Every year hundreds of anime are produced and because most of these products are alike, I am always happy to discover something that has a unique approach or style to tell its story. Bakemonogatari is a Harem anime but it almost feels like a degredation to call it that. It is about Koyomi Arararagi who accidentally discovers that his class mate Senjoughara weighs almost nothing. Even though she threatens him, he keeps insisting to help her. Throughout the story he constantly encounters different types of supernatural creatures and with the help of his friend Meme, his aim becomes to help the people who are suffering from these cases.

The animation is just superb. The clean look of the show, its color compositions and shots just match perfectly. If you do not like shows with much dialogue, you might not be as impressed by the anime as me. An essential part of Bakemonogatari is its dialogue. The conversations mainly consist of word plays caused by the ambiguity several japanese signs imply. As I am a big fan of language and the ability to play with it, I think it is a pity that I cannot follow the dialogue in its first language to get the full enjoyment out of it but even in English or German, you are able to understand what it is about and definitely still enjoy the witty conversations of the characters. Characters. That is the key word. All of them are caught up in an emotional back story and even though, as mentioned before, the majority of the time the show does focus more on the atmosphere rather than on action and excitement, because of the constant change of colours, angles and conversations, I never got bored. Most of the time, Bakemonogatari is like reading poetry, I get so much out of just watching what it does both animation and story wise. Many people are complaning about the show’s fan service and although in most shows I find fanservice ridiculous and annoying, it did not bother me in this show as it is used to emphasize certain traits of a particular character. As this is a spoiler free review I do not want to go too much into detail but I might write an analysis on fan service – in which cases it makes sense for character development and in which it is just to appeal to the audience’s sexual desires.

Even though it did not become one of my absolute favorites, I did really enjoy watching Bakemonogatari and look forward to watch the continuing parts of the Monogatari series. The show’s visuals and the way it tells its story were a different kind of experience I wish to see more of.