t any given time, the amount of anime culture that i consume is directly reflected by it’s presence in my dreams, and when I’m ‘in deep’ like I have been the past couple of weeks, then I’m bound to have some crazy-ass anime influenced dreams. Last time I was turning into one of the Strike Witches, which was a pretty cool dream, but I knew that this couldn’t last because 99% of the dreams that I have are nightmares. Sure enough, last night I had a nightmare wherein the Bakemonogatari girls tried to kill me.
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The moment that I realized that the anime I found most comparable to To Aru Majutsu no Index while watching it was Bakemonogatari, I knew that people were going to look at me funny if I told them that without explaining myself, and sure enough, they did. Therefore, I’m explaining myself. I’m going to do this in the form of a compare and contrast – I will take each key element of the storytelling in these shows and then prattle on about how each series is alike (or different) in that regard. Upon completing To Aru Majutsu no Index (post forthcoming) I noticed that this series contained one of my favorite plot elements, seen also in Bakemonogatari, Boogiepop, and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya – a trait no doubt attributed to a certain style of light novel which all of these series are based on. In each of these stories, there lurks a power far beyond human comprehension – a force that can and will destroy you.
These SHAFT show DVD/BD rankings are ridiculous! You always hear about how well Bakemonogatari sold, but it’s hard to get a real perspective on it until you see something like this. Another source provides the following data. Continue with Holy Shit, I Knew Bakemonogatari Sold Really Well But… As many have pointed out in the past, anime has a bad habit when it comes to starting shows off. An opening episode of anime tends to start off almost grindingly slow, reserving the hook until after the commercial break. Why this has become such common practice is beyond me – when I went to go look for anime with good opening scenes, I was surprised to find a nice little handful, but infinitely more surprised at just what a small percentage that handful was. When Bakemonogatari started, a lot of praise was given to the show’s spectacular background art, not so much because of the detail or style of the backgrounds, but because of the extensive lighting techniques. Some people have commented on the way that Bakemonogatari would not have been possible without modern technology, and many see it as a bridge into the future of what anime will look like. Of course, it being a SHAFT anime, most of the series doesn’t quite live up to the splendor of the first episode, but there’s something I feel the need to point out: I think there’s a good reason that this in particular was the show to use those new techniques on, and that reason was VOFAN. Bakemonogatari for me is like an old friend that you’ve known for as long as you can remember. It’s the kind of a friend whom you love and can hang out with at any time, but you do KNOW him. It’s not like the two of you have to sit there and talk about yourselves and get all interested in one another, and it’s not like a cute girl who you’re flirting with for the first time. In many ways, I may want to hang out with this friend more than anyone else. Sometimes, meeting new people and making new impressions is stressful and difficult, so it’s always good to have friends you can fall back on and know they’ll be good to you. A lot of the times, that’s what you do when you are rewatching a show you love, but for me, Bakemonogatari was that all along. |
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