses a low budget anywhere near as effectively as Shaft. It doesn’t serve as a detriment to them. In fact, I’d say the lower budget forces a certain creativity that puts it visually over much more expensive series. For me, creativity and originality trump higher budget animation. In other words, I much prefer Bakemonogatari visually to Canaan. The world has a place for both of them, and they’re both good looking series for their own reasons. But if I had to pick, then that’s the way I would.
I have to say that there’s one thing I agree about your post… this show puts me to sleep. Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty good, but it almost feels like WORK to watch it, and I’m watching it because it’s supposed to be good. So I have mixed feelings about it. It’s probably because the characters talk so fast that I’m spending all my energy reading text, and I watch most of my anime after work so I’m tired.
@ Sasa
That’s a good point. Maybe it’s just information overload. And watching the series without subtitles probably doesn’t help either, although you’d think that the sheer mental exertion of keeping up with the Japanese dialogue would be enough to keep me awake. =P
@ Jason
And yet I keep watching for all those “really good moments”, since they keep coming.
@ 2DT
Binaural beats is a perfect way to describe this series; good analogy. It definitely has that awkward sort of hypnotizing quality to it, that’s for sure.
@ Michael
Definitely SHAFT is the master of doing amazing things on a shoestring budget – Hidamari Sketch for example. Maybe I’m just lacking in aesthetic appreciation ability.
@ Epi
Agreed, after a long day of work a show like this that requires some effort to pay attention to can drain your already low energy reserves. Not that it’s a bad show, it’s just more mentally demanding than something like, say, Hayate no Gotoku.
OR PRINCESS LOVER
@ 0rion
I’m pretty sure that’s just a matter of preference. For me, I love animation that changes things up and goes for a unique aesthetic. Then there are people who find that style annoying, and prefer a more fluid and traditional animation. I guess it just depends on what you prefer more, and how far in that direction you’re willing to go.
I think I’ll watch this anime with an arsenal of red bull on hand. My laptops fragile and couldn’t possibly take the weight of my head on the keyboard so I need to take precautions.
Anyways, judging from this post, this anime is good but has a few moments where it would be better to click my skip/next chapter button
Basically what Michael said in his first comment save for the end. This is pure SHAFT X SHINBO, and I eat this stuff up, basically, and never get tired of it. The fact that this time the group was able to adapt Nisioisin’s work, as he’s a pretty interesting writer himself, was a match made in heaven. One thing that I do like about Bakemonogatari is that it almost makes the viewer have to interact with the show, where most just let us sit back and relax. Is it more or less entertaining? Depends on the person, but I’d like to think it tends to be more engaging that way.
@ EmmaBShireen
Red Bull definitely comes highly recommended for this series! I wouldn’t want to be responsible for causing any undue harm to your keyboard!
@ Michael & TheBigN
Well, Guff certainly agrees with you guys. I don’t really have too many problems with SHAFT x Shinbou for the most part; I really, really liked the way they adapted Sayounara Zetsubou Sensei to anime.
I don’t know, there’s just something about the animation style in Bakemonogatari that causes me to nod off. Maybe it’s weird overly white color palette, I dunno. All I know is I’m not nearly as captivated by the “creativity” of the art as I was by SZS.
[...] To supplement your Bakemonogatari crazy, I recommend checking out Kurogane’s posts on the subject, as well as our summary. [...]
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