Overview:
Bakemonogatari is generally hailed as a masterpiece for being bold, innovative, challenging, and overall an unforgettably unique experience. While all of these things are certainly true, it is only a partial truth. Those above listed traits would all describe Tatami Galaxy and Mushishi, but Bakemonogatari is QUITE different from those series. Tatami's philosophy, comedy, and characters can transcend the language boundary. This is also true for Mushishi with its amazing visuals and atmosphere. Bakemonogatari though, is a series in which full mastery of the Japanese language is an absolute necessity. It feels that roughly 90% of Bakemonogatari's value and 100% of it's enjoyment is based on clever prose and wordplay that doesn't translate outside of Japanese. There is a reason this series will NEVER be dubbed. I feel that Bakemonogatari lovers can be neatly divided into 2 categories: those fluent in Japanese and fucking liars!
Language and translation:
Have you ever wondered why novels have widespread appeal outside of their countries of origin and poetry typically doesn't? People aren't kidding when they say things get "lost in translation". Prose that is immensely intricate in its original form will often get butchered into something clunky and brutal. The English speaking world fell in love with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky through the translations of Constance Garnett, who is considered by some to have been a sub-par translator that eviscerated the original Russian. It didn't matter because the characters, themes, psychology, etc was able to shine through. Even if it kind of sounded crappy and had awkward sentences. The poetry of Alexander Pushkin though has never really found as much fanfare outside of Russia. While we can certainly appreciate his brilliant narrative poems like The Bronze Horseman and Evgeny Onegin, we non-Russian speakers can't seem to really understand his prose and just what makes it so "good" to Russian ears. Similarly, Bakemonogatari to a non-Japanese speaker like me has all the appeal of listening to Igbo or Yoruba poetry while nodding my head and pretending to understand because I want to be smart.
Plot and characters
A bland male character finds girls with supernatural problems and solves them. Lets be honest. You are NOT watching this for the plot. Would you watch a performance of Love's Labour's Lost for the plot? NO! You watch it for the prose! Or if you're being perfectly honest, you watch it because your girlfriend dragged you to the Shakespeare festival and you want to get laid. At least we all know Costard is awesome. Senjougahara is an obnoxious bitch. Yes, she is a self-aware, meta character that plays around with classic tsundere tropes. I get it. She's still an obnoxious bitch. "I'm like that magical dragon from that one anime. I can grant you any wish you want. I can wake you up naked or perhaps if you are a pervert you could give me an enema!" In the original Japanese this was undoubtedly a biting, crude, but clever comment because the Kanji for "enema" resembles the Hirigana for another word in that sentence. In English, you are just left scratching your head. She mentions that adding another "Ra" to Araragi makes it rather lewd, but once again I can't understand. She got some interesting character development in episode 2, but mostly I'm just frustrated by the characters and left in a state of total non-comprehension...like I am with most aspects of this show.
Art:
The art is very unique and the animation is top notch here form Studio Shaft. The series experiments with wild camera angles and often looks stunning...when it isn't straining your eyes. It also has a real habit of flashing to black and displaying random text before flashing back. Personally I found it (flash) "Tedious" (flash) "contrived" and (flash) "pretentious". Of course that's just me.
Overall:
I give Bakemonogatari a decent score based on its art and ambition. However, I am incapable of rendering a truly valid judgement because I don't speak Japanese. Imagine a native Telugu speaker with no knowledge of the German language. That person couldn't appropriately judge the poetry of Heinrich Heine. I find myself in the same position. I can't say this is a bad series. I can't say it's a good series. I don't feel I'm qualified to say much of anything in regards to its merit. I wrote this review for one simple purpose. Don't make the mistake that I did and go in expecting to love this series because its popular with the elite crowd. If you don't speak Japanese, avoid this one like the plague!
