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

I heard of and began watching Watamote during a difficult time in my life. I could very much relate to Tomoko and her struggles with social anxiety, acceptance, and popularity, this is what initially drew me into the series. I find the characters to be quite charming, Tomoko, Tomoki and Yu. All have stand out designs that match the characters’ personalities perfectly. I enjoy Tomoki and Tomoko’s realistic sibling relationship, it shows how you can be at each other's throats, but still care for each other. There are some really sweet family moments. The intro song is a banger, the outro song is pretty good. Theintro I feel shows in musical form Tomoko’s pent up emotion and frustration about not being able to connect and express herself due to her issues. It’s a really genius way to use an intro.

I have heard some people have found the anime/series to be “cringey,” which yes, there are some moments that can be awkward. But I find that people who describe the show as cringe resemble Tomoko more than they would like to believe, and due to that they can’t watch it. Now that I have a better time with my own issues I can look at the situations Tomoko finds herself in, and my own past situations and laugh about the absurdity of them.

It’s refreshing to see social anxiety to be portrayed in such an accurate way, albeit sometimes exaggerated for comedic effect. As most anime/manga have a girl/guy who is just shy around their crush, but fine around everyone else and has no trouble fitting in, they will slap the “social anxiety” label on them without even knowing what it is. As someone who has struggled my entire life with social anxiety, and who has been diagnosed with Anxiety Disorder it was very meaningful at that time in my life to see things that I had struggled with be presented in such a relatable and realistic way.

I have only read a few volumes of the Watamote manga, but I plan to continue, as I hear Tomoko begins to grow as a person and come out of her shell more, so that’ll be exciting to see!