The story of Bakemonogatari may at first seem confusing with the odd events of the show's beginning. Soon, however, the plot's structure comes clear enough as new characters (all female) are introduced, with each of them having their own arc consisting of a few episodes at a time. Amidst the weirdness of Bakemonogatari's characters, artwork and animation, a simple storyline like that is a welcome asset. Of course, on the occasion you're not one to enjoy a storyline based on a few episode-arcs, it'll be exactly the other way around for you.
Despite each story arc concentrating on a new character each time, the story of our main couple, Araragi and Senjougahara, flows along nicely as well. The relationship between the two is somewhat the core of the entire show, with the story-arcs functioning either as a means to deepen their chemistry as they go about solving the encountered mysteries together, introduce new characters, or bring more depth to our main hero, Araragi. This I have no qualms of, for I quite like the way a clearly harem-esque series has the most prominent love interest set in stone instead of the guy tinkering on edge until the very end about who it is that he loves.
Be not completely turned off yet, all you who despise everything which has the word "harem" attached to it, for even though I dubbed Monstory as "a clearly harem-esque series", this show isn't an average one in that category in the least. Yes, it's yet again a series where a single guy is surrounded by attractive females (sans the loli character), and yes, all of them are expressing more or less of an interest in him. But they're not brainlessly-unconditionally-helplessly or otherwise idiotically in love in him, nope. In fact some, if not most of them are having open and cheeky banters with him _AND_, unlike in most of your typical harems, the guy isn't actually an utter retard with no redeeming qualities.
This brings us to what I believe is commonly praised as Bakemonogatari's greatest strength, which namely is the wonderfully wicked and excellent character chemistry. As I stated before the characters actually have more intricate interaction between them than your usual scenario of a bunch of chicks loving on an idiot with an attraction level somewhere around -9000. The verbal battles between Araragi and co. (and especially with Senjougahara) are indeed the shows most prominent and refreshing aspect.
But whereas "a bunch of chicks loving on an idiot" can be seen as one frustrating extreme of character interaction, at times I felt as though Bakemonogatari presented a polar opposite no less frustrating. All too often it seemed like the heavy dialogue was there just to accentuate the girls' excellency over Araragi as the poor fellow always appeared to get the short end of the stick in their interactions. A feature meant to be humorous for sure, and I do remember smiling at times, but I certainly wasn't as entertained as I guessed I should've been.
Another fracture burdening on the show's enjoyability is the usage of still-images with text which I suppose were there to support the story. I can't remember if there was a single episode where there wouldn't have been a series of stills flashing on the screen so fast it was impossible to read the sentences on them without stopping your media player to read them. You can guess if I myself cared much for doing so. A hint: I didn't. Surely I didn't miss anything of importance when I opted to roll my eyes in annoyance instead of stopping to read each time when a still featuring either a sentence or a meaningless word like "red" or "black" appeared on the screen, but it certainly didn't add to my viewing pleasure either.
That's about it from me this time, really. Other factors you'd usually pay attention to while watching, like the music and art, fell into the vast category of "alright". The theme songs let alone the rest of the soundtrack left no impression on me whatsoever, and just like everybody else, I did notice the artstyle in this show was a bit funny at times. Surely nothing which folks familiar with Gankutsuou, Zetsubou-sensei, and SHAFT in general can't handle. Characterization, relationships, and intriguing story are the plusses, somewhat questionable humour and stupid stills the minuses. Sounds like yer cup of tea? Then drink up. It doesn't? Then go look for another one - but not before sampling this.
