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dadooobap

  • Joined Dec 25, 2013
  • 29 / M

Nisemonogatari

Feb 26, 2014

Since in my opinion some of the other reviews are just a tad too positive, here is my two cents:

I did like Bakemonogatari (the prequel which you HAVE TO watch first if you're even considering watching this) quite a bit, since it finds itself pretty close to my favourite spot (which I call "interesting") between nonsense and something along the lines of "serious" content. As often with sequels for whatever reason (maybe the need to "evolve") the creators now get to pick one. Little did you know, the decision was that nonsense is the way to go. I know that's not how it works: the light novels, which I admit not to have read, dictate most of the content. However, this kind of anime is all about presentation and if Nisemonogatari can be considered "close to the book" I will for the first time in my life judge a novel without having read 40 pages of it (in that case the book would have to be worse than anything I've ever read). Don't get me wrong, the series can be (as it apparently has been) considered decent on its own terms, I just really wish it wasn't the sequel to Bakemonogatari.

Most other reviewers liked Nisemonogatari at least more than I did, so before claiming you won't let me start by explaining why exactly I liked Bakemonogatari. The animation is not only really good but has some original ideas (one of them being stealing styles from other anime and combining them, which works remarkably well). That way the artwork manages to be interesting without "trying to be avant-garde" becoming an end in itself, which is a difficult balance to achieve. Bakemonogatari had good and interesting music, huge amounts of decent puns, snippets of text being thrown at you in different scripts... Also huge amounts of dialogue mostly intended to sound sophisticated, which it mostly isn't but hey: in my opinion all that created an interesting atmosphere. Bakemonogatari also had some content: In my opinion the supernatural stories were among the more interesting and I found the relationship between Araragi and Senjogahara had lots of potential for interesting developments.

With Nisemonogatari the animation and sound are still pretty good. Some argue animation is better, the soundtrack is if not worse at least less interesting. What happens to style, structure, content, things like character development? The last one is easiest: Senjogahara is basically gone in Nisemonogatari and the relationship does neither develop (as usual in sequels) nor exist for that matter. I would go as far as to say that Nisemonogatari is entirely devoid of character development while giving them credit for at least trying to make it seem otherwise. The supernatural elements are mostly gone as well (by which I mean no more "solving supernatural problems"); Oshino (the only adult who I didn't like too much, but he made for content) is gone. All in all: if you happen to like Nisemonogatari, it won't be because of the story. That takes care of content and structure: both removed. What happened to the style is probably most difficult to answer. Nisemonogatari sometimes has a similar feel to it, some new ideas too, all in all I found that very difficult to appreciate though.

So what does that leave us with? I didn't really think of Bakemonogatari an "Ecchi-show" and didn't like the couple of moments when it was trying to be. Nisemonogatari has roughly the same amount of "explicit" content, which is basically none, but is a different matter entirely. With most content gone what's left seems to be those moments of masochism, paedophilia and the main character fondling his sisters that were scarce enaugh to forgive Bakemonogatari and that I can't forgive Nisemonogatari, since there is little else of significance. On the other hand if you like that sort of stuff go for it.

I hope the points I mentioned are enaugh for you to make up your own mind. I watched all of it but didn't really enjoy the experience. Others did. If you liked Bakemonogatari this very well might be worth your time, just don't expect too much.

?/10 story
?/10 animation
?/10 sound
?/10 characters
5/10 overall

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