[Footnotes] Monogatari and Sensuality

Yeah, I know, I probably couldn't have picked a more controversial thing to do my first Footnotes in months on. On one hand, I'll be talking about the Monogatari franchise, possibly one of the most controversial anime to come out in the last decade, and not only that, I'll be talking about the most controversial aspect of that series: the constant fan-service. I know things such as these are more likely to stir up emotions than other topics, so I will do my best to be mature and not do anything too oblivious or stupid. This essay will be somewhat about the "male-gaze" after all, and since I've personally never been a female in my life, I realize that there may be some aspects about this topic that I just plain will never understand. However, even with all these potential mines planted, I do still want to share some ideas about this topic because I legitimately find them interesting,
and feel it brings up a couple points which are rarely discussed. That might be because it's admittedly uncomfortable to attempt to talk analytically about fan-service in anime; nobody wants to sound perverted or shallow after all, but I do think it's something that deserves to be talked about, and to some degree, it's important too. What's particularly important to understand is the difference between when fan-service is simply a degrading tool to pander to a certain demographic, and when it's actually a tool to enhance the narrative quality and convey character emotions. Let me explain.
     Hello people of "The Wired", my name is Quan, I hope you're having a fantastic day. Let's dive right into the topic.

     Let me give a little bit of background of the franchise we'll be talking about as our prime example first, and let me stress that while you don't really need to have seen all of the Monogatari franchise to read this Footnotes, it may be helpful to have some basic prior knowledge of it first. I won't go as far to stop you here if you haven't, just keep in mind you might not recognize all of the names I throw around.
     The story of the Monogatari franchise follows Koyomi Araragi, your typical high-schooler that has recently recovered from a vampire attack, as he goes around his town and solves various supernatural maladies that have infected various female students. These problems could range from a girl being slightly more weightless than usually, or slowly being strangled to death by an invisible snake. Headed by esteemed director Akiyuki Shinbo, the Monogatari series is a very abstract and strange anime, and while I will argue all day about the strengths of the characters, there is one certain aspect about the show which has undoubtedly been the greatest thorn in its side that prevents me from recommending the anime to everyone I see. The fan-service. It's everywhere. Unrelenting even; the barrage of lecherous shots of female body parts plays a part in almost every scene of the franchise, ruining immersion in the interesting conversations the characters were having. It was to me, as if the creators simply didn't have enough confidence to release the strange and bizarre thing that Monogatari was without fan-service to at least attract a certain kind of demographic. For a very long time, this bothered me. I wasn't entirely sure whether I was simply being duped by this franchise, whether all this show really was was a fan-service ecchi that just happened to be directed by a man whose art-style makes it just look like there's a deeper meaning to it all. However, today, after I've done my "research" and I've given a great deal of thought to it, I'm going to attempt here to defend Monogatari's fan-service(at least to a degree), and other shows that use fan-service in the particular way it does. Because, as it turns out, I don't think the Monogatari franchise had fan-service for the sake of fan-service. I think it has a honest-to-god point.

So, before I can explain what sets Monogatari's fan-service apart from the crowd in this area, I need an example of when fan-service is typically used, that is, as a method to draw in audiences. Unfortunately, I needn't look far. There is more than plenty of truly awful ecchi-dribble to choose from, but for the sake of the argument, let's choose one that embodies quite well how fan-service is typically used in the anime format: so let's say... I.S Infinite Stratos. I.S is a harem/mecha/school thing that follows the main character: 15yr old Ichika Orimura as he activates the I.S: a powerful mecha that previously had only been able to be piloted by woman, and after he becomes the very first man to be able to activate one... well, ever, he is promptly sent to the I.S Training School. A school, which of course, since Ichika is the first male to be able to pilot the I.S's, is filled with beautiful single high-school girls. You can imagine where the plot goes from here, or to be more precise, doesn't go. I only I.S as an example because it is a truly cliche filled ecchi slog, I could have also used shows like Mayo Chicki, MM, Highschool of the Dead or Rosario + Vampire, they would all work, I.S just fits the bill a little more snugly. Now, what you'll notice about the heavy amount of fan-service in these kind anime is that it almost always is from the perspective of someone who isn't there. It's as if some creepy stranger has sneaked into the room to give us these perverted shots. This is, of course, because the shots are purely there for the audience, not the characters; an invisible camera that only existed for the exact purpose of sexualizing the female characters. The fan-service is degrading nearly by definition. However, if you have watched Monogatari, the thing you will notice is that the camera behaves differently. When the camera focuses on sexualizing a female, it's not because it's there for the audience, the camera is pointing in that direction because that's what Araragi himself is looking at. It's an effective way to get his character's mind-set, how he feels about whoever he is talking to and the situation. For example, if he is in a room alone with his love interest: Hitagi Senjougahara, as any teenage boy his age would, he finds her attractive and is unable to resist taking peaks at her cleavage, and the camera complies. The camera is sexualizing Hitagi because Araragi is sexualizing the situation. Now compare this to how he talks to other characters and how the camera behaves. I'll use the bath scene in Nisemonogatari as an example, because the female Araragi talks to in that scene: Oshino Shinobu, is completely naked for pretty much the entire time. True, the camera doesn't shy away from the nudity, but at the same time, Shinobu's nakedness isn't fetishized either. This is because Araragi himself doesn't sexualize Shinobu in any way during this scene; the nakedness is handled merely as a fact, because to Araragi, that's what it is, and not anything charged with sexual energy or lust. Now this is a sharp contrast to when we meet the grown-up version of Shinobou later on in the franchise, and suddenly the fan-service around her character becomes more prominent, because in the eyes of Araragi, she has become something that is sexually desirable. You'll notice this tactic in other respectful shows as well. Holo from Spice and Wolf for example spends half of the first episode naked, but her nudity isn't emphasized in any way, or lingered on. In fact, the only fan-service in that entire show is when the situation itself is sexual, which I think helps prove my point any further.
     I think biggest evidence however to the fact the camera is truly from Araragi's viewpoint in the Monogatari franchise, and that the fan-service is something that he is instigating, is found in Monogatari Second Season, particular in the final arc, when in fact we are not seeing events from Araragi's point of view. Instead, the arc takes place from the perspective of Deishuu Kaiki, hired by Senjougahara because spoilers. And while I do want to say I consider this arc one of the best of the franchise or any anime at all, what I want you to notice about the arc is that the fan-service. Or to be more specific, the lack of it. It's not completely gone, but compared to the rest of the franchise, the fan-service is cut down dramatically in this one arc in particular. This is because Kaiki, a middle aged man, has no interest in the heroines of the franchise, he's just here for the money. Tsubasa Hanekawa is one of Araragi's biggest crushes for the majority of the franchise, and the camera typically reflects this, besides from maybe Senjougahara, she is the most fetishized and sexualized character in the entire series. Nearly every scene involving her(besides from truthfully serious or dramatic moments) has a heavy amount of fan-service. But when Kaiki talks to her during this arc, she isn't sexualized in at all, and that is for the simple reason that Kaiki himself, unlike a horny teenager like Araragi, doesn't sexual her.

How the camera behaves to Nedeko during the Nisemonogatari bedroom scene. 

The next thing to talk about is when the heroines of the franchise themselves control the camera. My prime example will be a certain scene in Nisemonogatari: when a character named Sengoku Nedeko is attempting to seduce Araragi in her bedroom. Now, Nisemonogatari is largely a story about sexuality and how sexuality effects others; in this scene, Nedeko is essentially trying to break out of Araragi's "little-girl" image that he views her as. She of course, she uses her body to do this, and so the camera obliges. Except, the camera isn't the view of an outsider, it's actively showing how Nedeko herself wants to be perceived by Araragi: grown-up, attractive and sexually available. Others examples in the franchise include how Suruga Kanbaru uses her body to mess with Araragi, or how Senjougahara acts on her first date with Araragi, and the following "starry sky scene"(which I really need to do an Anime Moment of one of these days). The only reason the camera perceives the situation as sexual is because the females themselves want the situation to be sexual, often for their own purposes, and effectively, controlling the camera in order to achieve the right mindset, both for the audience the characters. And I think that's the key difference.

And Monogatari is far from the only anime to use fan-service in this way. Everything in FLCL is crazy and sexual because the series is in effect a huge metaphor for the transition from childhood into adolescence for a boy: how everything around the opposite sex becomes suddenly sexual and uncomfortable, and nothing really seems to make sense anymore. The show uses its fan-service to show the way the world is changing in the eyes of its protagonist Naota, capturing how he begins to view the world in a new light; the anime eventually concluding with Naota's coming-of-age and his decision to control his own behavior despite all the alluring craziness. The Tatami Galaxy used fan-service when it was necessary for the narrative; because a grown woman attempting to seduce you is in fact sexy(most of the time), and Hyouka used fan-service, a show almost completely devoid of it, during the the one situation in the entire series which could be described as somewhat sexual. Hell, one of my personal favorite anime of all time: Welcome to the NHK is extremely heavy with fan-service. However, that was solely to get into the main character's perverted and somewhat messed up head, as he perceived nearly every moment as sexual, except in the anime's serious or emotionally heavy scenes, in which the fan-service will disappear completely, because of course, the main character is no longer in that mind-set. Just compare that to something like Highschool of the Dead. Highschool of the Dead is another anime that is extremely ecchi, but unlike all those other anime I mentioned above: the fan-service is neither to convey mind-set or emotion. No matter how serious the anime tries to be, the constant fan-service during what are supposed to be emotional scenes completely ruins the desired experience, because that is fan-service that is completely separate from the narrative, purely for the audience, and can do nothing but draw the viewer out of the experience. Unless you're watching Highschool of the Dead purely for the fan-service, which in that case I guess you're good.

I'm not really trying to make any profound point here. What I do want for you to take out of this slightly wordy post is that just because a show has fan-service, doesn't always condemn it. I want you to put the fan-service into context; is it simply so the audience has something to look forward to in a bleak narrative, or is to help convey the mindset of a teenager named Koyomi Araragi? Is it to pander to a demographic, or is it to make a scene appear closer to how it is perceived by a character, or how a character wants it to be perceived? Does the camera step into the shower for no reason, or for a very specific one? Look, I'm not defending fan-service here, I still find it degrading to the characters of a show and the audience, and even if it is being used for a purpose, too much fan-service is too much. Monogatari is admittedly guilty of this, and maybe even Welcome to the NHK if you were to really twist my arm. All I'm saying is that fan-service is not completely without its place in the medium, just like characters, or plot, or music, or anything, it's a tool available to creators to enhance the quality of their narrative, it's just used mostly with a different intent than it should be. It's a tool to make things and situations in the medium more sensual, more intimate, for both the characters and audience, and to capture the lust, perversion and presumption in their hearts.
     So with that, I bow myself out of this discussion, and hopefully not talk about it again for awhile, since I've really exhausted all my best points. I do hope I've given you a thing or two to think about today, and maybe improved some anime in your eyes. I'll be back with a new review hopefully in the coming days.

Goodbye for now guys.



My other Footnotes on what qualifies as a deep story is here. 

Or if you want to chill out with a review for a bit, click here for my review of Fate/Zero. 

The first part of my Top 50 Anime OP's countdown is located here. 

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