The art in the series is nothing less than spectacular. The lighting, the animation, the colors is just all so beautiful. The scenes that would be plain have some sort of interesting aspect and life to it. This is done by Studio Shaft (one of my favorite studios) so it's very familiar to those that have seen Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei or Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase. Which are fantastic as well. And yes, Shaft does make use of production slides and storyboards for dialogue or just for some effect on the situation. CAUTION: Some of the storyboards/production slides go by really fast. You're going to have pause to read them.
The sound is great. I'll mention OPs and EDs. The OPs are great, different ones for chapters and they fit well based on the heroine of the chapter. The ED is by supercell (they did the theme for Cencoroll as well) is fantastic, the animation in the ED is personally a favorite of mine. Now, to the real sound that counts, the BGM. It's great, fits every scene well and adds emotion to them as well. Very well done.
The cast of characters is all over the place. Araragi is overly kind and tries to help anyone he can. Amongst the heroines there are the basic characters that stick out. There is Hitagi Senjougahara who describes herself as a tsundere. She speaks in a very threatening way to anyone. Suruga Kanbaru, a self-proclaimed lesbian, masochist, and fujoshi. Many other characters appear with other personalities which gives a delectable assortment of characters.
Overall, this anime is definitely one to check out; one of my favorites from this season. With the overtone of spirits, mythological creatures, ghosts, and gods there is room for romance in this anime as well. Chapters are relatively short (limited to three/two episodes for one chapter) but capture a lot of the story through this dialogue heavy anime. An anime to a remember with the great depth of the characters and how the chapters help the characters develop.
