The text inside us: text on screen and the intertexual self in Bakemonogatari

Abstract Bakemonogatari (Monster Story) is a 2009 television anime (Japanese animation) produced by Studio Shaft and directed by Shinbō Akiyuki. To the plot and clever dialogue of the novels on which the show is based, the anime adds several striking filmic elements which create an entirely new layer of expression. Most notable among these elements is the profuse and reflexive use of text on the screen. The series is nearly overflowing with text, much of it highly conspicuous and disruptive, taunting the viewer with the promise of hidden meaning. Rather than attempt to decode this text, however, this article argues that the use of text to disrupt and infiltrate the narrative world engenders certain notable effects. For one, it creates a Brechtian alienation effect and reflexively calls attention to the construction of the anime. Most importantly, however, the use of text foregrounds intertextuality as a major theme; not only is Bakamonogatari itself intertextual, but also the anime attempts to show that everything from interior thought to sexual desire is ultimately intertextual in nature, linked through text to specifically historicized social constructs. Alienating text pervades everything, and therefore mediates everything, leaving nothing authentic or unique to the self.