It’s not bad because of its paedo fan-service. There isn’t that much of it anyway. It’s not bad because it’s almost entirely comprised of dialogue. Tatamy Galaxy is probably even more wordy, yet it’s good. It is bad because of either its messages, or poor execution of them. And because of its abysmal pacing.
The first arc deals with Senjougahara’s troubled past. She is a girl who was molested in the past bacause of her mother. She willingly forgets all this to lighten her mental and emotional load, which is metaphorically presented as giving her troubles and her literal weight to a crab oddity/spirit/demon/whatever. Something supernatural.
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are two ways to interpret this. A more literal one would be that she has supernaturally induced amnesia about the things that happened. Yet, this doesn’t “fix” her. On the contrary, she becomes more problematic, snapping at others, becoming a recluse etc. Why? There seems to be an implication that if you erased a traumatic event, you’d somehow *wouldn’t* be better off. I’m guessing the crab didn’t do a very good job at deleting everyhing relating to the incident. Why didn’t it? Just so the author could shoehorn his morals in? I was never raped in my life. Should I get raped to somehow enrich myself by it? I resent the implications this interpretation has. But it’s too literal. Let’s move to a better one.
The second interpretation is that she simply repressed her negative memories, no supernatural included. The crab stuff is merely a (pretentious and unnecessary) way to make the show more interesting. Okay. The crab couldn’t take away everything about the incident because the show wants to be true to life, and this is how life works. Fair enough. But then my problem is that all this happens way too fast. Two 20 minute episodes. And a lot of the time is wasted on puns. But that’s not the biggest issue, the puns don’t take all the time, and you could argue they convey her character.
The main issue is that everything is solved by just talking. Yeah, that’s how it works IRL, too, you just talk to a therapist, right? But you don’t resolve such a huge issue with just one session, do you? You might argue, but she doesn’t she just opens up, she’s isn’t completely “fixed” yet. But that that happened too fast, too. I read a real-life biography of a woman who was raped by her dad when she was a child. There was even a cult involved, like in the show. It took her *years* after the rape stopped to say to someone, anyone, what happened (her mother). She also had intimacy issues for years, and couldn’t open up to her last, most considerate, boyfriend for ages, or do anything physical with him even though she wanted to. I see nothing of that in this arc. And since the idea of “you must accept your past” isn’t that much on its own (imagine just reading that quote without anything else – do you consider it a masterpiece quote or something?), most of its potential lies in its execution. And for the reasons stated above, I found the execution very poor. Senjou’s victories, ironically, feel too weightless to have any impact, whether emotional or philosophical.
The second arc is about the little girl Mayoi Hachikuji. Her three-episode arc is about cherishing your parents. She lost hers and this inspires Araragi, the protagonist, to celebrate Mother’s Day, even though he didn’t want to initially. I really dislike this sort of reasoning. Her parents were (presumably, even this isn’t clear, but I’m assuming it for the sake of argument) nice and loving. She appeals to emotion of Araragi’s, that he should cherish his family while he has them. But this idealism is misguided. What if his family is horrible? Why should he cherish a family that only makes his life worse?
And since we don’t see them, or see enough of them, how do we know whether they deserve to be cherished or not? This undermines the message of the story. But, again for the sake of the argument, let’s assume they do deserve it. Why should he cherish them on a day when it’s mandatory to do so? All that “love” then seems fake and artificial. As they say, you should cherish your family (if it deserves it) throughout the whole year. Or at least do it on days when it feels natural for you.
I’d rewrite this arc so that his mother was nagging him to celebrate the holiday for years, but he refused because of how fake it felt. Finally, this year, being under pressure from her, and sick of it, he suggests that they watch a movie instead, hoping this would be a more genuine way to establish a connection with his mother. So he lets her choose the movie. But he didn’t think it through, and she chooses something he doesn’t want to watch. So he agonizes about it. Instead of Mayoi, I’d have Senjougahara talk him into watching the movie after all. He’d be confused why is she on the side of family, considering the way hers is, trying to get out of it. She’d say something like “The fact that my family is horrible, doesn’t mean *every* family is horrible. You might be wasting something I never had. I’m not saying you must love them, but don’t jump to conclusions, either.” Moved, he’d decide to give it a try. It would turn out he actually loves the movie, and after that bonds with his mother as they both gush about it, how they both really liked some major aspect of it. And maybe throw in a little disagreement over some other, minor, aspect for good measure. It would give awesomeness and depth to Senjou’s character, and the whole conflict would make more sense and impact, while still having the same overall message. The only issue with my idea is that it’s maybe *too* optimistic and idealistic. Maybe throw in that one of his sisters also goes along and hates the movie, and the three of them just can’t see eye to eye on it?
I’d also shorten the whole arc, most likely to 2 episodes. There is just so much time wasted on nothing. The show is lauded for its “deep subtext.” It’s pretty obvious in one of the episodes that Senjou wants the D, but she masks it with aggressive jokes. It’s obvious from the first time she says it, but she repeats it for the quarter of the episode. The problem is also that the subtext is always the same. It’s like listening to “I want to fuck you” or “I want an emotional bond with you” repeated for 5 minutes straight, except it’s worded differently every time. It doesn’t add anything meaningful or important, nor does it even build her character, as fans like to claim. It’s just exasperating, unnecessary, and wasting the viewer’s time.
There are also claims that things make more sense once you watch more, that thing before reference things that come after and vice versa. To me, this simply seems like bad writing. It’s okay to have things be connected, but you can’t do it at the expense of the current stories losing sense or impact, which I believe is the case here. The whole puzzle aspect should be a cherry on top. You can’t base an entire story and show on a gimmick. To stick with the Tatamy Galaxy comparison, I feel like that show both has the retroactive “a-ha!” moment, while still at the same time still being good episode to episode, unlike Bakemonogatari.
I can’t tell you more than this, about subsequent arcs or seasons, because I simply dropped the show. It was that bad. Visually, it looks great, though. To mention something positive about it, in the interest of fairness. The ideas themselves also had a lot of potential, but they’re either too vague, simplistic, crude, or poorly executed to be actually good. Just watch Bunny Girl Senpai, instead.
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Oct 24, 2018
Bakemonogatari
(Anime)
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It’s not bad because of its paedo fan-service. There isn’t that much of it anyway. It’s not bad because it’s almost entirely comprised of dialogue. Tatamy Galaxy is probably even more wordy, yet it’s good. It is bad because of either its messages, or poor execution of them. And because of its abysmal pacing.
The first arc deals with Senjougahara’s troubled past. She is a girl who was molested in the past bacause of her mother. She willingly forgets all this to lighten her mental and emotional load, which is metaphorically presented as giving her troubles and her literal weight to a crab oddity/spirit/demon/whatever. Something supernatural. There ... |
