The following assumes familiarity with the reviewed material. Spoilers below. The Bakemonogatari Ghostory or Monstory franchise is a weird one. Equally unique within its medium as without and really undefinable by any criteria but its own. Lets recap a bit: the Monogatari series is the story of high school student and demivampire Koyomi Araragi. The franchise began life as a series of short stories and not long later light novels published by the utterly singular Nisio Isin a pseudonymous novelist and enigma of a man whose prolific and unique work ranks him with mangaka Douman Seiman and musician/video game developer ZUN as some of the most instantly identifiable purveyors of peculiar Japanese popculture. An anime adaptation of the first of these novelsBakemonogatari itselfwas begun by SHAFT Inc. in 2009. It was immensely popular and of course a second animeNisemonogatari followed. Nisemonogatari has two narrative arcs the longer Karen Bee arc with seven episodes and the shorter Tsukihi Phoenix arc with just four to close out the series. A lot happens within each of these but their structure itself is interesting in its own right. In both cases the primary narrative conflicts are resolved in ways that most would deem anticlimactic. Kaiki a conman who scams middle schoolers by selling fake spells and inflicts Araragis older younger sister not a typo Karen with a pseudomagical illness. It takes quite a while for the arc to even get to that point as a good amount of Nisemonogatari and from what this reviewer has seen this is true of the franchise in general devotes itself not to advancing the main narrative plotline which in many shows would be solved in a single episode or two at most but rather to what are essentially tangents. In the first two episodes of the series the main thrust of the arc is barely touched on at all instead the first episode begins with what is essentially a narrative feint Araragi has been kidnapped by his girlfriend Senjougahara but this isnt the main plotline of the arc. Kaiki the conman mentioned earlier only even shows up in the third episode and the equivalent of a rugpull is done to the audience with the Senjougahara kidnaps Araragi plotline essentially being folded into the real main plot. And that is without mentioning Araragis visits to the homes of Nadeko and Suruga two returning Bakemonogatari characters which consume a good chunk of an episode apiece and serve even less overall narrative point than the kidnapping subplot. The Kaiki plot itself of course is resolved with nothing more than an extended conversation He is not in any real sense fought. He is not defeated and really is not made to pay for his actions at all. He leaves town and is out of our heroes lives. So it goes. This may sound like a criticism but its genuinely not. Its these strange asides that make Nisemonogatari worth watching in the first place. Other shows may do plot twists but Nisemonogatari is completely unafraid to simply yank the existing narrative out from under the audience and swerve into a different direction entirely for minutes or even entire episodes at a time. All of this of course is beautifully depicted. Nise like its predecessor is not traditionally animated. There are no background charactersat alland much of the scenery is CG rendered giving even mundane spaces a bizarre otherworldly feel. Characters conversations are filled to the brim with rapid visual cutscloseups of faces shots visually depicting metaphors for and puns based on what is being said miniature flashbacks and more. These are if not the most dynamic visual depictions of conversations ever animated certainly in the running. Of course it is impossible to talk about these asides without mentioning the other asides. Which is to say yes Nisemonogatari like its predecessor and like its successors often veers straight into fetish porn minus the sex territory. This is to an extent what you sign up for as the series is marketed as an ecchi among its many other genres truly the franchise contains multitudes and it is genuinely quite hard to blame anyone for avoiding the series simply because it say has no qualms about depicting a hundredsofyearsold vampire with the body of a little girl bathing in the nude with Araragi as the two talk. At the same time unlike a lot of works that pull similar tricks Nise is more or less inseparable from these scenes. It is a part of the shows identity as much as the easier sells discussed above and while I would not really go so far as to call these scenes defensible I think that again to a degree you get what you sign up for and criticizing Nise to too heavy a degree for its strange preoccupation with fanservice almost feels disingenuous given the amount of western work that exists that juggles a similar mixture of experimentation with medium and form and frankly crassness. It can indeed feel a bit like explaining the appeal of gangsta rap or grindhouse films to someone whos not sold on either and its equally tempting to explain these scenes away as symbolic or decry them as unnecessary to the shows character but I feel that both approaches are equally flawed. The fetish material exists is present and must be by every individual viewer reckoned with differently. And look at that a paragraph apiece to the story the visuals and the fanservice and only now do we get to the aural element. Nonetheless The sound design in Nise remains fantastic. Both in terms of its soundtrack the use of multiple opening themes is one of the franchises best characteristics and indeed its lack of it in places. The Monogatari series does more with voice acting on its own than most anime. Individual lines are doubled up reverbed echoed or distorted for emphasis sometimes to the backdrop of complete silence. Few anime show this much restraint in their sound design and it must be applauded. So what to make of Nisemonogatari? Well it lacks the emotional heights of Bakemonogatari itself so it is perhaps not an improvement but its a refinement of the formula and anyone who liked what Bake had to offer will find more of it here. To neophytes start at the franchises beginning with Bake but make this your second stop.