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The start of the show is extremely good and promising and is clear that the writers envisioned a much more complex world and story than we got to see. The problem comes in the last 6 episodes where is crammed more content than it could fit to at least one more series, some questions are kinda answered but raise much more question to which you do not feel the need for an answer. The ending is extremely cliche and poor mainly because there are so many storyline threads opened and close with no clear resolution and with a lot of questions in just a few ... episodes. There are also characters that we are never told what happened to them or others on which we do not know about their motivation that are just left hanging. While to some it may be a reason to want a second season to me it shows how one can write itself into a corner. The main story is about beings known as dragons and how silverine ( some silver compound ) is the only thing that can destroy them as they see humans as lifestock. In the last episodes this turns into a completely different story we are not told almost anything about and which probably was never the intention to exist in the beginning.

So the only part I actually enjoyed where the last 5-10 minutes with Senjougahara. The problem is that:
1. they miss the whole thing that made Monogatari a cult anime: the mystery, the puzzle, the interesting interjections. There is none of that. It is all so boring that you feel the dread and want for it to be over
2. All the "reveals" are already well known by both us and Araragi from the previous installments but he seems to have forgotten them for no reason
3. The ending made absolutely no sense and made Araragi way too powerful

In a word the show looks like a bad fanfic ... . There are times when story tellers lack inspiration and try to fake it. They produce a lot of low quality material like this one. A similar thing can be said for Stephen King recent novels.

Basically if you are the person that accepts a show only because it has you favorite characters and is created by the same creators as the previous work you may like this. But if you are someone that cares for quality and asks questions and wants something actually interesting you will find it as a way too long filler. If this would have been one episode 20-30 minutes I would have been ok with it. But stretching it to 6 20 min episodes is way too much for a filler.

You must wonder how incompetent can one be to mess up an ecchi anime. The answer is Maken-ki.

Let's start with the beginning:
1. From the first moment you are assaulted by bra and panty shots many having camel toe. Trouble is this is a done in a way that does not entice you. Rather than that it grosses one out. Is like being farted in your face. Most of us do not like it.
2. Generally the girls do everything they do to entice a guy and then beat him up if he gets excited and beat him up if he does not because he did not ... notice them
3. They messed up the tsundere trope. Haruko should have been a tsundere but she is just an abusive bitch that does not want Takeru but also does not want anyone else to have him.
4.the only likeable character is Himegami because is the only one honest
5. I hated the white knighting in ep 6. Why did he have to go after her? And why does the other dude attack him without knowing anything?
6. Girls in this show are much stronger than guys. I understand them being strong while using the special power but the show makes it a point to tell you every bloody episode girls are stronger than you think and they can totally beat a guy without those powers. Which is complete bs. The difference in strength between men and women is huge. An average healthy guy can beat the strongest woman in any contest provided she does not take steroids. 2 out of 3 times. So having the girls run faster in that episode bullshit. Men have bigger lungs and hearts thus they run faster.
7.the whole bathroom thing. Is it so hard to put a sign when someone is in the bathroom so others do not come in the same time?
8. lots of story lines all left in the air because apparently Takeru must guess what women are thinking.

Now this shows promised a lot but failed to deliver.The main problem with this anime is how it tries to be phylosophical and deep although being just a typical shounen anime. The first annoying thing you will notice is lot of narration describing what characters feel instead of showing this to way in other ways. The other big problem is the last episodes. They fight to the end to change their fate and break free from destiny and then give up and accept being controlled by the Council. This looks like NWO propaganda. They could have changed the world so that there is ... no more superpowers and that all the effects of the gates were gone, the council and the so called gods destroyed and no more gate, but no they decided to change themselves even though as long as they leave their fates to be controlled they cannot. This is bs. Is like running a race and when winning declining the prize. Who does that? The whole is all about the journey so prevalent in buddhist phylosophies is the biggest piece of bs ever.

The show starts pretty well but soon the problems start to arrive and you realize that the author was more interested in promoting a number of social messages as:
1. A woman can cheat on you as a form of love towards you. Makes no sense but whatever
2. Even the worse, evil woman in the world can have her happy ending just because
3. When it comes to religion men evil, women good.

Now to dive in the problems this show has:
1. The motives of the person seen as the antagonist for most of the series are dumb and nonsensical but for some reason many seem to agree
2. ... Most castles are actually palaces and severely lack defense
3. When conquering a castle raising its defense levels does not seem to be something people do in this universe
4. People do not understand how a seige works. Everyone just exists the palace and does frontal assault. The only good seige is towards the end and the seiged building is not even a castle/palace but a small city mainly housing an academy.
5. Shields and Armor are just like paper mache and matter not
6.There is almost no strategy in any attack, almost all do frontal attacks and apparently with the exception of Dartanians which apparently are some sort of super humans despite having no magic is all about numbers
7. a woman defeats multiple male opponents in combat AFTER LOSING HER ART
8. Many of their decisions are illogical and dumb
10. The author spends a great deal of time trying to make us feel sorry for the main antagonist despite making extremely dumb and nonsensical decisions that only made things worse
11. Inserting the Holy Grail crap from Dan Brown's novels
12. No combat is remotely interesting. Tactics like scorched earth, traps, skirmishes and guerilla tactics which have been used in history are never used
13. The whole idea of needing an emperor is foreign to Europe as unlike Japan is much larger as a land and the people on it are much more diverse. Also we have real winter
14. Apparently being the ultimate effeminate cuck gives one the ability to strategise despite testosterone being the main factor for a good strategist and also makes you look masculine
15. why simply executing the people that took part of the conspiration never ocured to anyone?
16. There is no rain, mist, snow,etc. All things that can change the path of a battle
17. The motives of various faction that represent European countries or populations (Greek, German, Slavs, Vikings, Muslim) are grossly misunderstood
18. Generally none of the fighters think about conjuring beings of chaos as a military strategy to create disorder in the opposite camp. There is only one case towards the end and then they simply conjure one single giant clumsy being which is easily defeated instead of many smaller ones whcih could overcome by sheer numbers
19. just because the grancrest is created does not mean that things will change much apart from the dissapearence of magic and magic creatures. Someone still needs to work the lands.

Ok, so I had to write this to update my older review. The show had a great start and while being at episode 8 I was really excited. After watching the whole thing a number of giant problems started to pop up as a result of the writers not doing their homework so to speak:
1. rapiers are poor cutters . Depending what you consider a rapier various authors would say they either not cut all, cut very superficially or poorly. So using it as a cutting sword is a big no no.
2. If your style is based mostly on slashing a curved sword ... would do a much better job.
3. While rapier dual wielding was a thing in 1 on 1 combat I would say dual wielding with two swords is kinda stupid. It is better to use a shield. And if you use two sword you either use one short sword and one log sword i.e sword and dagger or two short to medium length swords. Two cutlasses would do a better job.
4. Deus ex machina Kirito does what not even the most skilled programmer can do . Apparently the writers do not understand the difference between a moder and a programmer
5. the game has some serious design flaws like instant regen
6. the second part is just garbage and the reason were mentioned by a ton of people already.
7. The reasoning of the developer is absent. I would have loved so depth on that.
8. Why would you play more SAO after being trapped so long in that game?
9. no where is it mentioned Kirito having any software skills.

In conclusion the show started great but could not deliver on the promises

So before I start this my overall view of the show is that a fan of the monogatari series should see it but not pay any money for it because it is bad, really bad. As someone else said there actually 15-20 minutes of actual content stretched over one hour. The main impression the movie made on me was that of young art school student who tries to impress too much. So without delay these are my points against this movie:

1. the drawings are extremely different from the rest of the animes related to Monogatari. And different in a bad way. While in the rest ... the difference in style between the building and characters is visible in this one is annoying. Also there are plenty of effects thata have no purpose and lots of bad CGI.
2. characters behave odd. I understand it should be a prequel but still it does not seem they are the same person.
3. The word screens in the original series meant something. They expressed Araragi's thoughts and had an impact. In this movie they pop up every 5 minutes and they are annoying: "Black" "Red" "Silence" ... really now?
4. too much time wasted wit Araragi falling an burning
5. Too many replays of Hanekawa's boobs and panties. I mean even the fanservice is bad.
6. Araragi seemingly masturbating and Araragi leaving an apartment flat in the middle of nowhere. Two weird scenes, the second being weird because he lives in a house in the middle of a house neighborhood
7. Kiss-Shot does not look like herself
8.there are severe differences between the previous animes with monogatari +Manga and this one regarding how Araragi and Kiss-shot met.

The story is pretty straight forward in many ways and is basically a story of a journey. The journey from two to one. It is a journey Cou and Rin take together to better understand who they are and their feelings for each other. The plot I would say is there to drive the development of two characters along. That is not to say other characters do not develop in time, just not very much. The story is kinda simple. Boy meets girl , boys falls for girl, boys and girl save the world. I wished I could have the show a better grade as ... it is pretty good, but there was something I deeply hated about it: the intro and the story teller voice recounting what had happened in the previous episodes in short. It is a voice that does not fit the show at all. Because it tries to put you to sleep. Interesting enough they did not go with the well know song+movie voice but with the once upon a time voice. So just skip that part at the beginning and you will be ok.

A great show ruined by a idiotic ending. Why do people try to appear smarter than they are. A great person once said: Write about what you know. The moment you depart from this then all falls to shambles. This is what happens with this show with the ending of ep 12 and ep 13. I do not want to spoil anything but there is a plot twist so overused and dumb to start to that is pathetic to use it. There could have been at least 4 different endings to the anime that would have been ok, but no the writer wanted to ... look smart and thought we are dumb enough to fall for it. I would say watch the show and invent your own ending because this ending is a pile of ....

the show has a great sound and the animations are amazing. I would say that is a reason to watch. But there is one problem: it is boring. I could not really get attached to the characters at all and it seemed the series did not go anywhere. There is a lot of phylosophy and you will see a lot o weird quotes about the nature of life. Problem is I wanted to enjoy this series and I did not find anything compelling me to finish it besides my desire to see where everything is going. The answer is nowhere. As many other recent anime ... is just an intro to the manga and nothing more. The only thing that is interesting is the apparent love triangle of Yasaburou Shimogamo with Ben Ten and Kasei but this does not get any closer to resolution by the end of the series. Also the only characters that are not paper thin (Ben Ten and Kasei) are never explained at all. My advice is this: read the manga and if you like it then watch the anime. As I said it is just an introduction to the manga and is not very convincing. I cannot say I did not enjoy it but it is far from a masterpiece.