Bakemonogatari
Number of episodes: 15
Production Studio: SHAFT
Fansub Release Viewed: Anon
Likelihood of US Release: Medium
Koyomi Araragi is a third-year high-school student who briefly became a vampire. One day a girl falls into his arms who weighs almost nothing.
Episode Summary
While walking up the huge spiral staircase at his school, Koyomi Araragi manages to catch a falling girl. He’s surprised to find out that she weighs next to nothing in his arms. While staying after class to work out details for the school festival with class chairperson Hanekawa, he asks her what she knows about Hitagi Senjougahara, the girl who he rescued. During middle school she was popular as the star of the track team, but in high school she became something of a loner, though her mysterious beauty grew. Araragi leaves the classroom only to be confronted and threatened by Senjougahara at knife point, and told by her that her weight was stolen by a crab, and that she weighs only half a kilogram. She tells him to ignore her from now on or face the consequences, but he can’t help but give chase and is nearly attacked with her array of classroom weapons when he finds her again.
Luckily, Araragi seems to know someone who might be able to help Senjougahara with her weight problem. He takes her to an almost-abandoned building where a man named Meme Oshino lives. Oshino helped Araragi regain his humanity after he had become a vampire, and Araragi hopes that he can somehow also aid Senjougahara. Oshino takes a look at her and diagnoses her as having come into contact with a “weight crab,” a specific type of god. Whether he can truly help her or not remains to be seen.
Thoughts
I’m extremely conflicted about this show. Simply put, I think the concept has potential, and the directing by Akiyuki Shinbo (of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and various other Shaft productions) is flashy, unpredictable and often visually arresting. However, I can’t really tell what sort of tone the show is aiming for quite yet, and certain storytelling choices so far have caused me a lot of irritation.
I’ll get this out of the way first: much of my vexation has been caused by a completely incongruous and unnecessary panty shot which opens the show. As the wind picks up, the camera does a slow-motion swoop towards the character Hanekawa, providing a detailed closeup of her lacy underthings. The intent of this scene may have been to demonstrate Araragi’s heightened senses, a throwback to his time as a vampire, but the secondary result, as is the case with many instances of this type of fanservice, is that it undermines the character herself. There are any number of ways the sensitivity of his vision could have been demonstrated. Forgive me for getting up on a soapbox here; I don’t think this is always a conscious decision on the part of the production staff, but to have a character who is otherwise smart and respectable inadvertently display her underwear to the main character ultimately puts her in a compromising position, even though it might be subconsciously in the mind of the viewer. Simply put, I think this sort of thing is lazy and crude, and no matter how many rude comments I get decrying my opposition to this sort of thing, it won’t change my mind.
In spite of that, the rest of the show is truly a visual treat. The gorgeous sunset color scheme that permeates the majority of the episode is extremely atmospheric, casting strange elongated shadows and adding fiery glow to the various settings. Some of the areas around the school in which much of the episode takes place remind me of Revolutionary Girl Utena, especially the spiral staircase where Araragi rescues Senjougahara. The odd camera angles, framing techniques, and inter-titles, all Shinbo trademarks, add some visual interest to a show that doesn’t otherwise feature a lot of action. When there is character animation, it’s very fluid and detailed. In spite of my misgivings, I have to give props to the animators for both the opening scene and the scene of Senjougahara falling, since they’re both fully-animated slow-motion scenes, something that is usually a rarity in the world of Japanese limited animation. I might be a pessimist in saying this, but I doubt the show can maintain the visual quality in episodes to come. Hopefully I will be proven wrong.
The dialog contains some amusing otaku in-jokes, including a short commentary on moe anime by Senjougahara, labeling herself a “tsundere” character. I’m not shy in my dislike for moe as a trend, but it’s difficult to fault a series for having such humorous self-awareness, in spite of the fact that such content might itself cause me to dislike the show down the road.
My final thought is that I’m afraid that this series might not be as creepy as I had hoped. I’m always on the lookout for more truly scary or grotesque ghost-story style anime, and I feel like the flashy visual style and the touches of humor might actually serve to undermine that in this case. Even so, if you are a fan of Shinbo’s directorial work, or you’re in the mood for some unique visuals, the first episode of Bakemonogatari is worth a watch.
Pros
- Visually stunning, from the background art to the use of lighting to the character animation
- Some amusing, very meta dialog
Cons
- Incongruous, unnecessary panty shot, especially considering there is no other content of the sort throughout the rest of the episode
