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

[contains some spoilers] WataMote definitely isn't your average everyday anime. It does follow some clichés but doesn't rely on them to move the plot along. First off, the premise of this story isn't that much of an attention-grabber, compared to other anime. However, the simple fact of it revolving around a high schooler who has severe social anxiety, and spends most of her time playing dating sims, that was enough for me to be interested. After all, we all want to know: does she improve? Will she somehow be able to make friends who will coerce her to be more comfortable in her own skin? I'll only bediscussing three characters:
♦ Tomoko Kuroki (main character)
♦ Tomoki Kuroki (her younger brother)
♦ Yu Naruse (Tomoko's closest friend from middle school)

Tomoko's a very delusional, very lonely person. And for a good reason: she has no friends at her new high school and the only friend she's got goes to a completely different high school. She does her best to improve herself by trying to engage in conversations with her brother and by utilizing what she learns from dating sims, to apply irl. Needless to say, none of these really work. Whenever she observes her fellow classmates, namely her female peers, she curses them and claims that they're typical "bimbos" who are just boy-crazy. So... she's a bit hypocritical in that sense.

At the end of the day, you can't help but feel sorry for Tomoko and the different shenanigans she comes up with to try and socialize. I feel that she's a bit lovable in the sense that she can be relatable. All she needs is a reliable friend and some good healthy lovin'! They didn't have her immediately improve over time and she continued having difficulties befriending people. Nothing much actually changed. She's definitely a very flawed character, no doubt about that, which is what I really appreciated from this anime.

Now for Tomoko's younger brother, Tomoki. He doesn't play much of a role in the story other than providing more comic relief. There's actually a handful of times where they share tsundere heartwarming moments between each other. The thing that I appreciated most about their siblingship was the fact that it wasn't cliché. They don't get along very well, nor are they that close. They squabble but not in a way where it gets annoying after a while. There were also a lot of heartwarming moments where you get a blast from the past and see how the two siblings got along when they were kids. Truly "awww~" material.

Tomoko's only real friend, Yu, shows up a handful of times throughout the anime. She went from being average looking in middle school to transforming completely as soon as they started high school into your typical kawaii chick. I admit, I first thought that she was going to slowly start abandoning Tomoko but throughout the series, Yu was able to still hangout with her and be there for her as a friend even if they no longer go to the same school. And she isn't a horrible, fake person either. That again didn't follow normal clichés where the best friend does a complete 180 and turns into a full on b*tch and leaves the protagonist hanging. No, she stuck around. However, the thing I didn't quite understand about Tomoko was how she'd think lowly of Yu, even going so far as to calling her a b*tch just because she wore short skirts and was in general... cute. I'm sure it was just Tomoko's envious personality talking, but it did seem like she took Yu for granted more often than not.

There's not much to say about the art style. I feel that it's your standard run-of-the-mill animation. Although there were plenty of parts where the artists got to play around with Cubism during parts where Tomoko was really losing it lol.

Nothing much to say about the soundtrack either. The intro features a screamo song that emphasizes Tomoko's disdain of the world around her. The outro is a more light-hearted, cutesy type of song.

Overall, even though I didn't thoroughly enjoy the anime, I did very much appreciate how it was out of the norm. They didn't have any character that was too perfect or too obnoxious. Even the ending itself was pretty meh with no real happy or sad ending. I feel it was a somewhat realistic take on what could happen to a person with severe social anxiety, trying to break out of their shell.