In April 2008, an anime adaptation of Nisio Isin's novel Bakemonogatari was announced. Shinbo was originally the only director, but he requested that Tatsuya Oishi work with him as series director due Oishi's stylistic affinity for interesting colors and his ability to use cool lettering/Kanji in the animated medium, which he thought were beneficial in adapting such a unique novel series. He wanted to keep the dialogue more-or-less the same, despite the amount of dialogue in the work, which would be interesting as an anime; though, this philosophy in making the work proved to be somewhat problematic, as Aniplex producer Atsuhiro Iwakami planned the series as a 13-episode work. Enough content existed in the original novel to add another episode in the Suruga Monkey and Mayoi Snail arcs that would be otherwise cut following Iwakami's 13-episode plan. Despite the episode limit, Shinbo was adamant that the anime wouldn't truly be Bakemonogatari without the inclusion of Koyomi and Mayoi's banter and dialogue in the Mayoi Snail arc, for example. The total episode count was then increased to 15, but a separate problem of TV airing came into question: how would the team air 15-episodes in a television slot that only had room for the original 13? To Shinbo's fortune, the 12th episode of the series was the date between Koyomi and Hitagi, which he wanted to dedicate the entire episode to anyway; and in doing so, the rest of the Tsubasa Cat arc was moved to an online release in 2010, and only 12 episodes were broadcast on TV in 2009. Previous Shinbo collaborator Akio Watanabe was also brought onto the project as character designer and chief animation director. Several episodes were notably storyboarded and directed by members outside of Shaft's usual connections, one of whom was episode 10's storyboard artist Ei Aoki. Iwakami introduced Shinbo to the first The Garden of Sinners film, which Aoki directed, and he liked it enough to request that Aoki storyboard an episode.
