Some people say Bakemonogatari is a big milestone in the anime history. And they're goddamn right, because before this one came to being, the anime industry hasn’t been known what the ultimate shit is. And now it knows, we all do now. This show is the very standard of ugliness, boredom, tastelessness, hackwork, the national team of all shounen cliches. From now on the lowest mark on the "Quality" scale has a material incarnation - Bakemonogatari. So, with no doubt, it is really a great milestone in anime history.
Well, i do understand that i have to be more specific. But what can write about here?
The plot? What plot? There is no plot. Yes. There. Is. No. Plot. Narration made of identical and disjoined arcs. Because of this Bakemonogatari has no outset, no outcome, and no common climax (only within arcs). And what the hell? The main heroine (who she pretends to be, at least), Hitagi Senjougahara, has the shortest arc and has too little screentime. Closer to the final episodes it looks like her total screentime is even less than, for example, Hanekawa's. By the way, Episode 12, a part of Hanekawa's arc, and why the hell there is no even a single mention of Hanekawa? How does this arc system work here? Dialogues are epic twaddle about literally nothing with tons of mutually exclusive conclusions and other kinds of bullshit, sometimes it is offensively obvious that the only reasons for those dialogues are screentime extension and giving a reason to underage seekers of deep meaning to think that Bakemonogatari is a highly intellectual postmodern work. "Wait, are we in anime?"-joke has nothing in common with postmodernism, it's just a motherfucking cliche that pisses the shit out of viewers since at least 1990.
The setting? There is no visible setting. Weak undeveloped universe made of second-rate fantasy, a thing everyone should be already bored with. Author fabricates rules right in the middle of narration. And again: no outset, no outcome, and no common climax. Instead of all this we’ve got many minutes of twaddle and not about the Bakemonogatari's universe, not about what's-going-on, not about what-we-have-to-do, but about panties, breasts, virginity, nekomimi and about other undoubtedly important for plot development things. Maybe we should be a little more honest and conclude that this show is about panties, breasts and other similar "pillars of the universe". Fullscreen panties at the 6'th second of episode 1 - a sprinter-like start.
The characters? Oh, cmon. “It's all the same shit”, right? Senjougahara is one of 9000 usual crappy sub-tsunderes, and i am confident that tsunderes alongside with moe are the cancer that kills anime. Araragi is a pestered for the last 5-6 years type of protagonists: "Ah, you such a worthless man but i still love you, don't know why".
An art? Oh, it's a biggest sore of Bakemonogatari. Background design and especially those slides... ugh... It's the worst thing i've ever seen in anime. It's just like Endless Eight of "Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya". A similar inferior attempt to disguise a low budget alongside with creative crisis by claiming all of this a special and original idea. And JUST like in the case of Endless Eight, crowd ate this horseshit and yelled: "How deep! Brilliant! Masterpiece!". Making lots of references for the only one sake of making a reference is a dirty trick: a reference itself doesn’t make show any better, especially when there’s no cultural background coming with it, but viewer gets a positive emotion every time he/she guesses the reference out and extrapolates this positive vibe on the show itself. It is exactly the same reason why lots of people consider Lucky Star masterpiece: familiar references get them high.
I'm in the deepest shock, one step away from having a stroke. The score "8.46" totally shreds my ass. Good God! It's even bigger than NGE's. Tons of 10/10 reviews with crap like "100021309213134214 people found this review helpful" make me cry in pain and think: "World, what the hell is wrong with you?"
Overall: -10/10, ultimate shit and the worst anime in existence.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
Oh yeah, Ping Pong: The Animation.
I know I'll get reports and dislikes for this one,
but please bear with me, since this is my oppinion.
Story: 4/10
The story of Ping Pong is probably one of the poorest executed versions of 'Cliche-Sports-Story Mk I'. There isn't even much I could spoil. What do you expect of the most cliched sportsstory?
Take a while and imagine. I'll give you a hint its the same principle used in next to every shounen, as well as probably every sports anime.
I don't have much of a problem with such a storyline in itself, but if the story is like that, you'd need some other points to make up for it. And I simply couldn't find anything to make up for it. There is no comedy, no fanservice, no action scenes or anything else which made up for the classical storyline.
Art: 1/10
The original manga is actually from 1995 while the anime aired 2014. Still, at that time anime like Detective Conan or Dragonball also aired. Why would I be ever pleased with that art? In a way this style is really unique. Yes, I definitely haven't seen something like this before.
The background arts -> boring
The character designs -> ugly
The animations -> simply pathetic
If you want an idea of what I mean by ugly character desings, just click one of the pictures above in the characters section. Most of the characters look like they didn't want to spend more time then necessary on the characters. The characters are merely some rough outlines, with some strokes as facial expressions. This can't obviously be enough.
As for why the animation is simply pathetic: I noticed it rather early in one of the table tennis games. The ball nearly went to the ground, but they got it back on the table. In a straight line. From UNDER the table. One of the greatest physic fails of all time.
Sure, this might be intentionally by the drawers. Or it might just as well be a crude mistake.
I personally prefer realistic and fluent movements.
For reference also a reason why the background arts are boring: In the first episodes, the main characters gym is presented. Fair enough. In the later episodes, the rivaling school has the exact same gym. Well with everything which was green in the main heroes gym being purple...
Summed up, the rather low quality of the anime completely distracted me from everything else.
It took several hours for me to get used to it, and by that time the anime was already half over.
Sound: 4/10
The voice acting was basically mediocre. The only voice I even remember is Wengs. I'm personally a fan of using original languages with foreigner characters. And well, Weng, or his seiyu, pulled that one off pretty good. Next, the BGM: unmemorable.
And I mean unmemorable. I watched one of the episodes again, just caring for BGM. And theres next to none to begin with. This one might be for style reasons, making the actually existing ones more important, but those that actually exist are just mediocre tracks sadly.
As for how they are mediocre. They sound generic and could be used in every anime. They don't connect to what the anime wanted to present, or at least thats what it feels like for me.
Last, we have the opening and ending, which both were, to be honest, absolute forgettable as well. Just as the BGM, if there wasn't the video, I would never even imagine that this would be Ping Pongs Opening/Ending, which is really sad.
Character: 4/10
And once again Kong Weng is the guy who saves up some points.
Both his background, as well as his character was well fleshed out and, to top it off, realistic.
I really disliked both main characters, because both only have one or two memorable traits.
Their backgrounds get described every once in a while in some talkes other characters have, and to be honest, those backgrounds are, just as the story, used a hundred times, again.
This is one of the mainreasons I didn't enjoy Ping Pong at all. Everything seems just like we've all seen it before, with nothing which elevates it out of the masses.
The character development, especially Smiles, came off rather forced.
Pecos on the other hand, was the classic shounen development. Its a reasonable one, but once again an abused one.
At least the side characters are, compared to other anime, acceptable.
They have some traits that make them enjoyable, backstories that might make them interesting or developments, which make them more vived. But, here as well, these are the classical ideas, used just another time.
Enjoyment: 1/10
I only laughed once in the whole anime. And thats because of a scene where the arts nearly killed me. I personally hated this stuff, but since its a Top 100 I wanted to give it a shot and also have it completed.
Overall: 3/10
In my opinion one of the poorest anime I've seen so far, and I'm at 100 days of watching anime.
Maybe you're better off trying it for yourself, because I absolutely disliked it and can't possibly recommend it. Maybe you'll come to like something, I absolutely didn't.
If you're interested in sports anime however, just go with Kuroko no Basket. If you're interested in good character development, go with one of KEYs works, either Clannad, Little Busters!, or Angel Beats.
All Comments (2) Comments
Well, i do understand that i have to be more specific. But what can write about here?
The plot? What plot? There is no plot. Yes. There. Is. No. Plot. Narration made of identical and disjoined arcs. Because of this Bakemonogatari has no outset, no outcome, and no common climax (only within arcs). And what the hell? The main heroine (who she pretends to be, at least), Hitagi Senjougahara, has the shortest arc and has too little screentime. Closer to the final episodes it looks like her total screentime is even less than, for example, Hanekawa's. By the way, Episode 12, a part of Hanekawa's arc, and why the hell there is no even a single mention of Hanekawa? How does this arc system work here? Dialogues are epic twaddle about literally nothing with tons of mutually exclusive conclusions and other kinds of bullshit, sometimes it is offensively obvious that the only reasons for those dialogues are screentime extension and giving a reason to underage seekers of deep meaning to think that Bakemonogatari is a highly intellectual postmodern work. "Wait, are we in anime?"-joke has nothing in common with postmodernism, it's just a motherfucking cliche that pisses the shit out of viewers since at least 1990.
The setting? There is no visible setting. Weak undeveloped universe made of second-rate fantasy, a thing everyone should be already bored with. Author fabricates rules right in the middle of narration. And again: no outset, no outcome, and no common climax. Instead of all this we’ve got many minutes of twaddle and not about the Bakemonogatari's universe, not about what's-going-on, not about what-we-have-to-do, but about panties, breasts, virginity, nekomimi and about other undoubtedly important for plot development things. Maybe we should be a little more honest and conclude that this show is about panties, breasts and other similar "pillars of the universe". Fullscreen panties at the 6'th second of episode 1 - a sprinter-like start.
The characters? Oh, cmon. “It's all the same shit”, right? Senjougahara is one of 9000 usual crappy sub-tsunderes, and i am confident that tsunderes alongside with moe are the cancer that kills anime. Araragi is a pestered for the last 5-6 years type of protagonists: "Ah, you such a worthless man but i still love you, don't know why".
An art? Oh, it's a biggest sore of Bakemonogatari. Background design and especially those slides... ugh... It's the worst thing i've ever seen in anime. It's just like Endless Eight of "Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya". A similar inferior attempt to disguise a low budget alongside with creative crisis by claiming all of this a special and original idea. And JUST like in the case of Endless Eight, crowd ate this horseshit and yelled: "How deep! Brilliant! Masterpiece!". Making lots of references for the only one sake of making a reference is a dirty trick: a reference itself doesn’t make show any better, especially when there’s no cultural background coming with it, but viewer gets a positive emotion every time he/she guesses the reference out and extrapolates this positive vibe on the show itself. It is exactly the same reason why lots of people consider Lucky Star masterpiece: familiar references get them high.
I'm in the deepest shock, one step away from having a stroke. The score "8.46" totally shreds my ass. Good God! It's even bigger than NGE's. Tons of 10/10 reviews with crap like "100021309213134214 people found this review helpful" make me cry in pain and think: "World, what the hell is wrong with you?"
Overall: -10/10, ultimate shit and the worst anime in existence.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
I know I'll get reports and dislikes for this one,
but please bear with me, since this is my oppinion.
Story: 4/10
The story of Ping Pong is probably one of the poorest executed versions of 'Cliche-Sports-Story Mk I'. There isn't even much I could spoil. What do you expect of the most cliched sportsstory?
Take a while and imagine. I'll give you a hint its the same principle used in next to every shounen, as well as probably every sports anime.
I don't have much of a problem with such a storyline in itself, but if the story is like that, you'd need some other points to make up for it. And I simply couldn't find anything to make up for it. There is no comedy, no fanservice, no action scenes or anything else which made up for the classical storyline.
Art: 1/10
The original manga is actually from 1995 while the anime aired 2014. Still, at that time anime like Detective Conan or Dragonball also aired. Why would I be ever pleased with that art? In a way this style is really unique. Yes, I definitely haven't seen something like this before.
The background arts -> boring
The character designs -> ugly
The animations -> simply pathetic
If you want an idea of what I mean by ugly character desings, just click one of the pictures above in the characters section. Most of the characters look like they didn't want to spend more time then necessary on the characters. The characters are merely some rough outlines, with some strokes as facial expressions. This can't obviously be enough.
As for why the animation is simply pathetic: I noticed it rather early in one of the table tennis games. The ball nearly went to the ground, but they got it back on the table. In a straight line. From UNDER the table. One of the greatest physic fails of all time.
Sure, this might be intentionally by the drawers. Or it might just as well be a crude mistake.
I personally prefer realistic and fluent movements.
For reference also a reason why the background arts are boring: In the first episodes, the main characters gym is presented. Fair enough. In the later episodes, the rivaling school has the exact same gym. Well with everything which was green in the main heroes gym being purple...
Summed up, the rather low quality of the anime completely distracted me from everything else.
It took several hours for me to get used to it, and by that time the anime was already half over.
Sound: 4/10
The voice acting was basically mediocre. The only voice I even remember is Wengs. I'm personally a fan of using original languages with foreigner characters. And well, Weng, or his seiyu, pulled that one off pretty good. Next, the BGM: unmemorable.
And I mean unmemorable. I watched one of the episodes again, just caring for BGM. And theres next to none to begin with. This one might be for style reasons, making the actually existing ones more important, but those that actually exist are just mediocre tracks sadly.
As for how they are mediocre. They sound generic and could be used in every anime. They don't connect to what the anime wanted to present, or at least thats what it feels like for me.
Last, we have the opening and ending, which both were, to be honest, absolute forgettable as well. Just as the BGM, if there wasn't the video, I would never even imagine that this would be Ping Pongs Opening/Ending, which is really sad.
Character: 4/10
And once again Kong Weng is the guy who saves up some points.
Both his background, as well as his character was well fleshed out and, to top it off, realistic.
I really disliked both main characters, because both only have one or two memorable traits.
Their backgrounds get described every once in a while in some talkes other characters have, and to be honest, those backgrounds are, just as the story, used a hundred times, again.
This is one of the mainreasons I didn't enjoy Ping Pong at all. Everything seems just like we've all seen it before, with nothing which elevates it out of the masses.
The character development, especially Smiles, came off rather forced.
Pecos on the other hand, was the classic shounen development. Its a reasonable one, but once again an abused one.
At least the side characters are, compared to other anime, acceptable.
They have some traits that make them enjoyable, backstories that might make them interesting or developments, which make them more vived. But, here as well, these are the classical ideas, used just another time.
Enjoyment: 1/10
I only laughed once in the whole anime. And thats because of a scene where the arts nearly killed me. I personally hated this stuff, but since its a Top 100 I wanted to give it a shot and also have it completed.
Overall: 3/10
In my opinion one of the poorest anime I've seen so far, and I'm at 100 days of watching anime.
Maybe you're better off trying it for yourself, because I absolutely disliked it and can't possibly recommend it. Maybe you'll come to like something, I absolutely didn't.
If you're interested in sports anime however, just go with Kuroko no Basket. If you're interested in good character development, go with one of KEYs works, either Clannad, Little Busters!, or Angel Beats.