Bakemonogatari Review

Well hello there my fellow otaku, its Fatalefromage again reviewing Aniplex and Shaft’s mystery and supernatural anime Bakemonogatari!

First of all Bakemonogatari or its English synonym, Ghostory is filled with myth, action, and plenty of unexpected laughs along the way. It is based off a light novel by the same name. Make sure before watching this that you find a good subtitled version if you’re not familiar with Japanese Kanji, Hiragana, or Katakana. I found myself having to pause the episode at the beginning of almost every episode just to read the screen cuts. And these screen cuts can be also found thought each episode. Its an interesting addition to the anime indeed, of which the likes I have never seen before. This anime is split up into 5 arcs in which another female character is introduced and their mysterious oddity must be taken care of.

Now as the anime opens up, I was confused as to what the hell was going on. After what seems like a calming walking to school scene unfolds into a plethora of action and blood. In reality this is a flash back from Araragi Koyomi, the male leads past spring break. Without spoiling the plot too much I will say that this event left him almost perfectly human again thanks to a middle-aged man dressed in a Hawaiian shirt named Oshino Meme.

Back in the present time, Araragi-kun is running up an extremely long spiral staircase in this school when a seeming frail girl with long purple hair named Senjougahara Hitagi falls from the highest floor. He catches her but is baffled by how light she is. As if she doesn't weight anything at all.

Sometime after Senjougahara attacks Araragi with an exacto-knife and then a stapler explaining to him that she met a crab during her freshman year and has been weightless ever since. This instance changed my entire view of her completely. She takes up his offer for help rid her of the crab possessing her after realizing that Araragi is different when the cut she gave him from a staple has healed instantly. So basically their situations are similar.

Story wise, at first this anime is confusing, but once you progress though it becomes less of a head scratcher. There aren't many characters to keep track of, so in time it was easy to learn each of their names and strange situations. At times there is a long stretch of two characters talking and no action going on, but its not entirely painful to sit through. If you're not familiar with Japanese myth you may learn something from each of the arcs. As for the flash back at the very beginning of episode one, little will be explained, but fear not a prequel to Bakemonogatari called Kizumonogatari will be coming out soon. The prequel is also based off a light novel.

Animation varies from time to time. At one point it looks like any other anime with colorful characters, but at others the scenery looks like its straight out of a photograph. For instance two of the openings posses this quality quite well.



There are 5 different openings one for each new arc. There seem to be alternate versions of a few of them and one of them actually has been made into a meme.

The sound is nicely done. When it comes to changing the track to set the mood of a certain scene this anime delivers. Wether it be sad, happy, or tragic the music kept me on the edge of my seat. But, I found the music a bit repetitive after hearing it before in previous episodes. Other then that, the openings and ending theme are catchy and cleaver.

Overall each of the main characters possess redeeming qualities and each has a story to tell. I liked how each of them were connected to Araragi or Senjougahara in some way. Also a few of these character's minds and personalties evolve as they become closer to each other. I'm defiantly going to be looking forward to the prequel, because as I could tell by opening scene that its going to be a lot darker then this. So Bakemonogatari gets an 8.5/10.