This was originally written as a reply to explain to my friends how my relationship with the series evolved. Not a proper review per se but contains my core thought process and reflections about the show and how I grew to really really enjoy it.

Now, I completely relate to you. To be honest initially, I watched 5 episodes of Bakemonogatari and I was like, wot, mate, wut the fuck is this shit. Why is everyone so hyped about this. Low key think most people who like this are just on the hype train. Don't think they understand or enjoy it as much as they appear t be. My first impression went as this:

------Take a deep breath, rapid firing of opinions incoming --------------

1. Very good artistic expression. Very different. It is in a class on its own. But like what you were saying, it was a bit obsessive to the point of distraction. I do enjoy postmodern type of art but i felt form without much substance is hard to feel a visceral connection with.
2. The word play was a bit hard to follow. My first thought was, okay, maybe for someone who knew a bit more about Japanese, they can enjoy this a lot more. This turned out to be true. I dropped it about 6-7 months back. I have been studying Japanese everyday since then, some of the things started to make sense this time around.
3. When Araragi Kun started groping the snail girl (a loli) after he started going out with Senjugahara, I was like, k, kinda turned off by it.
4. After most of the first 5 episodes in, I still had no idea what the fuck was going on. I was so lost. Lost I was and then I was bored. I frankly fell asleep a few times during the Snail girl episodes.
5. These characters are constantly referring to events and things that happened completely offscreen or something we have never been introduced to. I thought, wow if the author is so high strung about his art that he'd be this rough with his audience without even clearly explaining, I was a bit offended. Saw the vampire girl shinobu briefly but it was introduced completely without context... lmao. What the fuck
6. Characters are introduced way too fast without a proper introduction

So in summary, my honest first impression was:
Distracting art style, word play made convo hard to follow, protag gave off a shitty vibe till episode 5, story not clear, narrative not clear, characters come and go.
Whewww, I guess I just describe a whole class of experimental theatre.

Now, why I continued after 6 months, I had no idea. (Actually, now I remembered, I was listening to two of the character OPs, Sengoku and Tsukhi, I was like my god, I thought I gotta watch for these two girls. The Voice actress' voices sounded so adorable. I couldn't fully describe but heck, I felt I understood myself more. ▶ ▶
I actually came across these two videos on youtube randomly and then I was like wait, did I watch the wrong monogatari series? Then I started to understand a bit more. So it turned out that these characters are only introduced much much later.

When I picked it up again, i barely paid full close attention to the story. i kinda gave up trying to find what others find so good about it. At that time, the only redeeming quality was I felt was there were cute OPs coming soon. After dropping it for long time and then picking it back up again, I started to understand more. I don't know what more I started to understand. I just started grasping the whole environment. Story still didn't make sense. I did though started paying more attention to thigns people say and how characters behave. This was very important. I so frequently heard the same phrase by the same characters, and then that character catch phrase became so fun. That repetition of the character catch phrase and character poses became so lovely. For example, if you pay attention to Senjugahara, the way she acts and the way she say things was so interesting. She is referred to the tsundere-san by Meme Oshino. Also how the snail girl always mess up Araragi Kun's name and then followed by "Sumimasen Kamimashida" was always an adorable introduction. Also how Hanekawa always say "I don't know everything, I only know what I know".

I didn't catch on to these things till much later but I made the discovery myself and that made the show so much more interesting.

So now, it was fun to see the character interact with each other, I started catch up to the whole universe. I couldn't wait to find out more about each character's back story. The things that author or director didn't explicitly explain only made it much more intriguing and mysterious. By this point, i already finished the entire monogatari first season.

So as you can see, this was a journey, a hard journey. I still wouldn't say that I love the show because of specific qualities. The reasons are less rational but more personal. I still wouldn't say that absolutely would recommend to people in general. The highest compliment I can pay in words to the show is that I really enjoy it. Now, explaining all of this to you, I effectively ruined it for you. I think the whole point of adventure, exploration is that you aren't thinking about exploring. You are exploring. That was me. I spent time with it and explored and it was fun. Now I told you about this, you may think "oh I need to explore" while watching. If you think that way, this show will never be fun.

I'd suggest that just drop it for good and wait for that serendipitous moment for you to encounter it again. Naturally. Only then you'd be able to enjoy it.

Also, Hanekawa, Tsuki, Sengoku, Shinobu, Senjugahara are cute.

On the flip side, I watched FLCL before but because of exactly the 1-5 reasons I listed for my first impression of Bakemonogatari, I didn't enjoy it as much. I am waiting for that chance to come across with it again.

LOLS look at these words filling up the page here.

"My literature teacher must be proud of me"