Bakemonogatari (Ghost Story)
Japanese Title: Bakemonogatari
English Title: Ghost Story
Length: 15 episodes; 1 OAV (announced)
AniDB Listing: Link
AnimeNewsNetwork: Link
Production Studio: SHAFT
MEYDAY Rating: God-level
Sexual Rating: T for Teen
Violence Rating: T for Teen
Genre(s): Humor, action, slice-of-life
Setting(s): High school
Theme(s): Supernatural
Target Audience: Mixed-youth, Mixed-adult
Production Vintage: 2009
First Viewed Vintage: September 2009
Number of Rewatches: 0
Review:
Fun fact: Bakemonogatari was the series that inspired the term "god-level" in the first place.
What to say about a series I adore? The animation and art-styles are both gorgeous, the characters are unique and fun, the supernatural elements manage to ping my interest both in linguistics and Japanese mythology, and the resolutions to each story arc are, quite frankly, amazing. The only - only - thing that makes this my second favorite anime of all time instead of my absolute favorite of all time is the arc with Nadeko because frankly she creeps me out in a way I'm not sure the producers intended to creep out the audience.
This series was dinged by some when it first came out for the increasing volume of "unnumbered cuts" throughout, and I'm hoping the DVD release will have eliminated most, if not all, of them. They bothered me, but really my love of the series overwhelms any quarrel I have with SHAFT cutting corners in some places so as not to reduce the overall value of the animation they did get around to doing. Bakemonogatari is beautiful and has a few really incredible messages. Not at all a series to miss.
List of all series I've watched can be found here.