It is rare to find anime that use the medium to its full potential. Anime can use multiple aspects of its visuals, sound and dialogue to tell a story and present information to us. Anime producers often don’t bother or can’t afford to use things like movement, transitions or perspective to help tell their story. The Monogatari Series has always been a great example of how to use the full potential of anime to tell a story and the Monogatari Series: Second Season continues to impress.
This review is written for a reader who has already watched the previous installments in the series and may contain
...
some spoilers. I recommend watching the previous seasons before reading the rest of this review.
The Monogatari Series is renowned for its exceptional use of visuals to help tell the story. Scenes are always evolving with the characters, events and dialogue to show the character's impression of the situation as well as how they are feeling. Rather than telling us a character's thoughts through needless exposition. The use of flash screens makes a return. These flash screens work fantastically for delivering us information quickly without breaking the dialogue. The flash screens are often used to overload us with information so we only get an impression of what the character might be thinking. The use of both constantly evolving scenes and chaotic presentation of information drags us into the character's head and immerses us in the scene.
The second season upholds the quality of visuals set by the series and improves upon some areas. There are several sequences of exposition that use imagery and transitions rather than just showing us the character talking. This is fantastic delivery and gives us a more in depth look into what they’re saying.
Another area that the Monogatari Series likes to experiment with is sound. There are frequent dramatic sound effects and changes in voice mixing to help emphasise what the characters are saying and doing. This sound design helps further pull us into a character's head and effectively communicates to us how they interpret events. The second season sports a solid score filled with the style of music we’ve come to expect from the series. While there isn’t much improvement from the previous season, it remains an effective use of sound design.
Without realising it, the events of previous season are coloured by Araragi Koyomi’s perspective. The second season features several story arcs that are told from different characters’ perspectives. This changes the way locations appear and how characters behave. It’s interesting and refreshing to see how the other characters interact with each other as well as how they solve their problems without Koyomi. This change in perspective allows us to experience the characters from another angle giving us better insight into who they are.
There has always been one issue I’ve had with the Monogatari Series. A large amount of Monogatari featured casual discussions between characters and it doesn’t always seem relevant to the current story. Some of the longer segments of dialogue drag on and often feel completely pointless. This combined with interesting distractions in the animation can often cause someone to completely lose the point of the conversation. This is often an issue for me when viewing the show because I occasionally lose interest. While this is less of an issue in the second season, it is still a prevailing problem. The stories have better pacing than previous seasons and most of the dialogue is relevant and interesting. However, there are still a few run-on conversations that I find frustrating.
There are two new recurring characters introduced in the second season. The first of which is Oshino Ougi who enters into the same highschool as Koyomi as his underclassman. She is an apparition specialist who claims to be the niece of Oshino Meme. She remains a mysterious character and it’s never clear what her true intentions are nor if she is actually trying to help Koyomi and his friends.
The second character is Izuko Gaen. Another apparition specialist who is said to know everything. She will often abuse her knowledge and others’ lack of knowledge in an attempt to control the future. Again it is hard to tell if she could be considered an ally.
These new characters don’t have fleshed out stories and remain mysterious. However, they’re used very well in several stories both giving us information and creating conflict.
The second season continues to use dialogue to progress the story. Rather than having characters simply reacting to what is happening around them, everything is discussed and debated. This style of storytelling benefits highly from the diverse characters the series has established. Each character has a different style of approaching problems and different methods of communication that reflect their character. Not only are the characters interesting but they are used well throughout the series to create conflict and affect the way each problem is approached.
This dialogue heavy storytelling can be detrimental to the pacing of the show. Dialogue often drags on and can bring the story to a halt. Overall, however, the pacing is much improved over the previous seasons and the story presented here is much more engaging for it.
This season is split into 5 arcs. The first of which, Nekomonogatari Shiro, is told from Hanekawa Tsubasa’s perspective. By telling a story from her perspective we get a better understanding of her character when not viewed through Koyomi’s eyes. We also get a different insight into how Hanakawa interacts with other characters and this is one of the more interesting aspects of this arc. Because of this, the arc has some of the best character development in the series and is a great start to the season.
For the second arc, Kabukimonogatari, we switch back to Koyomi’s perspective for a story with Oshino Shinobu. This story challenges Koyomi’s ideals and the way in which he understands the world. There is some great development for both Koyomi and Shinobu and shows how they may not truly understand the full effect of their powers and actions.
Otorimonogatari is the third arc which has another perspective shift, this time following Sengoku Nadeko. I found this arc to be the weakest of the 5 as it features some poor storytelling. The story itself was not the problem, it was more a problem of how information is presented. I would go into more details but it would spoil the story. However, the story is important setup for future arcs and it is interesting to see how Nadeko sees things and how people behave towards her.
In the fourth arc, Onimonogatari, we switch back to Koyomi who is joined by Hachikuji Mayoi, Ononoki Yotsugi and Shinobu. The cast are troubled by an unknown presence and we get to see how they approach the situation. This arc is very dialogue heavy and has some of the more interesting conversations in the season. The way the characters debate what the presence is and how to deal with it is very well done and really brings out each girl's differing characteristics.
Finally we have Koimonogatari. Probably the strongest arc in the whole of the Monogatari Series thus far. We follow Deishuu Kaiki’s perspective, once again seeing characters from a new perspective which gives us new insights into the characters and world. The pacing is what made this arc so strong; the story is driven by new information and each episode is very compelling.
Overall the different arcs work well together and their timelines become apparent during each arc. There were no noticeable plot holes and each issue was resolved or at least setup to be resolved in a future season. The storytelling in the second season is a big step in the right direction for the series.
The Monogatari Series continues to demonstrate the full potential for storytelling when working with anime. Even if you don’t like the series it is easy to appreciate the way they use the medium. The second season is a large improvement over previous seasons so it is a must watch for any fans of the series.
I hope other anime produces are inspired by the Monogatari Series and, in future, try to fully utilize the medium to tell their story.
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Oct 31, 2015
Monogatari Series: Second Season
(Anime)
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It is rare to find anime that use the medium to its full potential. Anime can use multiple aspects of its visuals, sound and dialogue to tell a story and present information to us. Anime producers often don’t bother or can’t afford to use things like movement, transitions or perspective to help tell their story. The Monogatari Series has always been a great example of how to use the full potential of anime to tell a story and the Monogatari Series: Second Season continues to impress.
This review is written for a reader who has already watched the previous installments in the series and may contain ... |
