Story:
The thing that annoys me the most about the monogatari series is how on one hand it tries to be deep and philosophical while on the other hand, panders to fans of a very base level of entertainment. As a result, it feels like a pretentious and disingenuous harem, instead of the cerebral and psychological supernatural romp into the human psyche like it tries to make itself out to be.
Exhibit A: It's filled to the brim with fetishized female characters, 40% of which are lolis. I love lolis, don't get me wrong, but I cringe whenever I stop to consider the audience that Bakemonogatari is pandering to: people who want to feel smart and deep but also want to be surrounded by cute and sexy (little) girls. It's like the writer wanted to write both a serious story and a light-hearted romcom story at the same time, and Bakemonogatari was born as an amalgamation of these two conflicting desires. To me, this combination doesn't work.
Exhibit B: Arararararagi is a low-key self-insert shounen protagonist. Sure, he's somewhat entertaining to watch, but once you take a step back you realize he's a predictable goody-two-shoes who constantly "saves" cute girls because he sees fit to do so. The show may try to make his motivations sound all grandiose, but if you boil them all down they're just generic happy-go-lucky bullshit that every other shounen protagonist has been spouting for the last decade or so. While I'm certainly not against helping out specifically female characters or anything, it gets really stale and the harem undertones really creep to the surface after he's saved the 5th female character in a row and she's fallen in love with him like the rest who came before her. People praise this series for "subverting the tropes" and "elevating the harem genre to the next level" but I ain't feeling jack shit. The protagonist is fucking boring, the characters are unlikable (Senjougahara can go choke on a thumbtack), and the dialogue feels like it's overcompensating for something.
While we're discussing the dialogue, the conversations are absurdly drawn-out to frankly obscene levels. It's great to have some witty banter between characters but sometimes the show just never knows when to stop. Hachikuji's arc was the worst offender out of all of them in terms of droning dialogue. There is no need for 10 minutes of constant discourse about trite subjects that go on tangents and loop back into itself a cow's intestines. Each of these conversations can be just as entertaining and meaningful in less than half the duration that they actually went on for. I don't know what Bakemonogatari is trying to do with the dialogue; I feel like it's trying waaaay too hard to compensate for the author's inability to express depth through any other means.
At the end of the day, my main problem with Bakemonogatari is that it feels incredibly wish-fulfillment, self-insert, and fetishized. Writing-wise, it's sound - profound, and sometimes moving, even. But in light of all the problems I've listed earlier, it feels incredibly disingenuous and pretentious, rather than playful and sophisticated.
Let's take Natsume Yuujinchou as a parallel. They're both supernatural series that delves into the human psyche. However, Natsume Yuujinchou never tries to be something that it's not. It has genuine heart. Its characters are flawed but also feel human. It gently takes you by the hand, and leads you on a journey of love, friendship, and self-discovery. Bakemonogatari, on the other hand, waves its dick in your face, tries to woo you with its meta humor and philosophical drivel, introduces a cute girl, shows you her problems, sniffs her panties, then saves her like the damsel in distress that she is, then sniffs her panties again, then introduces another cute girl. Rinse and repeat. I get it dawg I get it. You're really deep, even though you're a creep. What's that? You're inviting me to be a creep along with you too? Nah man. Unlike you, I'm not that far up my own asshole yet.
Art:
Great. Shaft's signature style is nothing to scoff and all of the girls' tits and asses are beautifully drawn, rendered and juxtaposed against the symbolic backdrops and rapid cuts. Art and animation-wise, you won't find anything like Bakemonogatari anywhere else.
Sound:
The soundtrack is actually really good. The OPs and most of the EDs are a treat to listen to every time. Nadeko's ED song, Renai Circulation, is a god meme.
Characters:
Hachikuji is the sexiest female character to ever be designed by a carbon-based lifeform in the observable universe in the milky way galaxy in the solar system in planet earth in japan
Enjoyment:
I fapped to Nadeko's bare ass with my left hand and read the unabridged version of Crime and Punishment with my right. Is this the Monogatari Effect?
Overall:
6/10 would be an intellectual pedophile again.
