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

Every now and again, I'm reminded of WataMote, and it's difficult to parse my own memories of being a socially anxious teenager at the time I watched it from my feelings on the show itself. WataMote perfectly captures the combination of embarrassment, slight trauma and the twinge of endearment a lot of people associate with that period in their life In a sense it's the perfect anti-slice of life series, that loves to play with the tropes of the genre, acknowledging the escapism viewers usually come to this type of show for, and reflecting them in the actions and desires of Tomoko. She's an intenselyfun main character and watching her navigate popular scenarios for slice of life shows with her misplaced sense of superiority, social awkwardness and depravity.

For the most part it succeeds quite well at being a cringe comedy, but like many other similar shows that tow that line it occasionally falls into being more off-putting than anything else. There were certainly a few episodes where the main joke fell flat, or felt a bit repetitive making the show at times a bit exhaustive to watch.

From what I've heard, the manga went on to develop the character and the cast around her a bit more. While a part of me wishes this was something we could have seen in the anime adaptation itself, or in a future season, WataMote is a pretty fun watch that a lot of it's audience is going to find at least to an extent relatable for better and for worse.