Surely three months is enough time to be popular?
What They Say:
The protagonist, Kuroki Tomoko, thought she would naturally become popular once she became a “high school girl”, but reality was different… Tomoko panics at her situation and decides to take action to become popular. But… she doesn’t stand out in class, she’s extremely shy, and bad at communicating with others so she has to start by talking to someone other than her family first… The unpopular girl, “Kuroki Tomoko” fights her hardest to become popular, but… Does a bright future await Tomoko?! The struggles of an unpopular girl start here!!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Tomoko’s attempts to become popular are certainly comical as we’ve seen her go about her first three months of school, but at the same time we haven’t really seen her do all that much to integrate with other students. More often than not, she’s just off to the side, grinding her teeth and looking spooky and unnatural in a lot of ways with her expressions and style of low speech. To be expected, she’s more and more off to the side as time goes on and it becomes a system of reinforcement as it progresses. What makes the show work though, even as it does this, is that it’s not forcing other awkward friendships of similar people like her into her life. She’s just continually self-ostracized as time goes on, and that’s fairly rare in the anime world.
The more time goes on, the more we see just how bad things are for Tomoko as well. She has a hard time simply talking to anyone that she doesn’t know well enough, and that makes times in public hard as well, such as when she goes out for a drink and ends up with a huge cup when she wanted something simpler for her first time trying coffee and attempting to use that as a way to make new friends and mingle with others. Of course, being her first coffee experience with any guiding hands along the way, she creates a monstrous masterpiece that would make any coffee drinker cringe and laugh at the same time. It’s sad, but you do feel worse and worse for her as it goes on, particularly since so much of it does continue to be self inflicted.
Also not a surprise is that Tomoko tries to find some comfort in her games, which leads to a hilarious move where she pasts her face on many of the covers in order to make it seem like she has a really active life. Her imagination is a good bit of fun here as she even dreams of herself as a hostess some day and begins training down that road, but it’s the way she imagines such a life to be that’s comical since it’s so out of place with her own real world. Her attempts to become a cabaret girl are definitely great to watch in general, with some amusing real life experiences sliding in, but mostly just because it’s such a way to be popular that a lot of people don’t actively pursue for a variety of reasons. It’s also something that would force her to seriously step out of the shell she doesn’t realize she’s living in, and that makes it all the more fun to watch.
In Summary:
Tomoko’s foray into the red light district is one of those things that you never think you’d see, but they handle it really well here. What really drives this show is obviously Tomoko herself, but when you realize that it’s one actress that is carrying off something like ninety percent of the dialogue and screen time, it gets pretty impressive. So much of her internalized dialogue is available to use and that allows us to know her better than we get to know many characters. And like a lot of us in our own heads, she has a lot going on and it’s great to see such varied reactions, dream ideas and views of the world that many people do carry. Bringing her into the red light district for even just a bit to show her the reality versus what her mind comes up with is just the icing on the cake.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
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