This is a review of Monogatari. The great, sleazy, sprawling empire of Monogatari. With much love and in keeping with the style of the show itself, I'll make sure it's a disorganized disaster area.
It's been a while since I wrote a review, but MONOGATARI IS OVER and the sentimental poeticism of that fact spurred me to fill out these heinous numerical scores once more. Of course, Monogatari isn't really over. We'll no doubt soon be facing down Owariszokumudamonogatari or whatever 354,653th side story/spinoff pops up to fill the void left in many a loyal fan's heart. However, the main story is done, there's no doubting that, and that's good enough for me. I'm out. I can't take any more. I managed to make it to the end of this season pretty much just by riding the rocketship of nostalgia. Good god, how many sloppy cgi slideshows must we endure? For this loyal fan, the magic is over.
Which, I suppose, means the series worked.
I mean seriously, when I first started watching this behemoth epic many moons ago I was just a dumb college freshman (or something close) and I fell in, hook line and sinker. The convoluted problems of Araragi and his friends ranged from life-changing to so cryptic that I was forced to fall back on that most shameful of actions, looking up essays written by other more experienced critics in order to understand what the f**k I had just watched. I was mesmerized by Hitagi (heh) and her callous glamor, Hanekawa and her poisonous external perfectionism, Nadeko and her disturbing emptiness, and of course Araragi and his flaky, self-deprecating, morally-questionable, creepy, dense thought process. The show was magic. Broken, messy, and inexplicably relatable, Monogatari was an emotionally-poignant series of truths I wouldv'e had trouble coming to alone. It felt like a respite from a mad world of superficiality, a beacon of integrity that actually tried to be real. Sure, it was often gross and off-topic, but that only served to make it feel more legitimate. I remember my youthful head-over-heels fanboy self writing that "Monogatari, unlike any other work of fiction, understands the tumultuous chaos of daily living. This show's true apparition is life itself."
Look, I know half of you hate this franchise. I've heard it been denounced as pandering bilge, try-hard philosophy for middle-schoolers, cash-grab pornography, and self-indulgent holier-than-though psychology more dated than Freud. And I'm not really gonna defend it: it's got all of those elements in it. The Monogatari Franchise is one massive experiment in everything, and as is charachteristic of experiments, things often go horribly awry. But, somehow, after wading through all of the literal human feces (*cough*cough* Tsukimonogatari) we've reached the conclusion to that experiment, and have found ourselves with a truly excessive coming-of-age story or something. And, it turns out, what made the franchise work or not wasn't any of its own merits: it was what the viewer brought to the table. "I am imperfect" is a fact I acknowledge readily. "I want to do better" is another. "I can recognize some of my most detrimental flaws, but even then I have difficulty figuring out how to address them, and these are such difficult and personal concerns that I don't really know how to foist them onto someone else" is one as well. When I started this series, I was looking for answers. Answers about my own habits and traits, answers about how other people's minds might work, answers regarding that slow-burning yet indestructible anxiety that perpetually lives in the back of my mind. Monogatari was willing to listen, to offer advice, to never try to hand anything ut on a platter: its coded images and style and writing made me work to figure out what it was trying to tell me, and through that allowed me to figure out for myself the thoughts I was missing. And that was magical.
And now we've reached the end.
Now it's just a story. It's not the embodiment of life or a tried-and-true philosophical 5-course meal. It's an often-frustrating story about a bunch of great characters with sometimes-brilliant, sometimes-infuriating presentation. That was was struck me most watching this final season: everything I fell in love with was still there, but I had grown past it. That doesn't mean it wasn't satisfying as all hell to watch all these long-struggling plot threads reach something resembling a resolutions, or that I wasn't secretly praying that they'd play the world-renowned masterpiece Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari just ONE MORE TIME (even though the whole point is that we've grown way past that song's message). By all metrics (asides from, perhaps, visual creativity) this season was just as good as any of the previous ones and more. It's just... well... Monogatari finally caught up to itself.
It doesn't feel confusing or convoluted anymore.
I no longer begrudge its antagonists or condemn its flawed characters.
I no longer feel as though its winding labyrinth is something I can get lost in.
So I guess...
SHOULD YOU WATCH THIS BIG, HORRIBLE THING KNOWN AS MONOGATARI?
Here I sit, many years after beginning the epic franchise, and I am aware, even now, that though I may not often reminisce upon the passion this winding saga once drew from me, that is merely because I have channeled that passion into other places. But, more importantly, the reason I have become the person I am today (aka a functioning, employed, yet dreaming and ambitious member of society) is in part thanks to this series. Is that enough for you? It depends on who you are, and who you want to be.
Are you imperfect?
Do you want to better?
Are you humble enough to put a little bit of faith into one of those trashy anime things?
Monogatari is a mess, but it also genuinely cares about you. If you want to condemn it, it's easy. It's got a bunch of issues. That's why I'm not even discussing all that animation/plot/sound nonsense. We're past that. As sappy as it sounds, if you open your heart to it it will open its heart to you. It will challenge you and laugh with you and care with you. It will pull out your passion and give it to you to hold. "Do with this what you wish" it will say, expecting no loyalty in return. And, as its final gift, it will bring you to the finale with a knowing smile on your face, knowing that you care about all these lovable idiot characters, but most of all that you care about yourself.
Or maybe it wont. Maybe you'll just think it's dumb.
Only one way to find out.
