WataMote: No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!

This anime was delightfully bitter. Something I truly never expected to find in this genre of all things.

Let's get the bad out of the way first: the claim that this anime is offensive. That's somewhat true. Sexual assault is trivialised with humour voiced by the female MC. There is also some fan service - a minuscule amount but totally ill-suited for the scenes they're in. Also the show gets very preachy, over using the "woman of loose morals" slur to make a point. This is hypocritical considering we're dealing with the nation that took objectification to an art form.

And now for all the good aspects. Regarding this anime as offensive towards people who suffer from social anxiety is actually a plus in my book. Not because it's actually true but because it proves the show pulled no punches when it came to how it dealt with the subject. The anguish, embarrassment and loneliness the heroine experiences were impactful for me. Tomoko's habit of conceiving plans to quickly rise to popularity at times got her comically humiliated. As a loner myself, this had the effect to thoroughly relate to her. Her witty inner monologue, sprinkled with anime and video game references, presents her as a reclusive nihilist. However she quickly morphs into a shy optimist every time one of her harebrained schemes to get accepted might have a chance to work.

And this is how the show tugged at my heartstrings... Tomoko transitions from resenting the happiness of others to briefly being hopeful for her own happiness and ultimately to deep sorrow, as things don't go her way. Stylised animation and the music score are sometimes used to emphasise these emotions. This unbearable sadness becomes bittersweet in the rare moments when Tomoko skips that whole emotional roller coaster and is sincerely acknowledging her pure need to be desired. When all of these pieces come together they make for one hell of a show.

As a final commendation for this anime all I can say is that I've never felt such a need to give a hug to a fictional character before. It absolutely deserved a more rewarding conclusion!

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.

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.

This show is somewhat difficult to rate and recommend, mostly because it has very specific and mature qualities, rather than being straight up exciting like some expect out of anime. It's about a bitter, socially awkward 15 year old girl that tries her hardest to fit in and become more sociable, but her fear and misunderstanding of people cause her to fail at it over and over again.

If you are the person that gets a lot of second hand embarrassment from witnessing awkward situations you are in for quite a ride. Feeling strongly related to the heroine, personally, this is what attracted me to the show so much. If it can make you feel things, than you know it is real, relevant, and it is refreshing to experience it from a third point of view. The people who made the show understand deeply what it means to be a shut-in.

If that sounded scary, don't worry! The whole show is done in a light comedy tone. If it wasn't, watching it would be downright unbearable. There are a ton of hilarious references to other popular anime.

I would strongly recommend it to people who experienced some degree of social anxiety while growing up, or people who want to understand it better.

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!