¡No es mi culpa el no ser popular!

So when i first saw Watamote being released in North America i read the thumbnail and looked at the DVD/BD art work and was like hmm this could be interesting or terrible, anyways it went on sale for Black Friday this year and i decided to pick it up and give it a shot. I'm really glad i did, instantly it was very funny gave me a few honest good laughs just in the first episode. Watamote is about a awkward 15 year old girl that doesn't really know how to fit in, and i think theirs a part of everyone that can relate to some part of her, maybe not to her extent but at least a little bit and i think thats what makes it so much of a better anime. Cause even if its only a little bit i think 4/5 people will be able to relate on some level with some of her troubles and problems and thats what makes it good, cause its real! These things really happen to some people and there really are people that are really close to her level of socially awkwardness, i've met a few when i was in school. Maybe that makes me a little bias cause i've really seen people with these problems/weirdness. After finishing the series i recommended it to a friend and he watched some of it later that night and texted me saying how funny it was and how relate-able some aspects were from when we were back in middle school and that made him like it even more. The story line is pretty good for what its suppose to be about i really don't know what could of been added to make it better, i found it very enjoyable. The main characters voice was a little annoying at times but i think it did a very good job at portraying her awkwardness so i don't think it could of been better, Its a pretty hard thing to make your voice sound weird in general imo. The character design was very good imo, i loved the main character and her friend and the background characters were all appealing as well. The music was awesome especially the opening! The main opening is one of my favorites of any show, the animation in it is amazing as well.

4/5 Why not 5/5? It was good, it didn't blow me away but i found it very enjoyable, funny, and relatable in some ways. Definitely something i think everyone can enjoy and get some good laughs out of, i'd say 10/12 episodes made me laugh and about 2 were just like yeah OK. Also their is an OVA episode that i've yet to watch but plan to so technically theirs 13 episodes with 12 being English at the time of writing this. I'd love to see a season two, i'd definitely pick it up if it were to be released! Give it a shot you won't regret it!

I saw an article on Kotaku from a "writer" claiming this anime to be incredibly mean about people with social disorders. He went on and on about how these things shouldn't be made fun of, and that the creators are generally mean people. What he also mentioned, was that this show is a comedy. In true false humility, someone has taken it upon themselves to get uppity about jokes. Again. The problem isn't that these things could be considered offensive, it's that this isn't the type of comedy that appeals to some people. Now about the actual anime, and not why I enjoy the creators. I didn't find it very funny, the jokes were okay but never really stood out to me. The only reason I'd remember this is because of the kotaku article. The faces were funny, I've often taken screen shots and photoshoped them into inside jokes which I would distribute among my friends. Other than that, the show was surprisingly boring. In the end, I appreciate the idea more than the product.

I've never seen a show that can so quickly move from heartbreaking to hilarious and not skip a beat. The best thing about the show is unquestionably it's main character, Tomoko Kuroki, a 15 year old asocial girl (who I personally suspect has undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome) as she attempts convoluted schemes to try and make herself popular. On paper she should be horrible, with an unquestionably vindictive side, and a deep-rooted tendency to pass responsibilities. However, she possesses an unquestionable resilience, that no matter how dark and lonely it feels, she's still in control, with a fantastic tenacity to continue in her pursuit of social acceptance. Both English and Japanese voice-actors perfectly sell her anxiety and naivety. When she acts cruelly, the Universe usually punishes her for it, so she never reaches the point of her being unlikeable. These flaws allow us to laugh as she winds up in calamitous and embarrassing situations none of which I will spoil.

But this becomes the chief tragedy as well as a source of humour. As we see how warm and nice she was at the very beginning of childhood, to slowly see her devolve into isolation and rejection, from being almost transparent in Middle School to totally transparent in High School is hard to watch. To see that happiness drained from her face to one of cynical desperation can be hard to watch, but what is harder still is the main perversion of her character; her twisted sense of priority. Despite having the unquestionable love of those in her family, she appears almost ignorant of it, instead frantically pursuing the next scheme to somewhat increase her social standing for a brief few years at best. Her life has flown far off course and she doesn't even really understand why.

If you have a problem watching people in embarrassing situations, especially if you can relate to them, you won't find much enjoyment in the comedy. Tomoko's antics produce more 'Spaghetti' than the entirety of Italy. I found my cheeks physically hurting from the amount of cringe that was upon me, even as I laughed uproariously. We feel bad for her, but none of it is serious enough that we feel bad for laughing. We know she's going to come back with some poorly thought-out scheme next time and get right back on with it.

An obvious reason that the show took off was the similarity of the main character with many Anime viewers, who would have similar niche interests, as well as unsatisfactory social lives. It was ultimately 4chan who revived the Manga, and kept it from falling into the ether, igniting a wave of popularity in the West before the translation even came about (the creator would write a subtle thank-you to 4chan when the English edition came out). Tomoko is one of my favourite characters precisely because she is so flawed, while possessing all the right traits to keep me rooting for her, which is the basis of good writing.

I haven't even talked about the great opening which perfectly sells her anger at her isolation in the grimy prison she finds herself, the ED, which provides a magnificent dissection of her character in lyrics, and the animation, which uses colouring, and the lack thereof, to express the draining of her individuality beneath the crushing losses she finds herself enduring. Frankly, if I could have any form of interaction with her, I would simply give her a hug; she clearly needs some.

This anime is about a girl who has no friends at school, and does her best to try to make friends. The only problem is, she can't talk to people without getting extremely nervous. She has just started high school, and wishes to be popular. This anime includes some hilarious plots and subplots. It is often relatable, and most people will be able to empathize with her. She looks on the internet for ways to become popular, but all of them hilariously backfire and she is left back where she left off. It's a hilarious anime (yet sometimes inappropriate) that I definitely recommend for those who want to feel better about their own lives.

Really the headline can describe Tomoko as a whole, she seems like a nice character I'd appreciate since I like a lot of cute and silly characters, though this show suffers from a lot of tropes anime commonly suffers from. I really want to like this show and several others like it, but it has a lot of unneeded pervertedness, several uses of the R word slur, and some odd content hinting at incest between Tomoko and her younger brother, all which is off-putting to me. If these weren't in the story I'd probably appreciate the show much more, even I could understand the pervertedness aspect of it if Tomoko wasn't literally 15 years old.

This show is very silly however, it has a good amount of enjoyable aspects to it and Tomoko has good character traits that make me enjoy her character design as the loser girlfailure she is. As much as I'd like to say Tomoko is one of my MANY favorite characters across media, the odd anime details I mentioned above keep me from doing so or recommending this show at all, stuff like this makes me embarrassed of shows by association, therefore I can't say I'm a fan of Watamote, I just wish Tomoko was in a better show, had changed aspects of her character design, etc.

I don't much recommend watching this unless you're like me and saw Tomoko, thought "Oh this character is cute, I want to watch the media she's from" and then can also bare the unneeded pervertedness and odd content featured in it. Otherwise I'd say don't touch this one unfortunately.

Thank you for reading.