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.

WATAMOTE ~No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys Fault I’m Not Popular!~ - Episode 11

The culture festival is here, and needless to say Tomoko is finding it hard to manoeuvre herself into a position to do anything much as preparation for the big event picks up pace.

However, eventually Tomoko does manage to find sufficient reserves of self-confidence to ask to help with cutting some leaflets, a task which she plans to stretch out over the entire day until she's assigned some help who make that goal distinctly impossible.  Not that this matters much, as she soon succeeds in slicing her hand open with a box cutter, which is perhaps not the greatest form of "clumsy moe" out there.

Still, at least this accident brings Tomoko into contact with the lovely chairman of the festival's planning committee (voiced by the equally lovely Ai Nonoka), who becomes something of a guardian angel who looks out for Tomoko from that point forth even if she perhaps doesn't register it.  For Tomoko's part, she's more worried about the visit of Yuu to the school festival - a visit which threatens to expose another of Tomoko's lies, which is quickly forgot thanks to our protagonist actually (shock, horror) having fun!

I feeling a little like this week's WATAMOTE showcases the best and worst of the series in a single instalment - on the one hand it can be quite sweet at times and even its most blatant nods to and parodies of anime have a certain charm to them, but on the other Tomoko is still an irredeemably horrible person for the most part which in turn reduces the impact of those sweet moments as they somehow feel less deserved.  As a whole, I'd certainly put myself amongst those who still don't really "get" the appeal of this series, but I have perhaps emerged with more of an appreciation of what it is that has caught the eye of so many even if it isn't something I can quite relate to myself.

WATAMOTE ~No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys Fault I’m Not Popular!~ - Episode 10

A new school term has begun, and immediately any thoughts that this is the real start of Tomoko's high school existence are not so much dashed against the rocks of reality as obliterated entirely.

For starters, a seat reorganisation sees her lose her prized seat at the back by the window, instead thrusting her into the limelight in the midst of a bunch of talkative students... not that anyone particularly wants to talk to Tomoko mind you.  Before she knows it, Tomoko's desk becomes part of the lunchtime furniture for a group of friends, leaving her to find shelter elsewhere to eat her lunch.  The school roof may not be open but there's a prime location available next to it, until even this is snatched from her, leading to her simply not eating lunch at all and quite literally flaking out.

Of course, the advent of preparations for the school culture festival is going to do nothing to change Tomoko's standing in her class - if anything, it makes her feel even more lonely.  Perhaps she should join a club?  No, perhaps she should start her own?  Tomoko's fantasies of life in an after-school club seems to be exactly what she needs to glean at least some enjoyment from her high school life, but when even these plans are shot down it seems as if there's literally nowhere left for her to turn.

Regardless of any debate about the frequency and quality of WATAMOTE's comedy, its almost entire absence in this episode leads to an instalment that is hugely depressing - I'm left half-expecting next week's episode to open with Tomoko hanging from a clumsily fashioned noose or something.  It actually feels a little odd to run this episode when there are still a couple of the series left unless they have something special lined up for it; this feels like a finale to the series to show that nothing has changed and likely never will, so I'm not really sure what (if anything) it has up its sleeve.  Still, at least it can only be more cheerful than this relentless and unforgiving portrait of abject loneliness - not that there's anything wrong with that kind of outlook, but without anything to actual say for itself about the situation I can't really fathom its ultimate goal.

WATAMOTE ~No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys Fault I’m Not Popular!~ - Episode 9

The summer break is nearly over but hey, at least Tomoko has a day out at the movies with Yuu to look forward to..

...at least, she did until Yuu cancelled those plans.  It turns out that Tomoko's sole friend has been roped into helping out at her uncle's cafe, which gives Tomoko something else to do as she's invited along to spend a little time there as a customer while Yuu works.  Our protagonist is both impressed and intimidated by the posh nature of the establishment, its food and clientele, and thus decides that she should work in a cake shop or something for the final days of her break.  Tomoko's mum duly obliges and finds a place for her thanks to a friend, but it's an experience that's very different from Tomoko's fantasies.  Welcome to the world of work!

Quitting this work in a cake factory after just one day, Tomoko is again left with nothing to do but lounge around the house - until her mum interrupts this inert bliss by requesting that her daughter help out with some of the cleaning around the house.  It isn't too long before Tomoko has had enough of this, trying to foist it upon her brother to no avail before being told to forget about it and focus on just cleaning up her own stuff - a mini-adventure which brings forth some interesting memories.  That evening, Tomoko heads out to watch a meteor shower as she reflects on her loneliness and wishes for a boy to watch the stars with.  Wishes can come true sometimes, albeit not quite in the way she intended.

Compared to some of its fare, this week's WATAMOTE played things with a pretty straight bat in terms of its story and comedy - it had some amusing (but admittedly quite lazy) anime and related references to throw into the mix in the name of humour, but its wider plot points were all pretty obvious and didn't really tell us anything we don't already know about Tomoko's character.  If you're heavily invested in the series as a whole then all of this would be more than enough to keep your interest, but for someone who has largely dipped in and out of the show in terms of my enjoyment of what it offers it was a little too unremarkable for its own good, Evangelion mobile phone theme or not.

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.

WATAMOTE ~No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys Fault I’m Not Popular!~ - Episode 7

It's summer break at last, and an opportunity for Tomoko to live her life to the fullest.

Of course, in her particular case enjoying life consists mostly of playing games and watching online videos, a revelry that soon gives way to questions in her mind about whether she could be doing something more worthwhile with her time.  With even posts to Yahoo Answers giving no responses, perhaps it's time for Tomoko to take to the stage with her own live stream?  With all the correct equipment in place, Tomoko's online debut is unsurprisingly not quite a roaring success.

As she continues to search around for something to do with her summer, Tomoko eventually strikes upon what might be the perfect way to spend a day - a meet and greet with a voice actor who will also record any line of dialogue you want for you.  After a distracted night where her search of what the limits of what she asks said actor to say turns into reading a bunch of ghost stories, Tomoko is actually surprisingly conservative when it comes to picking a line of choice... at least, that's the case until she hears what some of the other girls at the event have come up with.  As Tomoko plays with mashing up the long-winded dialogue she ultimately chooses, of course even this ends up in embarrassment - is there anything worse than plugging your headphones into the wrong jack at a moment such as this?

Overall, this is probably my favourite episode of WATAMOTE so far simply because it's (mostly) material that is far easier to relate to for me than this show's standard fare - the conflict between lazing around doing very little and have a fulfilling summer holiday is a universal one (writes the guy taking a week off work and spending some of it writing about WATAMOTE), and the riffing on online culture was amusingly accurate.  Plus, let's be honest here, who hasn't plugged their headphones into the microphone jack by mistake at least once in their lives?

WATAMOTE ~No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys Fault I’m Not Popular!~ - Episode 6

The summer holidays are almost upon our unfortunate protagonist as this week's WATAMOTE begins - but hey, finding someone to hang out and watch the fireworks with will be no problem for someone as steeped in the ways of love as Tomoko, right?

Of course, the trouble is that all of this experience comes from visual novels, but then again maybe that isn't such a bad thing... isn't Tomoko looking a little more radiant and, well, normal after a night of gaming?  Having noticed it for herself, there's only one conclusion to be drawn, and even a women's magazine seems to back it up - the hormones released from love and sex make a woman more beautiful.  Thus, playing visual novels and eroge non-stop will surely net her any guy she wants...

Indeed, the next day sees Tomoko receiving an unusual amount of male attention, which of course is absolutely nothing to do with the fact that there are ants crawling all over her or anything, while Tomoko herself  is too shocked to even respond to any of these "advances".  Thanks to this, even come the summer holidays and the fireworks that accompany it, Tomoko can find nobody to share the experience of watching them with her despite her best efforts.  Then again, it seems that fate has destined that she get to watch a very different display that night...

As episodes of WATAMOTE go, this has felt like one of the show's stronger instalments - its structure and pacing seemed to work in its favour rather than against it, and although the series remains anything but a pinnacle of hilarity it offered just about enough entertainment value to get by even if it only really had one joke to fall back on; that being the same joke as every week's episode, now I think about it.  But hey, even repetitive humour can tickle me sometimes, and this is probably as close as WATAMOTE has gotten to succeeding in its endeavours.

WATAMOTE ~No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys Fault I’m Not Popular!~ - Episode 5

It's been three months now since her high school life began, and Tomoko still isn't popular.  What gives?

The solution to this problem comes to her while watching a Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya knock-off on TV - she needs a character trait, and in this case playing the emotionless, silent girl is sure to have people fawning over her in no time.  Of course, being the silent character is not only pretty much what Tomoko does every day anyhow, it also makes her even less noticeable to those around her.  Perhaps the other extreme, that of constant cheerfulness and a glowing smile, is the answer then?  With simply getting some "cute" photos taken for stickers proving to be an ordeal in itself, perhaps not.

So, with these extremes of personality out of the window, perhaps Tomoko just needs to learn some communication skills, and what better way to do that than become a hostess at a sleazy bar?  After spending the time required to perfect such skills as using a lighter and stirring a drink, Tomoko is ready to ply her trade - at least, she is until she sees the true extent of the less than salubrious hellhole she could end up in, which leaves her grateful at the thought of returning to the warmth of her family.

Although not as cringe-inducing as last week's episode to any degree (thank goodness), WATAMOTE is still a series that doesn't know what it wants to be.  Is it a comedy?  Well, it isn't all that great at being funny, and when Nichijou starts besting you at its delivery of skits you know you're in trouble.  So is it a study of social anxiety?  Surely it's way too wacky and ludicrous to even consider such a title.  It seems like no matter how much I want to like this show, it does little more than deliver a smile or two from me most episodes, which is little more than slim pickings in a surprisingly strong summer season.  Perhaps if this were the only good comedy of the season I'd be clinging to it like a limpet, but as it is "not as bad as Blood Lad" is about as glowing as my praise can be at this juncture.

WATAMOTE ~No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys Fault I’m Not Popular!~ - Episode 4

No matter how popular you are (or aren't), at least your dreams are a place where you can let loose and live our some crazy fantasies.  Except it seems that Tomoko can't even get this right...

Not only does some online advice about how to have sexual dreams not work, it makes for sleepless night for Tomoko, meaning that instead she doesn't finally drift off and find the lewd dreams that she was looking for in the middle of class.  It's body matters which dominate this episode, as Tomoko contemplates why she seems to be the only girl that never gets molested on the train.  Yes, I really did just type that.  After much pondering about why she's left untouched, it seems as if he "dream" finally comes true, only to turn into a nightmare that is, of course, nothing more than a case of mistaken identity.

With no attention coming her way, it's clear that there's only one barrier between Tomoko and popularity - her underwear.  Thus, it's shopping time as Tomoko joins friend Yuu on a hunt for the perfect panties, in a journey that leaves her not just with some new underwear, but also a Boys Love game and a massager, albeit entirely coincidentally in the latter case.  Again, misunderstanding are the order of the day as our protagonist has to suffer some further cases of embarrassment to further shatter her damaged psyche.

Even if it hasn't frequently been the height of amusement for me, I've given WATAMOTE something of a free pass as it seemed to at least have its heart in the right place - however, this week's episode has me wondering whether I've been giving it far too much credit.  For all of Tomoko's maladjusted misadventures, even I have to draw the line at a girl wanting to be molested, and this kind of male gaze fantasy scenario unfortunately serves the purpose of tainting the entire episode with a suspicion that it serves only to sexualise its female characters (and primarily Tomoko of course) over and above anything else, all while taking that step back from the bring that anime so loves to do with an innocent look on its face.  This isn't enough for me to give up on the series entirely, but it's certainly made me seriously re-evaluate where it's coming from and who it's aimed for after an instalment that made me feel uncomfortable about its goals in entirely the wrong way.

WATAMOTE ~No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys Fault I’m Not Popular!~ - Episode 3

Tomoko is having a bad day in this week's WATAMOTE.  Yes, that's right, again....

While our protagonist doesn't really have to worry about boys seeing her when the damp weather has messed up her hair, there are more serious problems at hand - first, forgetting a text book and not having anyone to borrow one from or share with, then having a number of issues related to the heavy rain which lands up with Tomoko, umbrella broken, having to share her personal space with (shock, horror) a couple of boys in a similar situation.  Cue some decidedly awkward attempts to strike up conversation.

Things aren't much better the following day, as Tomoko experiences the ultimate shame of a PE session where everyone splits up into teams, but nobody picks our poor anti-heroine.  Having failed to figure out a way to feign illness to skip school, she still somehow manages to find a way to leave early, and once home sets her sights upon catching her brother's cold.  Given that the following day is Friday you can probably figure out how this works out, bringing about a miserable weekend for the hapless Tomoko.

As this series progresses, I really can't fault it for the feeling that it's having a lot of fun with its subject matter as it references Saki and Kuroko's Basketball while going about its not entirely merry business with an energetic eye for miserable loneliness.  This approach succeeds in getting some laughs too, although I continue to feel like some of its material is spread a little thin and would be better served were it more tightly condensed.  Still, this might not be one of my picks for the season but it's still a decent watch in its own unique way, so I can see myself sticking with it for the duration.

WATAMOTE ~No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys Fault I’m Not Popular!~ - Episode 2

For all of her foibles, even Tomoko isn't completely friendless - bleak though her high school life might be, she still has a good friend from middle school to hang out with if nothing else (although even she isn't exactly a regular part of Tomoko's life).

Having agreed to meet up for the first time since Tomoko and Yuu began their respective high school life's, our protagonist naturally frets about what she's going to tell her friend given how uneventful her life is.  Given that her grand plans to become some kind of class moe character really don't work out well at all, Tomoko is instead relegated to small fry incidents - sharing a sick bay with a boy suddenly counts as sleeping with one, and Tomoko is left thoroughly delirious by a cute picture that a boy drew of her as a portrait in art class.

Upon actually meeting Yuu however, the geeky, bespectacled girl she remembers is nothing like the beautiful young woman she finds before her at her meeting place.  Still, looks are only skin deep, and Yuu clearly hasn't changed deep down as the pair chat about anime, go to the arcade and so on.  What's more, Yuu seems to be equally frustrated as Tomoko with her high school life; the trouble is, her problems are on an entirely more normal level to Tomoko's...

Having not been particularly impressed with its opener, I have to confess that this week's WATAMOTE grew on me at least a little - its pacing felt just a little tighter, its eye for comedy a little sharper, and Tomoko just a little more like an actual person than a hideously exaggerated character.  Much of what the show delivers is very predictable, even at this early stage - it's almost like a teenage anime comedy version of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em in that sense - but predictability isn't always a huge problem for a show of this nature, and perhaps it has a little more heart than I initially gave it credit for judging by this episode.

WATAMOTE ~No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys Fault I’m Not Popular!~ - Episode 1

Tomoko Kuroki is popular.  No, really she is... she's spoken to guys at least half a dozen times during middle school, so high school should see her all-but ending up with her own personal harem, right?

This, of course, is merely the self-justification Tomoko reassures herself with on the cusp of her high school life - in reality, she's effectively friendless, and fast-forwarding a couple of months into the school year that shows no signs of changing given that nobody talks to her and any attempts at conversation anyone might try to strike up will only be met with a garbled, stammering response anyhow.

So goes this first episode of WATAMOTE, as Tomoko tries her best to avoid becoming a total recluse by firstly trying to make herself look cuter, and then by brushing up on her conversational skills.  Of course, these efforts end in misplaced disaster on her part, as her fashion sense is suspect at best and using her brother as a conversational partner doesn't really have much going for it either.

Having read a chunk of the original manga for this series, I knew what to expect from WATAMOTE, yet somehow it still manages to largely disappoint.  Yes, some of its characterisations of chronic shyness are right on the money (figuring out how to leave a fast food restaurant without classmates seeing you're there on your own was a particular example of that unerring accuracy), but this rarely translates particularly well into actual humour - jokes take too long to build up for too little pay-off, and Tomoko herself just... well, she just isn't very likeable for the most part.  Without a main character you find yourself rooting for, this opening episode floats through a sea of mediocrity that certainly does a top-notch job of adapting its source material panel for panel, but that doesn't have anything new to bring to the table.  Still, at least it managed to eke a couple of smiles out of me if nothing else.