WATAMOTE ~No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys Fault I’m Not Popular!~ - Episode 12 (Completed)

The culture festival is over and winter is fast approaching, yet Tomoko still isn't popular.  Is it too late for her high school life to blossom?

Beyond this question is an equally pressing one of her future plans beyond high school - with no ideas of her own she calls Yuu for advice, only to be reminded that she spent her middle school years insistently telling her friend that she was going to become a prolific female arms dealer.  I guess that's what happens when you spend too much time reading Jormungand...

With thoughts of the future causing too many bad memories, perhaps it's best for Tomoko to focus upon the present, and with a third of the school year to go there's still time for her popularity to skyrocket, right?  Having heard the gushing praise of her peers for the student council president, Tomoko wonders, and then discovers, what her classmates are saying about her behind her back - nothing, of course.  This soon changes when Tomoko steps into the breach to deal with an errant cockroach, but the shift in perception towards her isn't quite what she was hoping for.  Perhaps the student council president herself can give Tomoko some advice?  When even this goes wrong, it seems that it's game over for our protagonist.

As this series ends, so I feel like I simply wasn't the target audience for WATAMOTE - while I'm sure anyone and everyone can relate to moments of social awkwardness, the moments depicted here were mostly so majorly overblown that I could neither relate nor sympathise, which left me ultimately feeling impatience as I waited for Tomoko to learn some valuable lessons or grow up a little, which she never does.  I will give the series kudos for its final scene - effectively a middle finger and loud "who cares" to the idea that it's necessary to be popular and the centre of attention - but that sole sentiment isn't really enough to gloss over the fact that this series has too often misfired in its comedy or the way it presents its characters.  This anime adaptation is certainly a decent and occasionally fascinatingly presented attempt to adapt its source material, but it's material that doesn't really do it for me, leaving a series that isn't bad but one that will be quickly forgotten.