The story composed of arcs in which Araragi, a former vampire who still has some paranormal qualities, meets 5 different girls with “oddities” and tries to help them. He starts a romantic relationship with the first girl Senjougahara, so the development of their relationship is another factor that is explored beside the origin of the characters’ apparitions.
The arcs felt a bit disconnected from each other, which isn’t very severe to me. With the exception of the forth arc centering on Nadeko Sengoku. It felt completely isolated from the other arcs, Senjougahara wasn’t present at all and the girl of it was less present in the following episodes than the others. It would have been better to leave her story out and focus more on Araragi and Senjougahara’s relationship!
Art:
The animation quality is amazing with fluent and detailed movements, pictures and computer animations. The style is innovative with script and real life elements woven into the classical anime look. While watching the first episode this is really annoying and bewildering at certain points, but it becomes less frequent in the following episodes and you get used to the fact you just won’t be able to read everything and that’s not really important for the story anyway.
After half of the series I noticed the picture focused on details of the characters’ physical or historical surroundings and switched between different POVs more often in scenes with causal dialogs. You can imagine it like this: While talking to someone your gaze shifts from part to part of your setting, you process what’s being said, and suddenly more or less incoherent thoughts pop up in your mind. Since the story is told from Araragi’s POV you can view those images as his thoughts.
In critical conversations though, like Oshino digging deep into the characters’ subconsciousness, screen changes are less frequent. One possible explanation for this: To keep the audience from becoming bored in less important scenes… Casual banter b/t characters is nice and good but this much dialog would become very tiring very fast without some visual imput to accompany it. Another reason I could think of was the question of high cost if the producers tried to keep the animation quality permanently high. But because of the huge effort I am not really sure, if this is likely…
Character:
One thing they seem to have in common: A difficult family background (whether due death or divorce). They attract and develop paranormal phenomena while struggling with their pain, guilt, sadness etc. To me this is comparable with psychosomatic illnesses that just can be cured if they deal with their problems.
Senjougahara and Araragi both aren’t very social or normal, which makes it difficult to identify with them. But that’s a “problem” I experienced with all characters. There isn’t enough built-up where we slowly get to know each of them before the big, unconscious bomb is dropped. At first you see the front each one has created to be able to keep on and you can already sense: This is just the surface. And then we immediately get a glimpse inside the minds of those very complicated characters and the extreme emotions they go through, which is very interesting but overwhelming at the same time. This left me detached from all of them. With the exception of Hanekawa who is present form episode one and the last girl whose problems surface and are to be dealt with. This gives enough time to get to know her and her problem is the one you can best relate to.
Almost every character display cruel and sadistic streaks, especially Senjougahara acts very cold and apathetic most of the time. The characters’ tendency to resort to violence in situations they are unable to handle is very disturbing. This ranges from biting and punching to attacking people with staplers and trying to kill them. Out of nowhere you can see blood splashing and broken bones. In my opinion this wouldn’t have been necessary at all. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against display of violence in media but in this case it seems wrong as part of a story that focuses mostly on the complexity of the human mind. This anime isn’t action based, it reflects human emotions and relationships. Sure, the attacks the oddities commit are a reflection of deep, buried feelings that everything would be better if a certain person was not there, but the display feels out of place.
While Senjougahara is cold and mostly ignorant of other feelings and has great fun out of bashing and belittling Araragi, he is always out there to help people. I got the feeling he spent his time helping others as a distraction from his own problems. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, he does some good deeds after all, but it is a pity he doesn’t try to solve his family issues/problems. Senjougahara isn’t a bad person either. Despite her sometimes very rude and borderline cruel behavior. She clammed up after a traumatic experience and has to learn to feel again.
Summarized: The main characters are both very interesting and a good match for each other. It is a pity though other characters except for Hanekawa aren’t explored more deeply.
Enjoyment:
It was a nice watch, but sometimes very tiring with this much dialog at such a fast pace. Furthermore you miss a lot of wordplay and enjoyment of recognizing references if you are not on top of the Japanese language, culture and media. Which I am not…
The innovative art could be a problem for the audience. I liked it as soon as I got used to it even though it reminded me of abstract art (which I am nor very fond of) at some points.
The strong point of this anime: The characters. I stayed very distant from them emotionally most of the time which made is possible to focus on the psychological exploration like an observant student. So I don’t regard this as a negative point at all.
So the characters and art and their interplay are the factors that make this worth your time. If you can’t appreciate both you probably won’t watch this to the end and enjoy the journey much.
