So, Bakemonogatari is arguably the starting entry of the Monogatari series. As a series it’s long, storied, a little strange, and somewhat confusing. Which, I suppose is fair enough since the material in the series is a little strange, sometimes confusing (at least to a Westerner) and worth talking about.
In general, Bakemonogatari is split into five arcs; the division is actually very pointed, with a new opening for each arc and a new case of a girl afflicted by an encounter with a supernatural being (blanket term: Aberration) which our male lead attempts to resolve with the help of a tricksy mentor.
If it sounds like standard fare, I assure you that in a lot of ways, it is not. The raw plot isn’t unlike anything else seen, but the tone and atmosphere of the show aren’t something typical. And the visuals… the visuals are something else. Bakemonogatari is by Shaft, the studio that created Madoka Magica and Mekakucity Actors, which both had this distinctive atmosphere and some trademark visuals, but nothing quite as remarkable as what was done for Bakemonogatari.
It’s difficult to even describe what this series does with its visuals. It has the typical limited colors and broad yet desolate urban environments of the other Shaft productions, but it’s far more than that. A typical interchange in this show might involve a closeup of one character’s eye, a quick cut to a piece of scenery, a cut back to somebody’s eye, a bit of photograph imagery (rather than traditional animation), a screen with important looking words, rapid flashing between sets of words, a long shot of the environment with the characters small within it, a close-up of a body part of a character, and then finally a normally-composed shot before going back to telling the story quite literally from the eyes of our characters.
And I understand that writing it out like that, it probably sounds awful. But, I assure you, it is not – it’s a little rough to get into at first, but it is shockingly effective. Most shows try to clearly and cleanly depict what is happening with as much accuracy as they can manage. This is largely true even of shows that use avant garde visuals like the previously listed Shaft productions or Dusk Maiden of Amnesia. Bakemonogarari does have the basics of visual storytelling down, and uses them when it needs to. It conveys motion properly, and you can ‘read’ what events are going on, but when it has the option it uses its visuals to evoke an emotional experience and generate a semi-unreal or perhaps dreamlike feel that serves to give the viewer the sense that the Aberrations and all their weirdness could actually exist. Just like it’s important to create a creepy, spooky atmosphere when trying to tell a ghost story, because what’s terrifying by the light of a guttering campfire is laughable in broad daylight, Bakemonogatari needs to bring the audience into an unreal world to have its Aberrations land as things we’ll accept. And, the mixture of styles, cuts, and tendency to not show complete faces really does serve to blur the line between what’s “real” and what’s otherworldly. It’s not creepy, per say, as Bakemonogatari isn’t exactly a horror show, but it’s doing the same thing.
Anyway, what about the story? Our lead is Koyomi Araragi, a boy who, in an incident taking place before the show proper (covered in Kizumonogatari, the other access point for the Monogatari series) had an encounter with a Vampire that left him not just aware of the supernatural side of the world, but somewhat touched by it, with a rather amazing ability to heal from injuries. He’s friends with Tsubasa Hanekawa, a girl who seems the picture of a model student but who has, with him, been involved in previous incidents. However, Bakemonogarari’s first arc (Hitagi Crab) starts out with Araragi’s encounter with Hitagi Senjogahara, a tall and brooding beauty who Araragi catches when she falls from high stairs at school, discovering in the process that her physical weight is almost nothing. She doesn’t take well to being found out, though, and tries to intimidate Araragi into silence with her assortment of stationary and school supplies including staplers, scissors, compasses, and so on.
To be fair, Senjogahara is bloody terrifying with her weapons of choice. She staples Araragi good to get her point across, but this just enables him to show off his healing factor and explain that he might actually know someone who would be able to help her with her supernatural problem. Senjogahara is at least a little intrigued by the possibility, which leads to her being brought to meet the previously mentioned weird mentor figure, Meme Oshino. He’s a very sketchy dude with his Hawaiian shirt and cigarette combo, who lives in an abandoned cram school along with a little blonde girl (initially nameless, but later given the name Shinobu Oshino) who is said to be the remains of the vampire Araragi once encountered. However, he is as wise and skilled as he is sketchy, and quickly diagnoses the problem: Senjogahara encountered a Weight Crab, a divine being (playing on the word for crab, kani, sounding somewhat like the word for god, kami. This kind of thing is fairly common for Monogatari and my understanding of only a few dozen words of Japanese at best doesn’t afford me the opportunity to explain most of the wordplay in detail) that must have responded to some desire Senjogahara had and, in so doing, took her weight from her. Oshino can arrange an opportunity for Senjogahara to get her weight back, but it will take at least a little time to set up (during which she needs to prepare herself) and will depend at least somewhat on Senjogahara herself.
And now, as we leave Araragi and Senjogahara preparing for the encounter with the Weight Crab, it’s as good a time as any to talk about one of the other main elements of the Monogatari series, banter. Most of the characters in this show really like the sound of their own voice to one degree or another, and are quick and clever in speech. That’s not really so much a character trait for them as it is how Bakemonogatari depicts the human condition. Different characters still have different voices – Meme Oshino is irreverent and casual, Senjogahara is firm with notes of sharp bitterness, Araragi is sarcastic and easily frustrated, and Hanekawa is sweet and proper with a distinct undercurrent of intensity. But they all do speak well and speak a good deal. This is where more of the wordplay comes in, with how the characters play off each other in the moment, and is also where we build chemistry alongside the supernatural scenarios of Bakemonogatari.
Because, when you get down to it, the Aberrations are probably only half the show. The other half is the very strong character interaction. You could say that Bakemonogarari has Harem elements – it certainly does have the typical structure where one arc is one girl and more than one of them has a recognizable interest in Araragi, who is the only male of the cast’s normal age bracket. And like well done shows with Harem elements, such as Steins;Gate, usually do, this means the girls get a ton of development and our lead has to spend time with them so we can see the interplay of their personalities. And when characters banter as much as they do in Bakemonogatari, there’s a lot of personality and interplay to see.
So, we return, after much bantering, to Oshino’s solution. Since the Weight Crab is a god, the proper path is to petition it, and so a ceremony is set up that does ultimately call the Weight Crab. It manifests as a gigantic crab made of swirling words, though not everyone can see it, meaning that sometimes it seems invisible to the camera and audience as well. Even when it can’t be seen, though, it’s still there. It attacks Senjogahara (or at least pins her up against the wall), before Oshino pulls it back, giving her the chance to beg for the return of her weight.
It isn’t, though, just her physical weight that’s meant here. During the banter, we learned some of Senjogahara’s background, regarding the time when she first met the Weight Crab – her mother became entranced by a cult group in the hope their faith could provide healing. While the cult itself was clearly a scam, correlation was what it was and Senjogahara’s mother was drawn ever deeper until she was induced to bring home a ranking man of the cult who attempted to rape Senjogahara with, if not her mother’s blessing, at least her allowance. Senjogahara fought back and injured him which ultimately led to her family falling apart. It was her guilt for her part in the dissolution of her family and the feelings surrounding her mother and all the incidents related there that were the ‘weight’ Senjogahara had foolishly wanted to be rid of when she first encountered the Weight Crab, and the weight she has to take back if she’s going to be returned to ‘normal’. But, after the time that’s passed, she’s finally ready to bear it. Thus, she does, and manages to move forward with her weight.
The next arc, Mayoi Snail, takes place some time later. By one thing and another, Araragi finds himself sulking on his own out in the city on Mothers’ Day. He encounters Senjogahara, and they banter, and then finds a grade school kid, Mayoi Hachikuji, who appears to be lost. Araragi wants to help her find her way home (despite the fact that they end up brawling at first) and gets Senjogahara to help since she used to live in the area, though she seems rather disturbed and never regards Hachikuji directly. Inexplicably, they seem to be led in circles, and so Araragi sends Senjogahara to ask Oshino about what sort of aberration could be causing such a thing.
While they wait for the answer, Hanekawa arrives, banters with Araragi a bit (especially interested in what might be between him and Senjogahara, which he doesn’t as of yet have an answer to), and gets along well with Hachikuji. After she leaves, Araragi gets a call from Oshino, saying that Senjogahara will be returning with the solution to the problem.
It turns out that that Hachikuji, after a fashion, is the aberration this time: the “Lost Snail”, an earth-bound ghost doomed to wander without finding her way. Such a being only appears to those who themselves don’t want to go home, which is why Senjogahara was so cold earlier – she literally couldn’t see or hear Hachikuji, but played along because she was afraid of being the ‘crazy’ one. This all fits with Hachikuji’s story (she even called herself a ‘Lost Snail’ at the start of the arc, though it’s a brilliantly blink-and-you-miss-it reveal of the twist) of trying time and time again to find her mother’s house, failing constantly. Oshino’s message is more than bad news, though, as there is a way to make it through: by leading Hachikuji along solely via streets that were built after she died (and thus that aren’t ‘part’ of her world), they’re able to bring her to the empty lot that used to hold her mother’s house, allowing Hachikuji to finally make peace with this stage of her afterlife (at first seeming to pass on, but later reappearing now ‘promoted’ to a new stage of ghosthood in which she turns up from time to time to provide banter).
At the end of the arc, Senjogahara also confesses that she has feelings for Araragi. I’ll be honest, probably the most sketchy thing in Bakemonogatari is the portrayal of Senjogahara and Araragi’s romantic chemistry. I think it ultimately comes across well, especially in the later episodes, but here in the second arc, when they’re first officially made into a couple? It’s a little tough to swallow, since they’ve spent most of their time together sniping at each other with extremely sharp tongues. As the show progresses and we see more of them as a couple, we come to understand that’s just how they interact and there’s no malice in it, to the point where I think it’s actually pretty decent chemistry, but it takes its time getting to that point.
This brings us to the third arc, Suruga Monkey. It starts with Araragi encountering his underclassman, Suruga Kanbaru, and discovering that she seems to have ties to Senjogahara – they had been friends in the past, but had a falling out. Later, Araragi is attacked by a mysterious raincoat-clad assailant who would seem to be, if not properly Kanbaru, than at least related to her.
The truth turns out to involve, what else, another aberration. Kanbaru confesses both that she attacked Araragi (apologizing for it, if possibly insincerely) and her reason: she’s in love with Senjogahara, and jealous of how Araragi has gotten in her way. It seems that the reason for things coming out like this is that she wished on a cursed monkey paw for a chance at being together with Senjogahara, which manifested in the monkey paw replacing one of her arms and in the attack on Araragi to clear him out of the way.
Oshino, however, finds that there are some things that don’t line up with this being a real Monkey’s Paw. Instead, as he regards it, the arm belongs to a Rainy Devil, that by granting Kanbaru’s wishes (this not being the first) seeks to claim her soul. It already has a stake, as indicated by the fact that it’s now grafted in as part of her.
Despite Kanbaru’s open antagonism towards him, Araragi is willing to help her, offering that instead of letting her cursed arm be cut off, he’ll instead fight the Rainy Devil and win in order to make the wish unattainable. He prepares with the help of Shinobu, drawing out more of his vampiric powers for the fight, but it still goes against him until Senjogahara arrives, rebuking Araragi for keeping this matter a secret from her. More importantly, though, her knowledge of the situation means that the Devil can’t continue the attack, since removing Araragi would alienate Senjogahara (failing Kanbaru’s surface wish to be with her) and backing off would, of course, leave the couple together and Araragi in good condition against Kanbaru’s internal and external wishes alike. With no way to keep up its end of the contract, the Rainy Devil’s hold on Kanbaru ends… but her arm is still its monkey arm, a mark liable to remind her of her separation from normalcy.
The next arc, Nadeko Snake, first sees Araragi (with Kanbaru, now an honest friend, in tow) visiting a ruined shrine on Oshino’s behalf, in order to perform a ritual that he can’t go in person to do. While on their way up they encounter a girl scurrying down the path, but come across the remnants of a grisly ritual at the shrine, with dead snakes nailed to a tree. Weird. Anyway, after a banter with Hanekawa in the book store, Araragi runs into the mystery girl from the shrine path again. This is Nadeko Sengoku, a friend of Araragi’s sister (younger than Araragi by a couple years) who he has met, but not recently, explaining why he didn’t recognize her right away. After finding her headed to the shrine again, she goes home with Araragi (on whom it’s strongly implied, at least to the audience, that she has something of a precocious crush, and a longstanding one at that) and reveals her problem: snake like marks that have appeared over much of her body, slowly constricting her, a curse she desperately wants to be saved from.
This, of course, brings us to involve Oshino, who identifies the particular curse, and also the circumstances that led to Nadeko’s current predicament. The curse shouldn’t have worked – it was cast by an amateur, a girl who was jealous that the boy she liked confessed to Nadeko and offended that she would turn him down (which she did). If it had worked normally, Nadeko’s gruesome ritual would have been the right call, but her fear of the curse she was told she was put under pushed her to mess with the shrine unnecessarily, and it was in a bad way anyway (hence the task given to Araragi), so it caused the curse to activate instead. If allowed to run, it will end up fatal, but luckily Oshino knows just what to do and provides those involved a charm that should dispel the curse.
In a ritual at the shrine, this first seems to go well… but it turns out Nadeko’s trouble was two fold as there’s another snake-curse still on her when one is lifted. Araragi, with Kanbaru’s help is able to fight off the snake… but unable to finish it off, meaning the curse will rebound on the caster, likely the boy Nadeko turned down. So even though Nadeko herself is saved, someone else is going to be paying the price this time.
That brings us to the final arc, Tsubasa Cat, in which we really follow up with Hanekawa and what her deal is. The arc is a little confused, though, because of production issues. The TV run for Bakemonogatari ended after episode 12, rendering this arc just two episodes, one of which was used to kind of discuss Hanekawa and one of which (episode 12) doesn’t involve the ‘arc topic’ at all, instead giving us a full episode of a date between Araragi and Senjogahara (complete with the opening for Senjogahara’s arc, staple stable, being used instead of the opening for the other Tsubasa Cat episodes, Sugar Sweet Nightmare).
However, later releases include three more episodes of Tsubasa Cat, actually covering the plot that’s alluded to in the first. Frankly, if and when – hopefully when – you watch Bakemonogatari for yourself, do yourself a favor and hunt down episodes 13-15; the show isn’t really finished without them. The date with Senjogahara is a good episode, and it doesn’t entirely lack bearing on anything, and it really shows how their chemistry actually does work, so I see why that was the ending note chosen for the original run… but give Hanekawa her due and go through her full story.
So, Tsubasa Cat. It’s grounded in the other incident that was chronologically before the show (other than Kizumonogatari), a period during Golden Week when Hanekawa became possessed by a monstrous cat spirit that exists to burn off her stress and address its causes, the bakeneko known as Black Hanekawa (though, compared to Hanekawa’s normal black hair, the cat’s is shock white). During Golden Week, Black Hanekawa came into being due to years of accumulated stress, mostly to do with Hanekawa’s parents and the expectations placed on her. Now, it seems, the cat is back.
But, Araragi asks, why and how? The last time, it took years for Hanekawa to accumulate the kind of stress that would result in her feline alter-ego, and she’s seemed happy enough since, so what could have possibly caused the cat to arise once again.
Oshino unsubtly suggests that Araragi should know the answer and unsubtly implies that it might be his fault. He also lets Araragi know that Shinobu has made herself scarce, and that this too is Araragi’s problem. He also (much more subtly) suggests that Araragi needs to learn to fight his own battles, and given the kind of life he’s gotten wrapped up in might want to consider taking up theology… as after all, there’s not always going to be a Meme Oshino around to save the day.
A good portion of this arc is, then the search for Shinobu. Not only is Araragi kind of responsible for her, but she’s also the potential key to sealing away the cat, since Shinobu (as what’s left of a vampire) can drain away the power of an aberration. Surprisingly, Black Hanekawa ultimately decides to hang out with Araragi and help him search, leading to them bantering, getting on to Hanekawa’s situation and the source of her stress. The cat, of course, knows exactly why she exists, and after Araragi proves dense as a depleted uranium brick about it, tells him what the easy way to seal her without a vampire would be: just fall in love with Hanekawa!
Araragi is baffled, but the blindingly obvious reason Hanekawa has been so out of sorts is finally revealed, the whole thing stemming from her deep, consuming, and unrequited love for Araragi. Araragi rejects the cat hard (probably harder than he meant to) and she suggests that his death would also probably end Hanekawa’s stress, a solution to which he was more agreeable (reasoning that, due to previous supernatural events, he owes Hanekawa his life) until he remembered that Senjogahara would probably be hurt by it and would likely seek revenge. He then manages a spark of insight in the morass of his density and calls out to Shinobu, realizing that the vampire was hiding out in his shadow and that Black Hanekawa realized this and had brought them to a place where strong shadows could be cast, even at night, to enable this outcome. Honestly, she may be an energy draining monstrosity with a very distinctive laugh, but Black Hanekawa, at least manifested out of unrequited love rather than darker stresses, doesn’t seem that bad an entity.
Shinobu is able to quickly resolve the matter, taking a bite out of the cat, which causes her to revert to being Hanekawa. In the epilogue of the incident, it’s revealed that the suggestions of Araragi having to stand on his own were more immediate than some may have thought: Meme Oshino has moved on, and Araragi, along with his friends, girlfriend, and the little vampire girl in his shadow will now have to deal with any further Aberration scenarios without their endless font of exposition.
So, that’s Bakemonogatari. And honestly? It’s brilliant. It’s easy to see how this series captured so many, even Westerners when it’s not the kind of show that’s kind to those uninitiated regarding its cultural context. It’s atmospheric and engaging, bizarre but also connectable, with deep roots in culture but also a strong foundation in character.
It’s also a show that, interestingly, redeems most of what might at first appear to be its faults. So, Araragi looks like your generic chronic hero harem lead, perhaps with a bit more snark than the standard model? He’s really not. He has a distinct character. He’s deeply disconnected from understanding people, even though he’s actually more open to then than he’d even want to admit. And his “chronic hero syndrome” is downright pathological. It’s repeatedly seen that Araragi does not value his own life, and that this is actually a big problem and not just code for him being a nice guy. Similarly, at first it seems like Senjogahara is all edge and it’s hard to feel the chemistry she has with Araragi. Over time, though, by seeing them interact, we see that they do have really good chemistry, and work together as a couple, with problems they need to overcome but a willingness to do it. It’s not a typical sappy teen romance, but you do feel for it enough to not really want Araragi to reconsider when it’s the easiest out for Hanekawa’s problems. And, to his credit, he doesn’t. This isn’t a Harem show where we keep all the girls in contention, there’s a real relationship with real weight.
And, for a minute, let’s talk about Hanekawa. Hanekawa is a brilliant character, and she’s brilliant in how she’s slowly built up to the point where something breaks and we get Tsubasa Cat. Astute readers may have noticed (as I did watching) that back in Mayoi Snail she can, unlike Senjogahara, sense Mayoi, suggesting that she’s suffering beneath her smile and has some reason to not want to go home. In many of her appearances, she gives Araragi advice, and there’s always an undercurrent in their interactions, always some sort of hint that when she’s talking about Araragi’s love life (or even just his life), she’s holding something back. The seeds of Black Hanekawa are planted, more or less obviously, all the way back to the start of the show (which is part of why I think it’s so critical to get through the full Tsubasa Cat arc, rather than it being abbreviated).
As immediately stunning (or perhaps bewildering) as the show is in its visuals and style, it is admirable and impressive in how it builds and grows over its full run, and how you get to know these people even under the strange and sometimes oppressive atmosphere of the show.
I really debated myself, back and forth, on whether or not Bakemonogatari deserved an A+. On one hand, it does certainly reach to be something more than standard. The potential for greatness is there, unlike many other shows that, while well-executed, just don’t have the ambition or vision for the highest artistic bands. And, this is a show that I think it would be worthwhile to come back to, that I think could be really deeply analyzed. You could probably pick through all fifteen episodes practically by the frame and tease apart what it means and what it accomplishes. In that way, how artistic its nature is, it’s fairly similar to RahXephon.
But… RahXephon wasn’t an A+ piece just for that, and neither would Bakemonogatari be. But while RahXephon was often deeply troubled in a number of areas, Bakemonogatari is at least solid everywhere. It’s not being held back the same way.
But… it is being held back in its own way. Bakemonogatari is, more than any other show I’ve watched – more than RahXephon or Dorohedoro, or Ergo Proxy or Serial Experiments Lain or Boogiepop Phantom, all those inaccessible shows that ask a lot of their viewers – A show that one cannot just watch casually and enjoy. It is enjoyable, I feel; the fact that it’s story is less esoteric than many of those other shows I’ve just listed helps. But the style is so intense and so omnipresent that the fact that it’s going to filter some viewers all of the time and probably most viewers some of the time can’t be totally ignored. So, the question on the table is this: is this show measurably worse because it is more difficult?
On a philosophical level, I feel like the answer to that question has to be ‘no’. Sometimes, great art is hard to digest, and that doesn’t make it any less great. I often feel like “you just don’t get it” is a sentiment that can be used as a smokescreen to portray dadaist anti-value as something it’s not, but there are points where the degree to which a meaning is communicated can be deliberately reduced in order to increase how powerful the meaning communicated is and how clearly and evocatively it is communicated when it does come through. There’s a degree to which I have to ask myself if I’m being bamboozled by the presentation, but I don’t think I am, and that in this case there’s also enough about the characters and story to study to say that there’s as much substance as style.
But, on the other hand, I’m running a review blog here, one that has been very sparing with the A+ ratings, causing such high marks to serve as a sort of at-a-glance seal of approval. And while I absolutely approve of Bakemonogatari, and would recommend anyone who has the time and mental energy to really sit down with it to do so, I feel that the show and my readers alike would be poorly served by seeing that highest rating and acting on it. So, in all technicality, as will go down in the archive of my reviews, I’ll be rating Bakemonogatari at an A. I can say it is a brilliant show, and I can say it is an artistic show. I can say it’s an engaging show, with connectable plot and characters… but I can’t really say it’s all that at once, that if you’re scrolling through wondering what to watch next this is something that should jump at once to the top of your list.
No matter what I picked, there was going to be a spiritual asterisk next to that rating, so while I’ve chosen to err on the lower side, please do understand that this A is an A*, and what that means.