Honestly though there isn’t a single trademark that sets Shinbo apart, as you said, it’s the sum of all the details he layers into each episodes, the references and metahumor and the constant waves of text blipping by (the OPs and EDs of his shows are also almost always very well-made and tend to change throughout the show’s run, although I don’t know if that’s a Shinbo thing or a SHAFT one). The overall effect is to make anime that really engages a viewer. Most shows you skip the OP and ED after the first couple episodes, leaving you a little less than 20 minutes, which you watch straight through. With Shinbo it’s often well worth watching the OP and ED (and there are often scenes set directly before or after them so it’s dangerous to skip), and you might have to pause and frame jog your way back and forth to read a bit of text that only appears for one or two frames several times in any given episode. It’s a longer process, but I think it makes the experience richer, in a nerdy way.

Bakemonogatari is obviously especially exciting because it’s got pretty witty writing to start with and pains have been taken to make the animation total eyecandy. It doesn’t even seem fair to compare the show to more mainstream anime in terms of color and light/shadow, I don’t even think characters in shounen shows even have visible shadows half the time. Bakemono (and to some extent Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei) is the only show this season I’m really looking forward to every single week.

As for Shinbo’s style overpowering a show, the only time I’ve really felt that was an issue was, like you mentioned, Negima!?, where it seemed like the original work had just been rejected outright. To be fair the first Negima anime did the same thing, Ken Akamatsu’s series isn’t exactly deep but it’s very, very broad, and for a high school harem show it would take a lot of action and huge backgrounds to animate it with complete loyalty. Introducing the weird little monster things and turning the main character into a Chupacabra felt like Shinbo saying ‘fuck it’, by halfway in the show was just falling apart. Can’t win em all.

I was thinking about writing about Shinbo in the near future myself, it’s gratifying to see that I’m not the only one in love with his crazy style. It kills me how many people out there complain about having to invest the slightest thought in their anime and object to his work because they might have to, gasp, read something or go back and rewatch a part that went by too quickly. If there were more directors like Shinbo in anime the genre might not have such a shitty reputation for being mindless and unoriginal.

I’m starting to find that I think that’s where “SHAFT being SHAFT” bugs people in a “why does it have to be like that?!?” sort of way, or in the “he’s doing more than necessary” sort of way, or in the “this is not what I want to see in my anime” sort of way. I like the extreme form because I feel like it’s done to make the audience more involved in the show rather than to sit back and have everything wash over them. But that’s part of why I like him. His cinematography and use of montage notwithstanding.

I’m always surprised no-one ever mentions the use of colors in Shinbo’s works, as the combinations and shifts between them can be pretty striking, and I think is also part of a signature of his work.

“I might have to begin to believe that I’m the only one watching Bakemonogatari for Akio Watanabe?”
I’m watching the show for both, among other things, especially because the last time I remember such a marriage between the two was in SoulTaker, and I greatly enjoyed that. :3

It’s an acquired taste, basically. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.