After surviving a vampire attack, high school student Koyomi Araragi finds he has several supernatural side effects that remained after being cured including the ability to rapidly heal.
While trying to live a normal life after the event, he ends up catching a classmate, Hitagi Senjougahara, as she fell down some stairs. As he catches her, he discovers that she is near weightless after being inflicted with a curse.
After enlisting the help of the easy-going wandering Shinto priest that helped him with his vampirism, Araragi finds himself embroiled in not just Senjogahara’s issue but several different supernatural events afflicting those in his town.
Narrative-heavy and unique in art style, Bakemonogatari injected new life into a story that was, in its most basic form, was just another supernatural harem. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Bakemonogatari, head on down below.
Anime Like Bakemonogatari
For Fans of Surrealism
Pretty Boy Detective Club
Mayumi Doujima made a promise to her parents that if she couldn’t find a star she once saw long ago, she would give up on her dream of being an astronaut on her 14th birthday. With that day fast approaching, she accidentally enlists the help of eccentric Manabu Soutouin and the rest of Yubiwa Academy’s mysterious Pretty Boy Detective Club.
Agreeing to be helped and in turn help the Pretty Boy Detective Club, Mayumi uses her own special skill, the power of detailed observation, to find small clues and traps that would otherwise go unnoticed. However, while searching for her star, she finds herself entangled in something far beyond what she ever imagined.
Pretty Boys Detective Club and Bakemonogatari both share an author and share that same trademark surreal style that Studio Shaft brings to certain works. So they are both surreal and extremely dialogue-dense, though Pretty Boys Detective Club is easier to keep up with.
Like how Bakemonogatari essentially tells a supernatural harem story where a main character helps a series of girls with their various curses and maladies, Pretty Boy Detective Club is essentially a reverse harem of chunibyou mystery solvers.
If you enjoyed the unique surreal imagery and camera work in Bakemonogatari, but also enjoy lengthy narratives that unravel the finer details of a mystery – that easily describes both Bakemonogatari and Pretty Boys Detective Club.
Mawaru Penguindrum
The Takakura family has always been dealt equal hands of joy and sorrow by fate. For the twin brothers Kanba and Shouma, they have had more than their share of sorrow with their parents dead and their sister critically ill.
When their sister Himari is given temporary leave from the hospital, they take her to the aquarium where she collapses. However, Himari is inexplicably revived when a penguin hat from the souvenir shop is put on her head.
Her revival comes at a cost, though. There is a new entity in her body that tasks the boys with finding the mysterious penguin drum.
Bakemonogatari and Mawaru Penguindrum are surreal anime in its finest, most occasionally confusing form.
Both series have stories that, if not supported by the surreal visuals, would be distinctly less appealing. They both feature stories stuffed with symbolism and small details and references that are not so easily grasped by a wider audience. However, they are saved from pretentiousness by being comically weird in the way they tell their more serious stories.
Kyousougiga
In ancient Tokyo, there was a priest named Myoue who could bring anything he drew to life. He drew a black rabbit who also fell in love with him. Borrowing a body of a goddess to be with him, they started a family with three children.
However, it was decided that the family was causing too many problems, so they fled into the Mirror World full of the priest’s drawn creations. While everything was peaceful in this world where no one dies and no one is born, the parents of the family had to leave.
Awaiting their return, the three children are shocked when a girl arrives from another land in the Mirror World sharing the name of their mother and looking for both of their parents.
If you wanted a surreal anime series like Bakemonogatari with the same amount of ponderous dialogue and a less clear idea of what was actually going on at first – then you want Kyousougiga.
As the non-linear storytelling of the Monogatari series makes the timeline and clarity of certain events a little more confusing, Kyousougiga captures that similar disjointed sort of storytelling without actually being non-linear. Both series, through different ways, are very good at making you feel confused for a long while before just suddenly having everything fall into place and make perfect sense.
That phenomenon is sort of the bread and butter of many surreal anime, and Bakemonogatari and Kyousougiga both excel at creating it.
The Kubikiri Cycle
Due to a mysterious disease, the genius Iria Akagami has been confined to a mansion on an isolated island by her family. With just a handful of maids, she entertains herself by inviting a series of fellow geniuses to stay at her home.
These visits continue for awhile until one guest is found violently murdered without a single clue as to why. With tensions running high, the assistant to computer savant Tomo Kunagisa takes it upon himself to solve the murder before anyone else meets a similar fate.
Both The Kubikiri Cycle and Bakemonogatari share the same author. However, while Bakemonogatari sets up a rather long, non-linear supernatural mystery story, The Kubikiri Cycle sets up a more compact mystery.
Both series share not just a visual style, but a passion for long dialogues that are kept interesting by that visual style. Enjoy that surreal imagery and the quirky characters that they are accenting.
Wonder Egg Priority
After the death of her best and only friend, Ai Ohto became a shut-in.
One night while on a walk, she is convinced by a mysterious entity to buy an egg. In a world that only materializes in her dreams, she breaks the egg. This summons a person haunted by fears, regrets, or otherwise some trauma.
There, Ai is tasked with saving them, and by saving them from their trauma, she can perhaps save her friend, too.
While Bakemonogatari is “Studio Shaft-levels” of surreal with its art style, Wonder Egg Priority wields often less lofty surreal concepts and, like Bakemonogatari, presents a world with supernatural things that happen in an otherwise normal modern Japan.
Both Wonder Egg Priority and Bakemonogatari focus on the supernatural lives of the main character as the world goes on around them. The big difference is that, while Bakemonogatari has a whole range of cute girls, Wonder Egg Priority only has cute girls as its main cast. There is no Araragi element.
Mekakucity Actors
After spilling soda on his keyboard and not being able to get a replacement online because of the Obon festival, Shintarou Kisaragi leaves his home for the first time in two years. However, he gets caught in a hostage situation where he is rescued by a group of teenagers with eye powers.
Afterwards, he is forced to join up with them where he discovers that their abilities seem to be like pieces of a puzzle waiting to be put together.
While Bakemonogatari starts off a little more unclear, you eventual realize it is just about a guy helping a series of girls with their supernatural problems. Similarly, Mekakucity Actors initially presents itself as a series about a bunch of kids with superpowers, but that becomes less straightforward as things go on.
Both series are also Shaft anime, and while not all Studio Shaft anime utilizes that notorious surreal “Shafty style,” both of these two do.
If you enjoy unique characters, vibrant colors, but don’t need quite as much surrealism that Bakemonogatari offers with its visuals, Mekakucity Actors provides a unique story that is more than just what it seems at a glance.
For Fans of Dialogue-Dense
The Tatami Galaxy
At a mysterious back alley ramen stand, a lonely college student in his final year accidentally bumps into a man that calls himself the God of Matrimony. There, he pours his soul out to the god about all the regrets he has about his college life, which he spent bitterly trying to break up couples.
However, soon he finds himself back at the very start of his college career. Can he change the past or will he just repeat past mistakes?
You like monologues? Because Bakemonogatari and The Tatami Galaxy are for people that like monologues and dialogue slung at them so furiously fast that sometimes you need to pause to have any hope of reading all the subtitles. In fact, The Tatami Galaxy probably does it even faster at times.
Dialogue density and speed aside, both Bakemonogatari present what is actually a rather simple story in a complicated and surreal way. While Bakemonogatari is about helping girls with supernatural problems, made complex by being told non-linearly, The Tatami Galaxy is a time-looping series about a guy who keeps failing, for one reason or another, at college romance.
A Certain Magical Index
Academy City in Japan is at least 30 years more advanced than the rest of the world, technologically. However, they also have a number of students that are honing their psychic abilities.
Unfortunately for Touma Kamijou, he has a psychic rank of zero, but he has an ability that the city’s scientists can’t quite understand – the ability to negate other psychic abilities.
Despite this, he lives a normal life until he meets Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a young girl who has memorized all the forbidden grimoires, and she drags him into the realm of the supernatural.
The Monogatari Series is one of the rare anime series that sets itself up successfully with a lot of spin-offs that expand the story and the universe that it is set in. A Certain Magical Index is more accessible, as in it has less entries, but it does the same thing to similar sucess.
Monogatari and A Certain Magical Index are light novel anime adaptations that you really can get lost in. The sort of anime series that require detailed watch orders to enjoy properly. They build out the world centering around the main character, and they make it interesting and unique.
However, while Bakemonogatari is about dealing with supernatural issues, A Certain Magical Index focuses more on the relationship in between science and magic when the world has both.
What Bakemonogatari and A Certain Magical Index most have in common is that they love driving the story forward through lengthy periods of dialogue. It is just characters talking, essentially info-dumping at times, but the camera work and the visuals help keep those moments interesting.
Katanagatari
In Edo era Japan, Shichika Yasuri practices one of the most unique sword styles among a culture of unique sword styles, a technique that uses his own body as a blade. As the seventh head of the style’s school, he lives in exile with his sister Nanami until the ambitious Togame barges into his life.
Togame tries to recruit him on her mission to collect the twelve unique swords known as the Deviant Blades for the shogunate. Interested by the girl more so than her mission, Yasuri accepts, only to later find the challenge in collecting these swords is defeating the legendary swordsmen that wield them.
Both Bakemonogatari and Katanagatari are by the same author, but unrelated outside of their naming scheme. While Katanagatari isn’t made by Studio Shaft like many other Nisio Isin works, it still keeps a distinct, often surreal art style at times.
As Katanagatari is – in its most simple summary – about fighting guys to collect a series of swords, it is a bit more focused on action compared to Bakemonogatari. However, it also features interesting characters and still has a lot of love for those lengthy periods of clever dialogue.
Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei
Nozomu Itoshiki is a high school teacher that is so pessimistic that even small misfortunes can send him spiraling into a pit of despair.
Surrounded by increasingly insane students, Nozomu’s unique brand of despair has its own way of affecting them, often in a positive manner.
Both Bakemonogatari and Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei were made by Studio Shaft and they have that “Shafty” surreal animation style in common. However, while both surreal, if not just visually unique, they also have a big passion for being particularly dialogue-heavy as well.
Both series feature one guy who is surrounded by a series of unique girls, helping them with their problems in a harem-esque sort of way. However, while Bakemonogatari is a romance, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is not.
While Bakemonogatari has its serious moments, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is a comedy and enjoys dark comedy in particular.
My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU
Hachiman Hikigaya firmly believes that a joyful youth is something that people make up just to lie to themselves.
After writing an essay criticizing relationships, he is forced to join the Volunteer Service Club that is aimed at helping others solve their problems.
With the only other member being the icy Yukino Yukinoshita, they use their wits and cold views on society to help others.
While Bakemonogatari is very different from My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU with its supernatural stories and surreal art style, both series sort of elevate the standard anime romantic comedy and make them feel like a new experience.
Admittedly, Bakemonogatari goes above and beyond just a romantic comedy, but My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU comes off feeling like a more detailed, intelligent series because of its love for intricate dialogue and complex characters.
Furthermore, supernatural elements aside, the school club centered around helping other students in My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU is not quite so different from Araragi helping literally every girl he bumps into with their supernatural problems.
For Fans of Supernatural Romance
Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Senpai
On a day like any other, Sakuta is in the library, and there he spots a wild bunny girl. This wild bunny girl, or rather, Mai Sakurajima, a semi-retired actress dressed like a bunny girl, catches no one else’s eye.
In fact, Sakuta seems to be the only one that can see her on that day and on many other days.
This phenomenon, called Puberty Syndrome, is rumored on the internet. As Sakuta decides to solve the mystery, he grows closer to Mai and other girls that suffer the same malady.
Bakemonogatari has this neat way of making you not realize you are just watching a harem anime until much later when you realize he has just been helping out a series of girls that all now enjoy him. Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai doesn’t keep it quite so hidden, but attempts the same thing.
Both series have a main character who has some sort of mysterious affliction. Instead of immediately focusing on his story, he gets wrapped up in the supernatural problems of various girls around town. While that is the hallmark of a harem anime, both series break harem tradition by instead having them form a concrete and delightful main romance with actual romantic progression that is often free of any drama.
While Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai doesn’t have that same Studio Shaft surreal art style, it does also enjoy long and clever periods of dialogue that, while lengthy, never feels dull or unnecessary.
Call of the Night
After rejecting a confession from a girl at school because he doesn’t understand love, Kou stops going to school and starts wandering the night with insomnia.
One night, he encounters a mysterious girl who believes people that stay awake at night are dissatisfied with the way they spent their days.
Following her into the night, she brings him back to her place and suddenly starts to suck his blood. Discovering her true nature, Kou now seeks to be a vampire, but to become one, you need to make a vampire fall in love with you.
Both Bakemonogatari and Call of the Night are artful supernatural romance series that utilize vampires in fun new ways. These aren’t your gloomy, goth vampires that populate much of vampire media.
While Call of the Night enjoys being creatively beautiful with its nighttime vistas, that is really as far as it goes. It’s not the surreal art experience that Bakemonogatari is. Call of the Night does enjoy some similar creative camera work like Bakemonogatari, but it isn’t quite as focused on the “art” of it all.
In essence, Call of the Night is a more approachable supernatural romance anime when compared to the confusingly non-linear and surreal Bakemonogatari. Call of the Night enjoys a linear story, but shares Bakemonogatari’s passion for unique and interesting characters.
Arakawa Under The Bridge
Kou Ichinomiya, as the son of a wealthy businessman, has vowed never to become indebted to anyone.
However,when he falls in the river under Arakawa Bridge, someone dives in to save him, thus he owes his life to this person. She is a homeless girl named Nino who wants only one thing – to fall in love.
In order to pay her back, he accepts her offer to be her boyfriend, thus moving out of his home and starting a new life under the bridge.
I’ve said it a few times already, but what’s one more time? Shafty. Both Bakemonogatari and Arakawa Under The Bridge are made by Studio Shaft and both ascribe to that famous “Shafty” style of surreal animation with unique camera work. However, as Arakawa Under The Bridge is a comedy, the surreal oddness feels almost more at home due to the innate oddness of the characters.
While Arakawa Under The Bridge is a comedy, it is also a romance like Bakemonogatari with hints the paranormal about it. However, while Bakemonogatari is, very clearly, supernatural, Arakawa Under The Bridge leaves you wondering – is the girl from Venus or is she just one more crazy homeless person among crazy homeless people?
While the story in Arakawa Under The Bridge is often more episodic, it does have moments of plot and romantic progression. When it dedicates itself to that, the story actually has quite a bit of depth. You just get really distracted by the odd array of characters and homeless shenanigans.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Kyon had long given up on his belief in the supernatural until he meets Haruhi Suzumiya. Haruhi, a strange girl in her own right, is interested in all things supernatural, but laments the lack of intriguing clubs on campus.
Kyon, however, inspires her to create her own club, and thus, the SOS Brigade is born. Unfortunately for Kyon, he is also roped into joining this new club dedicated to all things supernatural.
As Bakemonogatari has its unique surreal art style, it immediately feels supernatural even when everything is normal. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is the opposite. Everything feels normal even when something supernatural is going on, and that is what it is going for.
Both series are romance anime with harem elements where a guy becomes increasingly involved with a series of supernatural and paranormal problems.
Both Bakemonogatari and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya enjoy long periods of dialogue and using more artful concepts, but The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya isn’t a surreal anime.
The Fruit of Grisaia
Yuuji Kazama is a new transfer student to Mihama Academy. As an assassin that was raised by a notorious terrorist, all he craves is a normal school life.
However, with the school consisting of the principal and five other – all female – students, he finds his new school life off to a strange start.
As he gets to know each girl, he finds them just as irreparably damaged as himself, but their shared traumatic experiences bind them together.
While The Fruit of Grisaia is often more sci-fi than it is supernatural, what it has in common with Bakemonogatari is that they are both very strange harem anime experiences.
The Fruit of Grisisa is more obviously and unapologetically a harem while Bakemonogatari has harem elements, but with a main romance. However, they are both about one talented guy helping a whole bunch of strange girls with their problems.
However, despite Bakemonogatari being mired in the supernatural, The Fruit of Grisaia makes every girls’ problem intense. Dead sisters, cannibalism, helping people overcome their problems by burying them alive, being hunted as a terrorist – it is all so over the top, but without the nuance or even reality that Bakemonogatari brings with to its problems, and that’s saying something.
Regardless, it is the intensity it brings that makes The Fruit of Grisaia enjoyable. Even if you don’t enjoy harem anime, it is enjoyable in almost a comical way.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Bakemonogatari? Let fans know in the comments section below.
