Tuesday 27 August 2013

WATAMOTE ~No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys Fault I’m Not Popular!~ - Episode 8

Tomoko's summer break continues with a visit from her younger cousin Kii - unfortunately, that also means that Tomoko is going to have to work on reinforcing the tissue of lies she's built up around herself.

Having previously told Kii that she has an older boyfriend who she fools around with all the time, Tomoko is determined to up her game and provide evidence of her adventures this time around - cue a session of trying to give herself hickies which ultimately sees her disastrously turning to a vacuum cleaner for assistance.  Still, Kii seems suitably impressed, and is even more so when she actually gets to see Tomoko with her boyfriend...


Of course, the reality of this is in fact a fumbled conversation between Tomoko and the boy she met several episodes previously who had given her an umbrella - so botched is this conversation that he doesn't even get Tomoko's name right, but it isn't as if Kii is going to know any better, right?  Naturally, the following day sees this train of thought fall flat as Kii spots said boy with another girl, leading to a chain of events which destroys her image of Tomoko.  By the end of the episode and having watched her cheating while playing a card game with a bunch of kids, Kii still looks up to Tomoko in awe - just a very different kind of awe to how her visit started.

Although it again only had flashes of humour to offer up, there was something oddly satisfying about watching Tomoko getting her just desserts so comprehensively, be it quickly ruining the possibility of any kind of relationship with the first boy to actually talk to her or wrecking her cousin's impression of her completely.  The trouble is, I'm not sure that means much when it isn't going to lead to any kind of character development in the long-term, which is the kind of thing that would work just fine for a laugh out loud comedy but struggles when you have a series that doesn't really have the kind of comedic punch required to eschew those other elements.

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