Bakemonogatari

Alternate Titles: Phantom Stories

Original Japanese Release Date: 2009

Episode Length/Run-time: 15

Summary:

One day Koyomi Araragi, a third year high school student, catches a girl falling down a flight of stairs.  In catching her he finds out she is light as a feather.  She threatens him, should he reveal her secret.  However, despite this he is oddly determined to help her.  Taking her to his friend who is knowledgeable in such areas he ends up becoming deeply connected with her and is roped into a number of supernatural and odd adventures.  But Araragi isn’t as normal as he seems either…

Review:

Bakemonogatari is story-arc driven.  The first one introducing the main characters and every preceding one introducing another.  However these other characters are fleeting, appearing really only once and then fading to being only mentioned.  The style of the anime: a lineless, minimalistic, brightly colored, highly symbolic style is fitting but at times seems a bit odd.

The problem with this anime is that it looses it’s momentum halfway through.  The later arcs become meaningless or just downright odd (specifically the snake one).   Ultimately an anime that started out as a supernatural fun house began to drag and dissolved into a love triangle.

[starrater]