Review of Bakemonogatari (Manga)

Since I already covered every major Monogatari (anime) part, I figured I could do the same with the manga and make it my last review about the franchise. Comparisons will be made but nothing regarding major plot points, of which I already wrote about, so this review theoretically could work for newcomers as well, though it’s better to read those other reviews before, I think.

Although somewhat praised and still quite popular, the Monogatari manga seems to be seen as an inferior version within at least the western fanbase of the franchise. How do I think it fares as someone outside of it and that didn’t really enjoyed it?

The first big difference that fans aren’t pleased about is the visual style. Certainly, usually you can’t expect to match all the craziness of such an anime with a manga, and although Oh! Great is a good artist, he didn’t do much to fare with the wild directing of its anime counterpart. Not to say that he doesn’t do his own things, like drawing a character between two vignettes, making it seem like they are “jumping” off the manga on certain scenes, or drawing over black paper (I think, at least it looks like that to me) during some dark moments for a more shocking effect, or going for the typical comical gag of having just one character in a page that is otherwise full of dialogue, to mimic some moments from the anime and novel where, well, the characters talk a lot, but otherwise aren’t really saying much. This was done before on different titles, some even by the Monogatari author himself, like Medaka Box, and it’s present here as well.

But still, what Oh! Great goes for obviously can’t compete with the visuals of the anime. Not to say that his art style is bad though, he is still an overall good artist who keeps a permanently consistent artwork and very good special effects, and is usually very good at drawing fighting scenes, which are more prominent and violent here than in the anime counterpart, and he also keeps the same bizarre and dreamy feeling of the backgrounds, although nowhere near as much as the other version. He also does an accurate imitation of the art style of different manga whenever there is a reference, as it happens in the different animated series and movies of the franchise.

The worse aspects of his are his character designs, you can tell he is the artist right away if you ever read something from him, despite all the hairstyles, hair colours and clothes which he uses to make his characters stand out from the others, he tends to repeat faces a lot, and it happens here as well. Not to say that you won’t notice which character is who, but if you are a fan of the character designs of the anime, the difference might be quite big to accept.

Finally, the worst thing about this artist, is the fanservice. If you don’t know a thing about him, let me tell you the two biggest problems of his, he tends to overstuff and overcomplicate his plots and from a certain point take them very seriously despite his silly premises, and yet still fill them with loads and loads of naked minors. So, Monogatari seemed like a match made in heaven for him. There isn’t a single one of my Monogatari reviews where I didn’t bitch about the fanservice, and it is actually worse as a whole in here, more present, more prominent, more explicit, thrown in more inappropriate moments, but at least he keeps it away from the youngest characters for the most part, along with the pedophilic humor, which is something that the manga has in its favor compared with the anime.

As someone who doesn’t pay all that much attention to the visuals and doesn’t consider them as important as other people do, and finds liking or disliking something entirely because of that aspect to be incredibly fake and superficial, I didn’t mind all these changes much. In fact, I preferred the visuals of the manga, as I was never a fan of the antics of the anime, I like the more straightforward but still quite artistic presentation of the manga a lot more, and I especially like not having to pause every few moments to try to read a wall of text representing the inner monologue of a character, taken from the light novel. But I also really wish it toned down the fucking lewdness. As a whole, despite my personal preference, the artsy visuals of the anime franchise are still better than what’s present in here, but I want to make it clear that the visual presentation of the manga is overall still very good, besides all that fucking excessive nudity.

Now we can finally move to what really matters, plot and characters. And if you are a newcomer that doesn’t know the first thing about this franchise, is a harem located in a weird city where supernatural things happen and supernatural creatures and deities appear, mostly at night, having a direct effect on the mentality, and even the looks, of the characters, and the plot structure, much like almost every other harem in existence, has the protagonist helping his potential love or lust interests with their problems and making them fall in love with him for his kindness and stuff, like in a dating sim videogame, that much didn’t change, the premise stays the same.

What Oh! Great changed, is making the overall plot far simpler and more straightforward than the anime counterpart, which is rare for him, as he, like I previously said, tends to overstuff and overcomplicate the plots of his works. I don’t know why this was done this way, but that’s how it is.

The overall basics and important plot points are still there, but several relevant details are modified or even skipped, the reasons for things within the setting are explained differently or even skipped, secondary characters have a much minor role and exploration here, and even entire arcs, both of the plot and the supporting cast, are nowhere to be found, heck, a big part of that secondary cast doesn’t even appear, as the manga focuses almost entirely on Kiyomi Araragi, Tsubasa Hanekawa, Hitagi Senjougahara and Kiss Shot Acerola Orion Heart Under Blade. This way the plot is faster and far more focused, but also loses a lot of the layers, scope and mysterious vibes that played a big part on drawing such a huge fanbase in the first place.

As someone who didn’t like all the pointless talking and slow pacing of the franchise as a whole, I much preferred this far more straightforward version, but it is understandable for the fans of it not to like it as much, as part of what they found appealing in the first place is now either gone or heavily modified.

In specific, Bakemonogatari (arc/volume/part, however you want to call it) is kept practically the same, as a buildup of a season for what’s to come in the future. It has the same ups and downs of the anime, fleshing out every girl but at the cost of not moving the plot. Since this is a manga, one can read it at their own pace, and since it doesn’t have all those inner monologues from the light novels thrown in as walls of text for split seconds like the anime, it is a much easier and more pleasing and tolerable experience than the endless, and a lot of the time pointless, talking of the anime, but that still doesn’t change the fact that most of the arc is still lots of pointless talking that doesn’t let the plot move in the end. There is a reward for toughing through that in the anime franchise, but since most of the secondary girls don’t have their own arcs here, it is all not only pointless, but it also doesn’t lead to something worthwhile in the end, making it an overall inferior version of its anime counterpart in retrospect.

A good thing of this version, however, is how it completely skips the absolutely pointless, useless and disgusting part that was Nisemonogatari. Sure, it presents characters that are relevant in the future, but since they do not appear here, erasing it from the continuity, along with all of its crappiness, was a really good thing.

Instead, the manga goes directly into flashback territory, as it adapts Kizumonogatari, the only part/arc/whatever I enjoyed in the whole franchise, and that’s actually thanks to this version, which I consumed before I watched the anime movie trilogy. Skipping Nisemonogatari but adapting this one makes it perfectly clear that the overall manga focuses on the characters I mentioned earlier, as this arc shows how they got to know each other and form their relationships, as well as how the protagonist got his super powers and got himself into a big mess of an enmity between different super powerful supernatural entities, along with all the cool action that comes along with it.

Compared with the anime, it’s equally or slightly more brutal and explicit about it, but not gruesome or exploitive. The ecchi aspect of it is, again, worse, and somehow even more stupid, perhaps you have seen an infamous memed panel of Araragi walking into the mountains that are the boobs of Hanekawa, yup, stuff like that is present throughout this arc. Another issue, which wasn’t on the previous arc, is how sometimes the author throws very silly comedy between the serious moments, something that doesn’t happen in the other adaptation, even though it does in the, surely coincidentally, worst seasons of the anime.

What’s better in the manga, however, is being more psychological, as it has all the main characters introspecting about their pasts, how they show themselves to others and interact with them, and their flaws, thus being closer to the other parts in that regard, something that was missing from the anime. And also, the exposition is far better in this arc, as it has a flashbackception where Kiss Shot not only tells her past, but also the mangaka chooses to actually show that, instead of having characters just talking about it, as it happens in the anime.

Anyways, just like the movies, this is an arc that explains and actually shows why the characters are the way they are, instead of just being extreme versions of common anime, and harem, stereotypes, and fleshes out each of them while setting up events and character dynamics to come, along with cool and brutal action, thus it’s fine even though at the end of the day it’s still an arc without real stakes because the protagonists are practically immortal and far stronger than their enemies.

After that, the manga follows with a heavily modified version of Nekomonogatari and Second Season, focusing itself entirely on Hanekawa, Araragi and Kiss Shot, showing how the first got to put up an image of a perfect know it all harem girl because of all her familial troubles, in an even darker, as in, more messed up and brutal way than the anime, with some of the darkest scenes and visual metaphors in the manga. Unfortunately that also means that it needlessly takes it to the extreme at times, in a far more violent fashion than needed, as this manga is far gorier and action oriented than its anime counterpart.

Like I said, Second Season is heavily modified, as Araragi basically rejects every secondary, not fleshed out girl and rushes to…well, where the plot needs him, you know if you consumed any of the other two versions. While that is happening, Hanekawa is fighting and accepting her dark and true self, both mentally, and literally, since, as I said, this version is far more action oriented and at times needlessly gory, and don’t forget the fanservice and poorly mixed comedy, there is a lot of that as well. The messages are perhaps delivered more directly than in the anime, and some details are changed (Tsubasa never goes to the Araragis’ house here, is Hitagi’s father the one that tells her to stop running from her problems instead), but as a whole it was a good alternative version of both Neko Kuro and Shiro/Tsubasa Tiger.

Unlike the anime, which would run an entire arc in its entirety before showing what was happening at the same time, here both the aforementioned arc and the second one from Owarimonogatari are shown simultaneously, the manga goes back and forth between Hanekawa and Araragi, and what he was doing regarding Kiss Shot and the other vampire, in a more comical but still very similar fashion, and since over here neither Izuko nor Yozuru are present, Koyomi is the one that makes the deal, thanks to being influenced by Meme, which was a cool detail honestly.

Anyways, this part of the arc shows the beginning of how the setting came to be, everything basically being the result of a tragic, kind of unrequited or perhaps forgotten love, as it was in the anime, and kind of cheesy as a whole, but good in making the characters face their pasts and move on from them. Things are not as well explained nor in a satisfactory way as in the anime, but it was still fine, except for the part where the main antagonist of the arc turns out to be the main antagonist of the whole thing, of which I have a mixed opinion about, him being a proactive antagonist instead of a semi tragic figure that couldn’t do anything to prevent his actions was a nice detail, but it came with the cost of taking away proactivity from other characters, such as Tsubasa, and that’s a bit of a shame.

Still, the connection between the two arcs and the split presentation of the narrative, as well as the messages and themes explored through it make it a decent double arc, with some major changes in its favor, but it is still not as good as the anime version, except for the aspect of being faster and not having all the silly comedy from the beginning.

After that is over and practically the whole plot covered, the manga moves on to the date of the last arc of Bakemonogatari, skipping Hanamonogatari, Tsukimonogatari, and thank fuck also the disgraces of Koyomimonogatari and Zoku Owarimonogatari. As I said, as an alternative version it can weird out longtime fans. There isn’t much to say about this final part, it’s there to give Senjougahara some spotlight which she didn’t have for a good while, and also to give a needed closure for both the characters and the romantic aspect of the plot, as well as the story as a whole. The one off chapters about each secondary girl were a mixed result for me, the ones about Hanekawa, Shinobu and Kanbaru were fine as a closure for the characters, the ones about Hachikuji, the Araragi sisters and Sengoku were disgusting, a failed attempt to rush through the most famous or infamous parts of their anime arcs, and they don’t even address important plot points even when they are mentioned, it would have been better to skip them entirely like the manga was doing before instead, this way the it feels like the manga was initially going to be longer but had to be rushed and compressed for some reason.

My final opinion about the manga is that it’s more casual friendly, as a tighter, faster, simpler and easier to follow version, without all the weird antics in the visuals and directing of the anime, reasons why I preferred it over the other alternative. Despite my personal enjoyment, and the aspects which I found better done here, I also have to admit that Bakemonogatari, as a single arc or season or whatever, was done poorly in retrospect, exactly because it took away the later importance of almost everything that happens in it, as it also happened with several details in world building and characterization for the supporting cast. Fine as an alternative version mostly for newcomers, as long as they can stand big amounts of fanservice, but most likely a disappointment for longtime fans. Inferior than the anime, but still ok as a whole.


6/10