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I noticed that in all of the typography (except for the episode titles), the
anime Bakemonogatari exclusively uses kanji and katakana, instead of the usual
combination of kanji and hiragana. For example,

> 「貴方をみる」

would be

> 「貴方ヲミル」

In my experience, katakana is usually only used to sound out words from other
languages, so this just seems weird.

Is this purely a stylistic choice by Shaft, or is there some deeper meaning?


CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-02-28T06:13:46.393
19732
2015-05-20T20:38:14.883
2015-05-20T20:38:14.883
1908
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question
japanese-language monogatari-series
Why does Bakemonogatari exclusively use katakana?


I strongly suspect the use of katakana here is just to give an archaic flavor
to the typography. Historically (pre-WW2 or thereabouts), [katakana was
actually used in many contexts where hiragana is used
today](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/14849) \- not just for loanwords
(note, though, that even today, [katakana has other
uses](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/1930)). In the same vein, the
show's typography exclusively uses [pre-simplification
_kyuujitai_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABjitai) kanji rather than
their modern _shinjitai_ counterparts.

Formal pre-war documents were frequently written in the "Monogatari style", so
to speak - look, for example, at the 1890 [Imperial Rescript on
Education](http://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2%E3%83%8B%E9%96%A2%E3%82%B9%E3%83%AB%E5%8B%85%E8%AA%9E#.E6.9C.AC.E6.96.87),
which uses exactly the same style: _kyuujitai_ and katakana.

I don't think there is any deeper meaning to the use of katakana, in and of
itself. Maybe there is something to be said about the archaic-flavor thing
viewed as a whole, though. (Personally, I suspect the thing to be said is just
"Shinbo thought it looked cool this way".)


CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-02-28T07:24:10.560
19733
2015-02-28T07:24:10.560
2017-04-13T12:43:49.183
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1908
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answer