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

WataMote is a comedy that could've easily have been a tragedy. Tomoko makes every social situation she enters worse. She fails at ordering food. She fails at making friends. She fails at saying a simple "goodbye" to her teacher after school. She has no one to turn to for guidance, and she is left alone to hopelessly figure out what is wrong with her. But it's still a comedy. Why? Because she never really gives up. No matter what happens, she will always recovers and gets up the next day to face the world again. For that reason, this isn't a story of a girl'sdownward spiral into hell but an awkward period of a girl's life.

This awkward period is presented in many ways. There's the creative visual gags to show Tomoko's social anxiety. There's the overdramatic music and sound effects. There's the VA's great impression of the average 4chan user if 4chan wasn't sausage fest. Tomoko is the greatest character of all time, and I'm not saying that because there's a figure of her staring directly at me as I write this.

Of course, I'm contractually obligated to express the flaws in my favorite anime of all time. Similar to real life, Tomoko's self-improvement is slow. She makes similar mistakes repeatedly, and her character development is minimal. This can get frustrating or boring depending on your taste. However, this can be a positive on the realism side. Also, outside of visual gags, the animation is standard. I would cut it some slack since WataMote limited by its budget and the fact that Cloverworks didn't animate it. (Cloverworks, please make WataMote Season 2. I loved what you did with Bocchi the Rock. Please do the same to WataMote. You will likely lose millions of dollars, but I will be happy.)

Thanks for reading!