Another character to ponder is Koyomi and his motivation to help the people who approach him despite all the physical and verbal abuse he goes through in the process. Why does he keep doing it?
Anti-Climax Boss: Being an anime centered in dialogues and not battles, this is expected. The majority of the "fights" of the series either ends quickly or things simply don't heat enough for them to happen, and the antagonists are usually dealt with conversations instead of brute force. The only entry who averts this is Kizumonogatari, who is the most fight-oriented part of the franchise, and here we see in all its glory the fights of Araragi against the three vampire hunters and eventually Kiss-Shot.
Audience-Alienating Premise: As explained in this Anime News Networkarticle, part of the reason why it hasn't caught on too much in North America is that the series essentially does a bunch of different genres at once, which, combined with its extremely unconventional style and its overuse of Cerebus Rollercoaster, resulting in several episodes being Bizarro episodes relative to to other episodes, could throw off a lot of potential viewers. Furthermore, the extreme sexual overtones and fanservice, sometimes involving characters who are young girls, has also turned off many potential viewers.
Contested Sequel: Many who enjoyed Bakemonogatari have expressed distaste for Nisemonogatari, thanks to it dialing the Fanservice up to eleven. In addition, the pacing also drew flak, with the "Karen Bee" arc being drawn out over 7 episodes. Nekomonogatari: Kuro got the fans back on track, and Monogatari Series Second Season seems to have fully Won Back the Crowd.
Crosses the Line Twice: Koyomi getting into a fight with a 5th-grader, beating her up (mildly), and then laughing about it. The fact that she's already dead may or may not make this worse. The light novel's description of the fight made it worse, detailing liquids that came out of her mouth that may or may have not been stomach acid. Crosses the line a third time in a later arc, where the 5th-grader passes on and ends up in the deepest-level of Buddhist hell.
Common Knowledge: The entire Monogatari series became a victim of the "too deep for you" trend in the early 2010s, as it ended up being proclaimed as a supposed "symbolistic" masterpiece. What presumably started out as a meme and a troll joke ended up becoming fact thanks to YouTubers. Turns out all NisiOisiN wanted to do was write a fun work, albeit one targeted primarily at a Japanese audience (hence all the puns which are difficult to adapt without losing something in context).
Shinobu at the beginning of the series: Fifth place on the popularity polls while not speaking a single word and getting relatively little screen time is pretty impressive. People who never saw/read the story but at least recognised her almost always thought she was an incredibly important charatcer simply due to the sheer amount of fan-art she got (including a lot dedicated to the bathtub scene). This doesn't applies anymore after Nisemonogatari, since nowadays, Shinobu is a full-fledged heroine instead of a silent supporting character.
Kaiki is one too, following the massive amount of Character Development he got in Koimonogatari.
Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Fans have theorized that all the oddities simply stand in for otherwise mundane life problems; the ones with the most merit are Hitagi's (her "weightlessness" being caused by an eating disorder—it's noted, for example, that she has become much more attractive in the past few years), Suruga's (well, extreme jealousy, that's barely a stretch there) and Hanekawa's (her problem could disassociative, multiple personality, or bipolar disorder, depending on the interpretation of Black Hanekawa and the Tiger; it might even just be normal lashing out from stress). Nadeko would be "constricted" by the thoughts and actions of the jealous and spiteful, and Mayoi could be the worries of a child lost forever.
Ararararararagi-san. Attributed to Mayoi's frequent mispronunciation of Koyomi's name. See Running Gag on the main page.
People have taken to calling Araragi's mother Mamaragi.
Fashion-Victim Villain: Deishuu Kaiki. A tie you could jump rope with, that one. And that dress shirt is damn near an actual dress.
Fetish Retardant: When the Meddlesome Cat grabs Koyomi from behind, he licks his neck in a very sensual way. What's the problem? That the Cat's tongue is sharp enough to open Koyomi's carotid artery.
Harsher in Hindsight: When Tsubasa finds Koyomi beating up Mayoi, she tells him that it's wrong to hit a child without telling them a justifiable reason. We later find out that Tsubasa's stepfather physically abuses her. It's likely a deliberate example; Tsubasa has Scary Shiny Glasses as she makes the former statement.
Hype Backlash: For a while Monogatari used to be considered a snob title, with a big chunk of the fandom hyping it up as an critical darling and "smart" title. This mostly died down after the end of the anime.
Senjougahara fans have a pretty nasty tendency to really overhype her character, which came back to bite them as a much larger majority chose pretty much any other girl as their own "best girl" over Senjougahara just to spite them.
Les Yay: Between Senjougahara and Hanekawa during the Tsubasa Tiger arc. The cherry on top was when Senjougahara insisted that they shower together (which Hanekawa agrees to).
_______ Circulationnote There are quite a number of videos on the internet which puts raps or other pieces of music to the instrumental and giving it the title of "blank" circulation. This is possibly due to the fact that the instrumental was designed for the rapping in the actual song.
Bakemonogatari is a slideshow.note The show's frequent use of still frames, especially during dialogue, lead to many people jokingly claiming this. Nisemonogatari pretty much discredited this meme thanks to significantly improved animation, only to replace it with...
The toothbrush scene. Everything about the toothbrush scene. note Nisemonogatari somehow managed to make a person brushing another's teeth very erotic and a metaphor for sex. The fact that they're siblings doesn't help. Often brought up as the height of the Monogatari series's weirdness.
Kaiki is best girl note Spawned by Koimonogatari. Due to 1) Kaiki singing the opening theme, which is traditionally considered a heroine's job 2)his awesome role (see Ensemble Dark Horse above) his popularity increased greatly, generating him a legion of fans, many of whom call him "waifu" and "the purest girl of the cast".
Spooky Ouginote Describing Ougi as such became very popular, particularly around Owarimonogatari's release, due to her bizarre character design and odd mannerisms.
KIZU WHEN?!note Due the constant delays of the Kizumonogatari movie until it was revealed in 2015 that Shaft was planning to do a trilogy, it was common for the fandom to use images or texts related with the never coming release of Kizumonogatari.
Well, yeah. Though not really a harem anime, it has one guy and a bunch of girls, all of whom fall into traditional moe characterizations. In fact, some of the more observant characters make fun of it, like Oshino's habit of calling Senjogahara Tsundere.
Shinobu Oshino and Black Hanekawa are also this as well especially with Shinobu going over about donuts are nice and delicious is absolutely adorable and Black Hanekawa repeating what Araragi said with the most adorable face possible.
Ironically enough, Nadeko, who's arguably the one who fits the actual definition of moe the most, turns out to be invoking and exploiting this trope.
Okay, Araragi, it's pretty despicable that Hanekawa's guardians don't give her a bedroom and force her to live in the kitchen and hallways, but this is hardly the kind of revelation that should prompt panicked hysterics...
Senjougahara's expression when she finds Hanekawa in the first episode of Monogatari Second Season. They probably were going for showing how worried Senjougahara was through an unusual amount of expression. What they made was just silly. Also while the slap was decently animated, Senjougahara's followup by pounding her fists on Hanekawa loses a lot of the intended impact because she looks like her fists are moving through molasses.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Many people hated Kaiki because he was the cause of the divorce of Senjougahara's parents, without mentioning that he caused the majority of the problems in Nisemonogatari (poisoning Karen with the fire bee and selling information about Tsukihi to Kagenui) and that he indirectly caused the events of Nadeko Snake. Then Koimonogatari was released and with the reveal of his true intentions and personality and the fact that he defeats God Nadeko succesfully using only words, he turned into one of the most popular characters of the series.
Sodachi Oikura probably beat both Kaiki and the kid from Koimonogatari in the instant hatedom department. At first, she only copped heat from Ougi fans who were worried she would take screentime away from their favorite character, but following episode 3 of Owarimonogatari, where her character arc begins, there was hardly a fan who didn't despise her, mainly due to her completely unwarranted bitchy attitude towards Araragi. The hate softened a bit after Hanekawa and Araragi's visit to her house, where she's just too pitiful to hate. It helps that she took responsibility for her actions and her backstory was revealed: She probably has had the most severe Trauma Conga Line out of everyone in the cast, including outright Attempted Suicide and taking care of her mother's dead body because the death broke herthat much. Marina Inoue's heartfelt monologue was a big help, and within hours of that episode's airing, the hate for her switched to sympathy and schadenfreude. In fact, it reached the point where many in the fandom poured hate on Senjougahara because she accepted Oikura's apology in a rather backhanded, arrogant manner and refused to apologize for hitting her. Nonetheless, she's still a Base-Breaking Character due to meta reasons and the fact that some fans still can't forgive her for her earlier actions, but she's getting a great deal more sympathy than she got at the beginning.
Take That, Scrappy!: Senjougahara knocking Oikura out in episode 3 of Owarimonogatari. Episode 5 shows just how much damage she did: Oikura had to stay home from school for two days and her face swelled to the point where she couldn't pronounce the "ra" syllable, which might invoke a little sympathy- although, since Oikura did spend about 15 minutes talking shit to Araragi and Senjougahara and even slapped the latter, it's hard to argue she didn't get what she deserved.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Senjougahara becomes this in the second and final seasons of the anime, as she goes Out of Focus and her status as Araragi's girlfriend is used as a plot device to cause the other girls angst rather than to further develop her or their relationship in any way.
Unnecessary Makeover: Some fans dislike that Tsubasa Hanekawa lost her Moe braids and glasses, feeling the short haircut was unflattering though the white streaks she got during "Tsubasa Tiger" are considered an improvement. It doesn't help that Nisemonogatari had Senjougahara with basically had the same haircut making it feel repetitive.
, part of the reason why it hasn't caught on too much in North America is that the series essentially does a bunch of different genres at once, which, combined with its extremely unconventional style and its overuse of Cerebus Rollercoaster, resulting in several episodes being Bizarro episodes relative to to other episodes, could throw off a lot of potential viewers. Furthermore, the extreme sexual overtones and fanservice, sometimes involving characters who are young girls, has also turned off many potential viewers.