A surreal journey through trauma, humor, and the unconventional genius of Shaft.
You’ve probably heard Bakemonogatari at some point, whether you meant to or not. If you grew up during a time when animated films had eyes that were so big they looked like they could swallow your soul, or at least your half-eaten tuna sandwich. This series, which was made by Nisio Isin and animated by Shaft, isn’t your standard anime binge. It’s a maze of thoughts, feelings, and philosophical puzzles that look like a supernatural high school play.
Shaft is known for breaking animation rules. They made Madoka Magica and March Comes in Like a Lion. They really said, “Forget the rules, let’s make new ones,” at Bakemonogatari. The show, which premiered in 2009 and was directed by Akiyuki Shinbō, changed the way anime was perceived by combining harsh dialogue with sudden cuts, strange visuals, and a storytelling style that demanded your attention rather than begging for it.
At its heart, Bakemonogatari is about Koyomi Araragi, a high school student who escaped an attack by vampires and is now drawn to girls who are being hurt by “oddities,” supernatural beings that feed on emotional and mental wounds. What starts as a series of strange events quickly becomes a deep look at trauma, connection, and human identity.
Bakemonogatari isn’t just an anime you watch; it’s an experience you live through and come out of thinking differently about yourself.
There are different storylines in Bakemonogatari, each about a different girl troubled by a different “oddity.” Hitagi Senjougahara is a girl whose stress makes her feel like she has no weight. Mayoi Hachikuji is a spirit who is lost and can’t find her way. Suruga Kanbaru is cursed with a monkey’s paw that makes her wishes come true, but it costs her a lot.
And Nadeko Sengoku was stuck because of her own restraint and obsession. And Tsubasa Hanekawa, whose beauty hides an unbearable weight that makes her give birth to a cat demon. The clever thing about Bakemonogatari is that its monsters are never really bad guys; they’re just figures of speech.
Every “oddity” stands for something very human: shame, guilt, love, fear, and the ways we try (and fail) to understand ourselves. Araragi and his mentor, Oshino Meme, don’t use magic or fists to fight these creatures. Instead, they use understanding, conversation, and painful self-awareness to defeat them.
The way the story is told in the show is also very different from the norm. A lot of the time, entire episodes unfold in one place, with people talking for minutes on end, but that “talk” is used as a weapon, a shield, or an admission. In Bakemonogatari, the speech has such a clear rhythm that it sounds like jazz: it’s quick, unexpected, and full of meaning between the lines.
Shaft adds to this with flashes of text, abstract images, and sudden shifts in viewpoint that draw people in. Words flash too quickly to read some of the time. This is done on purpose to make you realize that not all thoughts can be understood right away.
Every talk in Bakemonogatari feels like a battle with words that are sharper than any blade.
It’s hard for Araragi to be a hero because he wants to help other people, but can’t always do it himself. His friendship with Senjougahara is one of the most real and engaging in anime. It wasn’t built on an imagined romance, but on trust and openness between both people. Senjougahara is both scary and incredibly human, thanks to her razor-sharp wit and emotional armor. When she lets go of it, the pain that comes after is twice as intense.
Each supporting character adds a different kind of emotional chaos to the story. Hanekawa’s quiet pain breaks my heart; Hachikuji’s constant wandering hides a deep sense of loneliness; Kanbaru’s obsession and shame make her so scary to relate to. Even the mysterious Shinobu Oshino, who used to be a scary vampire but is now just a kid who loves doughnuts, shows how quickly power and identity can be lost.
The speech itself tells a story and shows what’s going on inside the characters’ minds. Every pause, pun, and sidetrack is a psychic haystack. You have to find your feelings; the show doesn’t give them to you. Behind the clever wordplay and strange images, Bakemonogatari is a way to look at yourself.
Words don’t just show the truth in Bakemonogatari; they become the truth.
Each story arc stands on its own, but the series as a whole shows a steady rise in feeling. As Araragi meets and helps each girl, he has to deal with his own moral problems, such as his need to save everyone and his guilt over unfulfilled desires. You understand that Bakemonogatari isn’t about solving other people’s problems by the end; it’s about learning what it costs to care about others.
For people who have never watched anime, the episodes often feel more like philosophical plays than typical animation. But the payoff is huge for those who stick with it. As the dialogue builds, there are raw emotional moments that hit harder because they are earned through reflection rather than showmanship.
The way Shaft puts together scenes, which are both silly and intentional, adds to this emotional beat. Eyes stay on things for too long, camera angles tilt, colors shift from pastel to bright, and backgrounds flatten into geometric shapes. These are all visual clues that reveal how upset people are on the inside.
The plot of Bakemonogatari moves at the speed of thought, not the other way around.
You can’t talk about Bakemonogatari without gushing over its beauty. The way Shaft draws makes minimalism into maximalism, with empty spaces that feel full and still frames that feel alive. The use of color is symbolic and psychological. For example, warm reds are used to show stress, cold blues to show distance, and stark whites to show loneliness.
Character movement is sometimes still, but it gets really intense at important emotional moments. The framing is often off, with characters half off-screen and dialogue delivered from strange angles. But that’s all part of the magic of making you feel disoriented. Each shot looks like a picture that’s meant to make you think, not just move the story along.
The writing screens that flash between scenes are also works of art. They add subconscious commentary to talks, turning Nisio Isin’s dense writing into pure visual rhythm. It’s like the show is telling you that words and thoughts are also characters.
Another great thing about Bakemonogatari is the sound design. Satoru Kōsaki’s music is very different. It includes creepy piano notes, lighthearted jazz riffs, and simple rhythms that support the show’s mood shifts. Senjougahara’s opening theme is icy control, Hachikuji’s is playful chaos, Kanbaru’s is manic energy, and so on. Each heroine’s story arc has its own opening theme that fits her personality perfectly.
The skill of voice acting is top-notch. Araragi, played by Hiroshi Kamiya, delivers monologues with a nervous truthfulness that gives the show’s surrealism a grounding. Every word that Chiwa Saitō says as Senjougahara hits like a blade. Her performance is sharp, seductive, and emotionally surgical. Even Shinobu’s silence sounds like something else, like an eerie echo of who she used to be.
Sound is not only used to enhance the experience, but also to tell a story. A lot of the time, the silence between lines says louder than the words, building tension or intimacy in a way that no background music could.
The music in Bakemonogatari doesn’t go with the story; it just listens to it.
It seems too narrow to call Bakemonogatari a cartoon. It’s more like an experimental piece of art that’s trying to look like a magical harem comedy. There is a truly human story about communication, empathy, and the burdens we carry beneath the structure that is heavy on dialogue and on how it is presented.
Many people will find it arrogant and hard to understand, but that’s precisely what makes it so appealing. It doesn’t make its ideas easy for people to understand; it trusts them enough to let them figure out what they mean. Every time you watch it again, you find new levels, metaphors, and emotional truths tucked away in the jokes and monologues.
In the end, Bakemonogatari finds a balance between silliness and sincerity, between thinking and feeling. It makes us remember that the monsters we face aren’t always supernatural; sometimes they’re just our own shadows, speaking in the dark.
