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)
Since Tomoko’s high school career has not been going as she’d hoped, there are things gathering in the background that are now poised to make things even worse. The latest is the impending arrival of her cousin, Kii, who she told before that she was one of the queen bees of the school and full of just about everything. With Kii now on her way to visit her, she has to change her style and attitude to become the queen of the bitchy students and show her that she really did achieve everything she said she did. And that means doing things like shopping for bitchy clothes – that middle schoolers can pull off but she can’t – and learning the ways of being a real bitch, in her words.
The way she goes about trying to beef up her persona is comical, and definitely scarily funny when she gets the vacuum cleaner to create some hickeys, and she does her best to act cool and aloof when her cousin does show up. Taking her to the library for awhile to find things she needs, she ends up elsewhere and hangs out only to run into Kuroki. She’s in her usual mode with him, but everything starts to crack some with his friendly nature and the way he casually asks if she got the umbrella okay. That sends her into a spiral of confusion that’s grin inducing to be sure, but she starts to convince herself that Kuroki must really like her for doing that and her mind wanders all over the place in so many big, dramatic shoujo style moments that it’s a side of Tomoko that we haven’t seen much of.
The show takes a comical twist again when, upon Kii learning of all of this, feels like Kuroki is taking advantage of her since Tomoko plays it off in her bitchy mode. That gets Kii to confront Kuroki and it puts him in a spot where he hasn’t a clue what’s going on and is simply under attack and tries to defend himself from a slanderous reputation. Amusingly, the episode takes a different twist when Kii and Tomoko end up running across some younger kids she knows from gaming and it ends up with them squaring off, allowing Kii to see her in a very different light than what she had seen before. With Tomoko’s gaming skills being what they are, and her winner take all attitude, it’s no surprise it gets to be surprising and Kii isn’t sure what to make of it. But it is just fun to see Tomoko doing so much to try and impress Kii in so many different ways.
In Summary:
Tomoko continues to be the kind of character that really does outdo herself when it comes to ways to embarrass yourself on so many levels. Her gloating and boasting has come home to roost here with her younger cousin and while things are “all good” in a way at the end, just seeing the lengths that she goes to in order to impress her cousin is hilarious and awful at the same time. Saving face to be sure, but by putting on an awful face to do so. There are some good bits to be had here, both of them heavily with Kuroki and how each of the girls interact with him, but the real win continues to be Tomoko and the vacuum cleaner just for the sheer visual hilarity of it all.
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.
1 thought on “Watamote Episode #08 Anime Review”