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

There's a moment in WataMote where the humour revolves around someone's mother walking in on them whilst a very, very cringey bit of audio of an unusual sexual nature that they spliced together plays over the speakers instead of their headphones. It goes on much longer than is comfortable and it's very funny. The humour in WataMote is overwhelmingly of the cringey variety and how you deal with that will likely effect your enjoyment of this show. How do you deal with The Office, particularly the British original version? That might get you some of the way to appreciating just how much cringe this show willput you through.

For my part I mostly don't deal with cringe-comedy all that well, perhaps because I myself - especially in my teen years - was so painfully cringey and can relate a little too fiercely. Yet despite the above moment being executed in such a way as to elicit a genuine laugh from me, for the most part I didn't find WataMote particularly funny, at least not laugh out loud funny. Unlike, say, KonoSuba, this provided me with just a few good laughs, and less than one an episode.

So why have I given it such a high rating, you might ask? Especially since I a) don't like cringe comedy in general; and b) didn't find this particular example to be mould-breaking in terms of how funny it was? Well, it goes back to that aforementioned relatability I mentioned.

Now, this is a somewhat controversial point. Writing over at Kotaku (in 2013 - yes, I am late to the party), Richard Eisenbeis described this as the "most mean-spirited anime [he] has ever watched." Well on this count, I think it may have flown over his head. Or perhaps it flew over mine. Perhaps the very fact I didn't find it supremely funny meant I didn't perceive it as poking fun at its protagonist. Certainly the show mainly consists of terrible things happening to our protagonist, Tomoko. Certainly she's not much excused from this parade of nightmares, with at least half of it being brought on herself by her own actions. Certainly, the show isn't much interested in helping Tomoko out of her predicament. So yeah, I can see how Eisenbeis comes to his conclusion. But I still think he's wrong.

I mainly think that, because I think this show offers a surprisingly, unusually realistic portrayal of extreme social anxiety.

Characters, especially female ones, who are socially isolated and awkward for one reason or another have been done plenty in anime and manga. From Komi-san, to Shouko Nishimiya, to Rikka Takanashi, to Yui Hirasawa, this is a pretty established anime archetype at this point. But Tomoko is wildly different to those examples. This aspect of her character is not meant to make her some moe object of our protective instincts, she is not designed to be an object of our sympathies (though she may well become that), and this isn't a story about how some life-changing event or person can magically 'fix' her.

Let me explain who Tomoko Kuroki is. She's someone suffering from very pronounced social anxiety who has arguably half a friend - if that - and who wonders why the only people she can speak somewhat normally to are her rather stand-offish brother and her oblivious mother. She deals with her inability to make friends, to be popular, or to find a boyfriend by placing the blame squarely on others. She fantasises about terrible things happening to the 'popular' kids (pretty much everyone capable of normal human interaction) - like, for example when she imagines the teacher announcing their class is now in a 'Battle Royale' scenario. In her internal monologue she employs a wide range of insults for everyone around her. She always assumes the worst of people - more a reflection of her own outlook than reality. The English translation of the full Japanese title of the show sums this all up: "No Matter How I Look At It, It's You Guys Fault I'm Not Popular."

So, right about now you may be thinking that mean-spirited sounds like a pretty accurate description of this show. This is not a character made to be sympathetic and yet she's not some privileged and powerful target worthy of mockery. No, the show by targeting her is very much kicking downwards.

The problem is, this only works if you run with the assumption that the show really is targeting Tomoko. I don't think it is. Because, in truth, Tomoko is -unlike many of these other characters - very, very real. We've all known people like this, even if back in high school we may not have given them much thought. Some of us, to one extent or another, have been this character. I know I've more than once fallen into the trap of blaming others for my flaws, of assuming if I don't fit in, it's because the group is not deserving of having me. Hell, half the time when people rail against 'normies', I think this phenomenon is at least partially at work. It's easier to assume we're part of a special, enlightened elite that the sheep-like masses can't understand. This phenomenon is certainly behind 'nice guys' and incels. It's a re-assurance we give ourselves when the world seems to be against us, and it's easier than accepting our flaws, much less working on them.

But that's the thing - Tomoko does work on her flaws. Relentlessly. Whilst her anxiety is chronic and heightened she never actually tumbles into full-blown depression over it, with each episode seeing her renewing her will to go on with a new hair-brained scheme to break through. Her optimism is actually quite astounding in light of the constant obstacles she is thrown. The tragedy is that the one thing truly holding her back - her anxiety disorder - is never the thing she's trying to change. And, realistically, for that she probably needs real outside help, but she never really seeks or gets it.

And make no mistake - this is a tragedy first and foremost. It is only framed as a comedy to lighten what might otherwise be an unbearably grim tale. And it presents a troubled teen that feels far more real than what we normally see, who just needs that special someone to appear, the whirlwind, eye-opening romance to occur and then - puff! - the anxiety disorder is gone. Reality doesn't work that way and that's what WataMote shows us and it cuts pretty close to the bone at times, making us uncomfortable in the process.

There's a tendency in the stories we see across most cultures to assume that there is a nobility in being downtrodden, a tendency to romanticise suffering. WataMote is here to tell us that actually, it's just kinda shit. That's not an inspiring, or an uplifting thought, but it's a true one. And sometimes, just sometimes, a dose of reality and accepting that reality, is, in it's own way, what we really need. Perhaps if Tomoko understood this and more readily accepted her situation things would be better. Or maybe they'd be much worse. It's hard to say. After all - there's no silver bullet, no magic elixir, no panacaea. There's just whatever works best for each person.

The narrator in WataMote says Tomoko's story doesn't matter. It's true she isn't going to change the world, or save it. But I think we do need brutally honest stories like this sometimes, so in its own way WataMote is important. It's not the greatest anime of all time, by any measure, but it is a pretty good one, all things considered.

Plus, by the end, you might have built up a much stronger resistance to cringe by sheer exposure.

Go watch it is my recommendation.