One of the best series of the year so far. You really should give it a watch if/when you can.

I doubt this'll ever see an overseas release just 'cause of the amount of pun and verbal and written double entendres in it.

"I hope it gets licensed for an English Blu-ray release, ideally with those last three eps on-disk. "

Couldnt have said it better myself. My top show of the year so far.

Also ideally with all of the extras such as the in character audio commentary.

Yeah, it is one of the best so far for me too.
The conversations are witty and interesting.
And I nearly cried on the last episode. It was so good.

My brother works at Office Max. Maybe I should tell him about this.

good show but the ending song was most of the reason IMO. had a lot of pointless explanations for most of the stories

Absolutely one of the best series of the year but somehow I doubt that it is going to be licensed in R1. Just a hunch I have.

The reason why Bakemonogatari is liked by so many isn't primarily the animation, it's the character interactions. The scripting in the series for the dialogue is so well done that the last episode managed to have only four actual scenes total, yet it was probably the single greatest ending of any show this past season.

You can't really judge this show by the first episode at all - In fact, I almost dropped it halfway into the second episode. You really have to watch at least 3 episodes to get a good feel for it has to offer.

Also, the commentary on the bluray is pure gold. The voice actors all act in character as if they're MST'ing their own show and it's quite hilarious if you can understand it.

What Heero Yuy said: It's all in the script.

And, well, there's also the fact that it's originally a NISIOISIN work. Have I ever talked about NISIOISIN here? No? Well, then read some of the short stories in Faust, or the xXxHoliC novel, or the Death Note LA Murders novel, or the first Zaregoto book. They are all available in the U.S., and are good evidence of NISIOISIN's writing ability. The man is *insane*: He takes stereotypes, assumptions and preconceptions, and twists them around until they turn into something unrecognizable.

Senjougahara Hitagi is a perfect example of this... It's the most unusual Tsundere character ever, and everyone tells this to Koyomi, the main male lead, and he just isn't buying it. But look deeper, and you'll realize that Hitagi *is* totally Tsundere. She's just too smart and too "herself" to fall within the stereotype... But the Tsun-tsun and the Dere-dere are there. So weird. So *awesome*.

Also, from what I understand, the last three episodes were planned to be unaired from the start. If that's it, then maybe it was a case of SHAFT merely doing a bit of extra work besides their TV contract. Which is a lot, considering how busy they've been these days.

The commentary... Oh man. The commentary was penned by NISIOISIN himself. One more evidence that the man is a MACHINE of writing WHOAH and LOL STUFF. Next in the pipeline is an OVA series based on his Katanagatari novels. He wrote 12 of them. In one year. One per month. YEAH.

Senjougahara Hitagi is the best female anime character ever written.