Review of WataMote: No Matter How I Look At It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!
This anime feels like it had one very clear goal in what they wanted to portray and they accomplished that extremely well. How can we portray the life of a NEET introvert to be so unattractive that it forces people to want to live their high school lives better? Watamote depicts most of the cringiest moments of people's high school lives in such an obvious fashion that it makes the viewer look back at their own lives. This show is a slice of life comedy following Tomoko Kuroki, a socially awkward first year in high school who has big plans to finally become popular inhigh school. The only problem is that her only knowledge about how to become popular comes from video games, manga, online forums and TV. Most of the things she tries are very hollow, superficial things that any cute, normal-ditzy girl could pull off in a cinch. However, they just make Tomoko seem creepy and give her more social anxiety and push her further away from her goal of becoming popular. If you love to see people fail and want to revel in awkward embarrassment, this show is for you.
Like I said earlier, this show really accomplished what it wanted to, so well in fact, that it gets really hard to watch at times. Most shows have characters that do awkward or stupid things that don't work out, but those characters typically feign embarrassment and actually are self aware of what they're doing and it turns into irony. This is not the case in Watamote and every situation that Tomoko gets herself in is completely her fault and she bares the consequences in the worst ways imaginable. For me, this comedy became overbearing over time and I had to put the show down for a while. I don't think it helped that I binged 7 episodes in a day, but I think the point is still valid. I really liked the VA for Tomoko as she truly captured what I imagine a NEET introverted Japanese girl to sound like, which is not cute at all. The OP and ED are also very catchy in their own, very different ways. Another great thing thing show does is their references to other anime. They reference K-On, Haruhi Suzumiya, Evangelion among others and they all seem pretty on point in timing and comedic value. That being said, this show feels like it isn't for the new-comers in the anime community. I feel that having a larger knowledge of anime/Japanese culture helps appreciate the show for the viewer. I would only recommend this show to friends who have seen quite a bit of SoL anime and anime in general.
Overall, Watamote was pretty entertaining until I got burnt out on the premise which it achieves whole-heartedly. The middle felt like a chore to get through but it picks up in comedy towards the end. It's a cringefest and even though I feel like I was the intended audience (albeit not Japanese), I enjoyed it thoroughly but couldn't bear cringing anymore. 6/10