Bakemonogatari DVD Review

Director: Tatsuya Oishi,

Starring: Hiroshi Kamiya, Chiwa Saito, Emiri Kato, Eri Kitamura, Kana Hanazawa, Miyuki Sawashiro, Takahiro Sakurai, Yui Horie

Running Time: 192 minutes

Certificate: 15

Koyomi (Kamiya) is your average high school student…apart from the fact that he used to be a vampire. Having been cured of his supernatural affliction, he is attempting to live a normal life, even though he has kept some of his more useful gifts such as healing quickly. His world is soon turned upside down when he discovers the otherworldly abilities of stationary armed classmate Hitagi (Saito). After some antagonism, Koyomi offers to help Hitagi with her darker side. After which, Koyomi becomes the target of other paranormally powered females looking for help.

BAKEMONOGATARI manages to mix both the supernatural school set anime tropes along with the harem clichés of women swarming over a single male character. But this is far from the misogynistic and repetitive formula many viewers will be familiar with, and the reason for this is that the characters talk. And boy do they talk. The show isn’t too fussed with action or sexually charged slapstick, which are easy ways to engage an audience over the course of 20 minute episodes. Instead, the characters spend a lot of time sitting and talking about their lives, their hopes, and their beliefs. It’s a level of maturity which is often impressive, but can sometimes border on tedious.

Despite the lengthy dialogue sections, the show is brought to life by a mixture of artistic animation styles and inserts. Sometimes extreme close-ups become live action photographs. Other times, the animation will turn into simple pencil sketches. Unspoken thoughts are often slammed up on screen, although they flash by too quickly to read. Each of these styles attempts to punctuate the talk-heavy episodes to a varying degree of success. Sometimes the anticipation of their arrival keeps the viewer on their toes, while other times they can be needlessly distracting from the events happening on screen.

The show isn’t without humour, action, or violence, and when it does arrive it punches you in the face like a welcome but shocking fist of awesome. At the same time, the show can be a bit draining with the incessant speech. With so much talking, there are also a lot of static shots, which makes it feel as though you are gazing at a photograph or painting capable of noise. Luckily, each story-arc, which is broken up into 2-3 episodes, puts a different character at the forefront and so you’re never too far from a new story.

BAKEMONOGATARI’s uniqueness is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Some will find the more considerate tone and respect for characters a blessing, while others will be bored out of their minds. Given time and patience, it is sure to grow on the majority of viewers, as long as they choose the right time to sit down and get involved.

BAKEMONOGATARI is released on DVD on 17th June via MVM.

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