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

"..and her story that doesn’t really matter" This quote taken directly from the end of the anime, sums up every problem I had with it. The story follows a 15 year old girl named Tomoko Kuroki, who spends too much time playing dating simulators and watching videos. As a result, she is an unsociable loner, and suffers from social anxiety. Though the plot seemed interesting at first, it rarely moved on, and when it did , it just followed the same premise over and over again, which was putting Tomoko in some sort of awkward or embarrassing situation. I didn’t mind this repetitive formula at first,because the character and situations were very entertaining, for the most part, but then it just kept building and building until the very end which had no real payoff, as she never changes her ways.

I believe this problem stems from the writers trying too hard to be unpredictable and un-cliche. All throughout the anime, the writers play with your expectations that come from other anime formulas and they decided that ending the show with a young girl trying to make the most of her adolescence by learning from the embarrassing events in her life was just too cliche.

If this is the case and the writers just truly wanted to stand out and be unique, then they could have ended it with something better than what we got. Because the ending we got was a teenager who blames all of her peers for her problems out of sheer jealousy, and will continue to do so, instead of learning from her mistakes and experiences. Sure, this ending isn’t cliche, but that’s because it isn’t interesting and doesn’t give any sense of closure. The only explanation that would make sense of all of this would be if the ending was setting up for a season 2. Even then, it’d still be pretty bad.

Every embarrassing event Tomoko went through left me with this expectation of her to learn something from them. When I finally reached the end, all I got was disappointment that I could have literally skipped episodes 2-11 without missing anything other than a few humorous scenes. And that’s another thing. The comedy in this anime is really awkward. And when I mean really awkward, I mean REALLY awkward. Sure, I laughed at it, but for the wrong reasons. I laughed only to try to make myself feel more comfortable with the awkward situation because if I didn’t it would just be flat out sad and torturous.

The art and sound were good for the most part. I think appropriate would be a better word, as most of the time the music and art style just matched the tone of a scene, instead of being pleasant. I’ll admit I found it really hilarious when the music would match Tomoko’s mood and would go from sounding pleasant, to going off pitch and sounding horrible.

Throughout the anime Tomoko goes from an interesting character with a lot of potential, to an unlikable disaster. I think she was written with the intent to be relatable to, as we’ve all had our insecurities and embarrassing/awkward stages in our lives; this is what makes the anime funny. The writers seem to be pushing the viewers to try to sympathize with Tomoko, for instance, the scene where she sits and eats alone. The truth is, we all hated this part of our lives and we knew we were being unreasonable by blaming everyone else but ourselves, and not even attempting to make friends or talk to others.

This is where the issue of Tomoko never changing or maturing really comes into play. Halfway through the show, her thoughts just begin to sound like childish whining and complaining. Why should we sympathize with her if she isn’t willing to change or grow up? Where is the lesson to be learned from all of this? That it’s okay to be unreasonable? The lesson is so unclear, that I decided that there just never was one to begin with.

That being said I believe this anime could be enjoyed if watched with a different perspective than that of other shows. The serious lack of story progression and character development seems to follow the same formula for a comedy or sitcom where funny things happen, but the plot never really progresses at all. If watched from this perspective I believe that are some genuinely funny moments that we could relate to and laugh at.

To sum it all up, I was never really “bored”, while watching this anime because it always had situational humor. However, the same could be said about any junky cartoon show or comedy. Unfortunately, I look for more when I watch anime, and this barely average one continues to leave me disappointed and unsatisfied.

And remember..

"Seriously, it doesn’t even matter"