Bakemonogatari / First Impressions / Monogatari Series

OP Sequence

ED: 「staple stable」 by 斎藤千和 (Saitou Chiwa)
Watch the OP! Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

This is a pretty good song accompanied with some cute stapler animation, and what got my attention and made me laugh was the shots of staplers having sex (see the video below starting around the 50 second mark).

Summary:

Oshino sends Hitagi home to get cleaned up before he can help her, and she ends up telling Koyomi about how her mother got involved with a suspicious religion. That led to great debt, her parents got divorced, and Hitagi now lives with her father. She shocks Koyomi by emerging from the shower naked, and she takes her time getting dressed, teasing him in the process. The two then return to Oshino’s building and meet back up with him. When Koyomi asks, Oshino explains that they’re not going to get rid of the crab but rather will be asking a favor of the god. He also notes that gods can be careless in that they don’t distinguish between individual people. The three of them then proceed to a room that Oshino has prepared, and he gives Hitagi some sake to drink first. Getting her relaxed, he asks her some basic questions about her background, and she promptly responds to all of them until he asks her about her most painful memory.

Hitagi stays silent for a moment, but she eventually reveals that it has to do with her mother getting involved with the bad religion. Her mother had brought home one of the leaders of this religious organization to perform a ritual on her, and the guy tried to rape her. Hitagi fought him off with some spiked shoes, but her mother didn’t help her. What instead happened was that, because Hitagi hurt the guy, her mother got penalized financially by the organization. As a result, Hitagi now expresses doubts about if she should have resisted, and Oshino emphasizes that these are her own feelings. He then has her open her eyes, and she’s able to see the huge crab beside him. Oshino reminds Hitagi that she has something to say to it, but she hesitates and looks up, and the crab rushes her and pins her against the wall. With no other choice, Oshino helps Hitagi by grabbing the crab off of her, and he’s ready to use force, but she tells him to wait because she can still do this properly herself. Getting on her knees and bowing to the crab, Hitagi apologizes and tearfully begs for her weight and her mother back.

In the aftermath, Koyomi learns that what had led Hitagi’s mother to the religion was Hitagi being sick when she was young, and what ultimately happened resulted in the breakup of Hitagi’s family. That’s when Hitagi had met the crab. She had essentially cut her bonds with her mother, and at the same time that she lost those feelings, she lost her weight. Hitagi now can’t stop crying, and even though she can’t get her mother or family back, she feels that this wasn’t useless because she made an important friend: Koyomi. Later, at home, Koyomi is feeling sluggish, so he decides to weigh himself. He finds that he’s now 100 kilograms, 45 more than he was originally, and he remembers what Oshino said about gods being careless.

Preview

Well that was quite a good episode. Perhaps they could have done more with the first half of it – the fanservice was nice I guess – and I was hoping for a little something more involved than Koyomi taking a minute towards the end to explain everything/fill in all the holes (even though I like Kamiya Hiroshi as a narrator), but I love the way it concluded and how everything tied together. The whole weight loss thing finally makes sense now, and I probably should have realized earlier that it was really the feelings that got taken from Hitagi that were important (given how the pronunciation of the words for weight and feelings are both omoi). With Hitagi’s change in attitude now, I have to assume that a romance is brewing, if it wasn’t already, though maybe this is the wrong series for that. I also wonder if Koyomi weighing almost twice as much as he used to will have any actual consequences or if they’re just going to forget about it in the next arc.

Production-wise, this episode looked about as good as the first one did, and as you can see, they really showed off Hitagi’s assets. I was surprised that they even had a close-up shot of her belly button. It makes me kind of wish that SHAFT would take over animation production for a few episodes of a certain other show that seems to randomly censor this kind of stuff, but oh well. In any case, I enjoyed the first two episodes of Bakemonogatari and am likely going to continue watching it.

49 Comments

  3. the list of screenshots just don’t do it for me on this show

    I guess I was too impressed by animation of 1st ep that I need to watch 2n ep to appreciate it..

    poor Koyomi, and I thought for some reason that was 100 lb

    Palvati
    Reply

  14. Guys, I know this is not related with “Getting Better” series, but I left a couple comments in the Shana LN v01 Review that I would like you all to give a look, if possible.
    The link is here: https://randomc.net/2009/07/06/light-novels-shakugan-no-shana-v01/comment-page-2/#comment-503289

    Also, I was kind of stepping back on this series after the first minutes of Ep01 but now I’m really gonna keep watching it.

    On Wikipedia there’s a going about the series being 15 episodes (because, by my accounts, it will be the right number to adapt all available novels of this series), but since Japanese Laws or whatever state only 12-13 per season are allowed, the rest will be released for free on the series’ official website.

    Let’s hope the quality isn’t as much “AniDB’s Eyecancer Quality Rating” as it was for Yoru Wakaru Gendai Mahou 00… LOL

    X-Rick
    Reply

  17. The only problem is that it’s not being fansubbed… (a teaser by an anonymous person is fine but what about the other eps?) and I haven’t seen release any established group wanting to work on this 🙁 Most claimed to pass over this season without new project!!

    Kei
    Reply

  27. To the people who keep asking Omni about Umineko or any other anime series, give Omni a break. He can’t be watching or blogging every single anime series showing on TV. Just because its supposedly a popular series or a series that you are interested in, does not mean that Omni is. People have different likes and dislikes. We should be be using comments section to write up stuff related to the blog post in question.

    Anime Junkie
    Reply

  28. 私の恋はホッチキス, huh?

    I’m also amazed by the lack of subs. Everything else (well or at least most of the shows) are getting subbed, sometimes by numerous groups, no matter how shitty they are (yes I know, opinions) but when we are getting an all-around good show then no one wants to do it. Not moe enough I guess?

    What’s with the Shaft hate…

    Zenzen
    Reply

  29. Is it really that hard to understand why it’s not getting subtitled faster? This show packs five times the amount of work of any other series. It’s a nightmare to translate. Seriously, get on your knees and pray to the mighty groups who do pick it up. Send them flowers or something.

    Patrik
    Reply

  31. yea there are subs for the first ep at least, and they are quite ok. Just like the show itself. Shaft always has to exaggerate v.v

    it’d be great if one of you will blog Tokyo Magnitude 8.0’s first ep … that’s a promising series.

    minikui
    Reply

  32. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei was typset hell for subbers, so as many people predicted, it’s not surprising subbers aren’t enthusiastic to do this series. It depends how much of it actually gets translated, I guess. Episodes aren’t going to be speedy, but it’s true anon has done the first episode… and hopefully they don’t drop. I doubt they would anyhow. (Don’t get me wrong, I am LOVING SHAFT’s work this season, who doesn’t?) Anyway, Bakemonogatari? Thumbs up, mmm. HD? Sugoi.

    Haruka
    Reply

  33. o.O Bakamonogatari O.o Umineko is XXX times better than this weird ass shit – as far as weird ass shit goes. I won’t even go as far as to say this show is crap. The uber OP got me reaching for some popcorn & all I got to see was a damn stapler inflicting some damage to a once cold-as-hell vampire shounen. I know one thing, if I was turned into a vampire & went to hell & back with the bitch that did it, I sure as hell would act all ‘normal’ (the squirming around the room while peering at a naked Hitagi & such) when I’m finally made human (even though he’s still screwed) again. There.

    Megas
    Reply

  35. Does this series doesn’t have any ending sequence?

    Anyway,I’m still liking this series because of the ‘weirdness’…and also the animation quality is still good.

    Holding
    Reply

  40. He didn’t double in weight – he gained 45 lbs. If I recall, that’s around what Hitagi said she was supposed to weigh in the first episode… meaning the God was really careless and missed?

    This episode revealed a somewhat darker storyline than I was expecting… the first episode suggested it’d be a lighter and more comical type of action/mystery show haha…

    K.K.
    Reply

  42. ive never seen another anime with the same kind of style as this show and i think its refreshing and new hopefully the next episodes will be just as good but could someone tell me if this show is going to center on these three characters or is it going to be like xxxholic where every few episodes is going to be with new characters and and a few main characters?

    sean
    Reply

  43. Hitagi describes herself as tsundere in episode 1. I guess the tsun part was putting a staple through Koyomi’s cheek? But it’s not typical tsundere for her to state so openly that Koyomi is an “important friend”…

    zoomj
    Reply

  44. I’m just wondering, could it be possible that Koyomi gained Hitagi’s weight? Maybe she didn’t actually get her weight back… since she’s supposed to weigh 45kg+ and that’s about how much Koyomi gained.

    ConfusedGirl29
    Reply

  45. I actually found the fanservice boring, it was so constant that I kept waiting for something interesting to happen. Also the live action shots and constant symbolism didn’t appeal to me. On the bright side the problem and solution were interesting and not just a flashy fight.

    Grant
    Reply

  47. I’m guessing that the weight issue will be left untouched in the following episodes, since it’s a sort of literary device for him finding himself with a much greater burden now.

    ionartemis
    Reply

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