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It's (relatively, still) easy for me on a computer to pause in time and read
the text in every frame scene, but the show is supposed to be viewed on live
TV channel. I bet that's impossible to do this in real-time.

Is there any official position on the approach to reading these frame scenes?


CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-01T15:25:48.390
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2014-01-02T03:35:13.233
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question
monogatari-series
How are people supposed to read and understand these part-second text frame scenes?


Preface: I am unaware of any "official position" about how to read the split-
second text screens that occur in the Monogatari Series. I would be surprised
if such a thing existed.

It isn't always possible to read all of the text while the anime is rolling by
at 24 frames per second. Sometimes, sure, you can pull it off because there
isn't very much text, but some of them - like the ones in the first minute or
so of ep01 of Bakemonogatari, or the synopses that accompany the titlecard in
each episode of Nisemonogatari ([example](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rsrMP.jpg
"from episode 7")) - literally cannot be read in the time that they are on
screen.

And us English readers have it easy, compared to people who have to read the
original Japanese! It turns out that all the kanji are written using
[_kyuujitai_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyuujitai) ("old character forms"),
which were displaced by [_shinjitai_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjitai)
("new character forms") well over 50 years ago. Most Japanese people will have
some reading knowledge of _kyuujitai_ because of it use in literary contexts,
but I'm guessing they wouldn't be able to read them as fast as they would be
able to read _shinjitai_ , since _kyuujitai_ just aren't used very much
anymore.1

Luckily for the people who watch it on TV, they aren't really missing out, in
a sense. Certainly, the text screens often give us more information about a
character's internal monologue or state of mind, or some background exposition
lifted directly from the novels, or whatnot. Nonetheless, there is not (as far
as I know) a single case in the series where things don't make sense unless
you read the text screens. While the text screens do enhance the viewing
experience, Monogatari is still a coherent story without them. And plus, even
if you can't read every word of every screen, you can still read some words of
some of the screens, and that's often good enough to get a good idea of what's
going on in the text screens.

If you ever find yourself watching Monogatari without a pause button, you may
as well sit back, relax, and let the text screens wash over you. Read what you
can, ignore what you can't, and enjoy the show.

* * *

1 Also, all the hiragana is replaced by katakana, but I don't know if this
would slow down a Japanese reader all that much.


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2014-01-02T03:35:13.233
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