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

To me watamote seemed like one of the more interesting animes coming out this season, it has an interesting concept behind it and it seemed like it would be something fresh, and I enjoy it when anime tries something different and doesn't stick to a formula like alot of them do, and I wasn't disappointed with it, but I enjoyed it in a different way than I thought I would. Story- The story is about a girl named Tomoko who has spent most of her life playing games, reading manga, and watching anime, she's basically an otaku outcast, sounds familiar doesn't it? Of course not everyonethat watches anime was an outcast in school, but quite a few of us that watch anime didn't have a great social life in school and it was rather miserable. What watamote tries to do is to poke fun at that subject and make light of it, which is does do, I was laughing my ass off the entire anime (most of it anyways), but what shocked me was how depressing some of it could be. Being a social outcast isn't a fun thing, many of us didn't choose to be that way (like Tomoko), but we couldn't help it, no matter how hard some of us tried we just couldn't be popular, but is that a bad thing? Anyways the story in watamote is fairly nonsensical, it's basically about all of the crazy shit she gets into throughout her life in high school, which I think works well for the anime. It kind of fits with the whole "i'm an outcast" theme really well. She often gets herself into ridiculous situations that alot of us can relate to and laugh at, but some of them are quite depressing when you start to think about it. It's a fairly odd anime to be honest, but Tomoko is a fairly weird girl so it's only natural that her story would be weird. All of the jokes and scenarios were really well wrote and seemed very original to me, it feels like something I would write from personal experience, although most of the scenes are exaggerated, but still remained relatable to some degree. I did feel that the ending was on kind of a cliffhanger, but hopefully there will be a second season.

Art- The art in watamote isn't nothing special, although I will say that alot of the "costumes" that tomoko wears is hilarious. it's drawn and animated really well and everything flows nicely, nothing too out of the ordinary here.

Sound- The sound assets really surprised me in watamote, I practically fell in love with the intro. You can tell when work is put into something, and alot of work was put into watamote, they even made it to where one of the opening scenes blended in perfectly with the intro, which was kind of cool of them. The intro itself really spoke to me, I find that most geeks and outcasts actually listened to death metal/ heavy music and I couldn't have wished for a better intro, it's also a custom intro, they don't use a random song and instead got someone to do something custom for it, which is always appreciated and is rarely seen.

Character- The main character in watamote is a fresh character. I can't really think of any of any other character that is comparable to Tomoko. She really seems like an individual and is wrote in such a way that you feel for her and don't want to laugh at the situation that she gets into, despite it being fucking hilarious. There are often badass characters in anime that are written very well, but alot of the time they're not relatable, it's hard to make a relatable character, because you have to write them from a certain point, a point that you could only write from out of experience. That's why she feels so real, because she is real in a sense. The person that wrote her more than likely went through some of the things she did in the anime, that or the person writing her personally knew someone in the same position as Tomoko. Either way they had personal experience with this kind of thing and that definitely shows because in watamote. She's an awesome character that I think more people need to know about.

Enjoyment- I really enjoyed watamote, alot more than I thought I would. it was hilarious, entertaining, and surprisingly depressing at some points. I was never left bored and was always interested in what was going to happen to her next. I enjoy things that are different, which is hard to find in anime, but just because it's different doesn't mean it's good, it has to also be good on a fundamental level, and watamote is definitely good on a fundamental level. It's only flaw would have to be that only otakus and other outcasts will really understand the subject matter, it's not highly accessible to alot of people. For me personally it's a 8/10 because it does so many things right in so many places and doesn't really mess up much in other places, although I can also see how some people would dislike, or even hate it.

Overall- Overall I loved watamote, alot more than I though i would actually. It was a really enjoyable and well though out anime that felt realistic to a degree despite being exaggerated in some areas. it threw me some curveballs in the sense that it was more depressing than I though it would be, I was expecting it to be all comedy, but I felt myself being depressed sometimes as well, which made me have a deeper attachment to the character and make me like her ever more. I would highly reccomend this to anyone that has ever been an outcast in their life and had a hard school life, it might help you get over some of that through comedy and you might even have a good time with it. If you however haven't been in that position then you might have a hard time understanding the main character and you might not like it because of that, either way it's a fundamentally well written anime and doesn't to be as low ranked as it is in my opinion.