02.06
I’ve never really gotten that into the harem subgenre of anime, since honestly, I’ve never been that interested in it. If anything, I thought it to be one of the least original genre out there. I mean, you’ve got you’re one male lead and he’s continually surrounded by no one else but females for no apparent reason. I mean at least with an action series or a thriller, there’s some kind of logic behind everything. For a harem series, just what could you possibly get other than what’s at face value?
Enter Bakemonogatari: Ghostory
Based off a light novel series of the same name (they tend to be doing a lot of these “light novel to anime” releases, nowadays, huh?) Bakemonogatari centers on completely normal “emo” high-schooler Araragi. Er, that is, “normal” until you find out he’s just recovering from a vampire attack a while back.
Now, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to stop right there. Let me first apologize for using the term “emo.” Yeah, I know it originated underground with music and it’s now been appropriated and bastardized into the term all wannabe-misunderstood twelve-year-olds use today, but I just can’t seem to find any other word appropriate enough to describe my first impressions of this guy. I mean, not only do we see little to no lively interaction between him and the other characters, but
… just lookit him! It’s looks like that that just scream for the term to be used, no matter how much I hate using it. Furthermore, it looks like we’re delving into the vampire sub-genre. Now, not to hate on the originals like Dracula (and I guess Count Chocula and Sesame Street’s Count, too) but whenever I go to the bookstore and look through the manga titles available, whenever I see anything related to vampires, it always ends up being some kind of bland-looking teen drama about some hyperactive female lead and some dark, “misunderstood” male lead. So, watching the first episode of this series only to come across these two things, I was surprised I didn’t stop watching right there.
Part of the reason why I actually continued through the series would have to be because for one, it’s the first episode. Also, (because “furthermore” just seemed a little predictable, I guess) Araragi mentions this random vampire attack like it was nothing more than a footnote in the corner of the screen. Sure, there are some references to him being bit later on, but they are never major enough to draw that much attention and don’t even relate to the plot (at least at the time being). From what I can tell, the only up-side to Araragi’s attack is the quick healing factor that came along with it, making things like injuries easy to deal with, serving as less than speed bumps (whatever that would be… a yield sign?) to the particular episode’s plot. Which reminds me…
Episodes are not exactly contained in a single 25 minute period, nor are they told over the course of the entire series. Rather, each story is contained in an arc, lasting around three or so episodes. Now what would these arcs be about, you asked to the rambling blogger? Well, that’s when the whole harem genre rears its ugly (okay, maybe somewhat attractive) head.
Each arc basically has Araragi encounter some attractive girl who happens to have some kind of “condition” in that they’re cursed or haunted—you know, supernatural kind of stuff that makes up the “ghost” portion of “Ghostory.” Again, I’ll admit this seems like the most superficial of things, but each girl does end up serving some kind of purpose other than well… looking good. And just how would our protagonist end up helping these fine-on-the-eye girls? Enter the second reason why I continue to keep up with the series.
To try and help each girl with their problem, Araragi doesn’t summon some kind of crazy-deus-ex-machina vampire powers to punch the demon out of them or smooth talk his way to their hearts only to kill them when they’re most vulnerable; What Araragi does to help each girl is to simply talk to them, which is something that is very much underappreciated in well made shows in general these days. Most episodes are made up of conversations about nothing in particular. Perhaps one second, the topic is story structure and the next is stuttering. This may not seem like all that big of a deal, but when it comes down to it, an anime can come up with some of the most bizarre things out there, but in the end it won’t matter at all unless the show makes me care to continue on and accept all this bull to begin with. That’s where Bakemonogatari shines.
What first comes off as one of the shallowest anime to date redeems itself with some of the most interesting lines of dialogue I’ve ever heard (er, I guess read via subtitles). Combine this with the ability to seamlessly incorporate character backstories as well as your occasional jab at similar (but really, not) anime out there and you’ve got quite the smart show on your hands.
But dialogue, as witty as it can get, can only go so far in the realm of television, where actions speak louder than words. The third reason why I continue with this series: imagery overload. For the sake of everyone’s sanity, Bakemonogatari doesn’t take on the “talking heads” approach when it comes to conversations. Rather, artsy little slideshows are had, depicting the conversation as it’s held. Now, doing this every time a character speaks would just be overkill (not to mention obnoxious), so the episodes take a 50/50 sort of approach, animating around half the episode normally and the other half like it was done by someone on deviantart. It makes for a nice change of pace, I guess.
As of this blog posting, Bakemonogatari is currently six episodes in, and while the story can be hard to get into from the first episode alone, I really recommend this series. It’s like watching pop art… but animated and with good writing, t’boot.
Originally posted on Saturday, August 15, 2009.