No Matter How I Look at It, this is a very long title
May 30, 2015 | 10:28 | Written by: snake911
Slowly I’ve been catching up to the manga series No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys' Fault I’m Not Popular! I just finished volume 4 and, as of this writing, I only need three more to go. It’s a series I’ve been enjoying a lot, and so far, keep looking forward towards to the next volume.
Even though the manga debuted first, I originally became aware of this series when I came across the anime that’s based on the manga. I wrote about it a few months back and absolutely loved it. It’s been a while since a show has caught my attention the same way the anime series did, but the reasoning could be that the story hits a little too close to home of when I was in high school.
The anime series titled WataMote is based on the first few books of the manga. I’ve started coming across a few chapters of new material that I don’t remember being in the anime, so I’m glad to be reaching new content I haven’t seen yet. I’m planning to go into more details regarding some of the characters and story. I don’t plan on spoiling anything, but just in case, I’m placing the rest of this posting behind a link. More to come after the jump.
The story follows the daily life of Tomoko Kuroki, a girl who just started high school. It’s a slice of life manga (a genre I never thought I would have cared for) that includes a lot of comedic situations Tomoko gets herself involved in. Her goal when she begins high school is to be the most popular girl there. However, things don’t go as planned.
You see, Tomoko has a terribly, soul crushing case of social anxiety disorder. She never begins a conversation with her fellow classmates because she doesn’t know what to say and whenever someone does talk to her, she always answers by speaking softly and mumbling almost every word. Since she speaks so little, the majority of text for the manga follows her internal monologue.
This is where we find out Tomoko’s true personality: she is a rotten individual. She’s easily irritated by her classmates; especially among a group of friends that hangout near her desk. She eavesdrops on them all the time and always has scolding remarks to say about them. Of course she doesn’t say it to them or out loud. All of it is her inner voice. It’s interesting to see so much dialogue for a manga not to come from word bubbles but instead from square dialogue boxes due to her always thinking to herself rather than talking to another person.
As you might have picked up on, Tomoko is an introvert. Even though she wants to be popular, her personality isn’t one that can achieve this goal. She’ll come up with some weird ideas on how to be popular or ways to catch the attention of others, but they never really do anything for her in ways of earning social points. Mostly these tactics end up failing in the most spectacular ways that causes me, the reader, to blush red in embarrassment.
After a few months into staring high school she realizes she hasn’t made a single friend. Most of it can be attributed to her social anxiety disorder and her negative attitude towards others. In addition, she does a lot of name calling, insults others of their hobbies or physical attributes, and wishes bad misfortunes on just about everyone she interacts with.
Physically she’s short, has messy hair, pale skin, and has very dark circles under her eyes (I’m guessing because she stays up late). Her interests are everything otaku related as she is always playing video games, watching anime, or looking at “let’s play” videos of more video games. When thinking to herself she usually relates things to videogames. Yup, she’s an otaku all right. Funny thing is even though she is one, she insults others by calling them otakus because they “live in their parent’s basement and never go out” or something related in that regard, but she’s basically explaining her own lifestyle!
Because of this, most of her ideas on how to become more popular are related around what she sees on TV. For example, she tried to be popular by being the quiet alien girl like she saw in some animes; hoping a boy would notice and try to talk to her. But since she is already quiet, no one notices her change in attitude, but it does get her in a bit of trouble throughout the day.
Actually, trouble is something she gets into a lot at school. Not in the sense of a fights, but awkward situations like getting scolded by a teacher for forgetting to bring a textbook or having her chair stolen while she leaves to go to the bathroom. Those were examples of her just having bad luck; but most of the time her awkward moments are brought on by her bad karma.
However, her school life is only one half of her story. The other half deals with her personal life at home, where her true personality comes to light.
Tomoko comes has a healthy family life. She lives in a nice two-story home with her mom, dad, and younger brother who is one year her junior. She has her own room with her own television, game console, and desktop computer. She has a loving mother who is a stay-at-home mom and a father that follows in the stereotypical Japanese salary man career, so you hardly see him, but still loves his family. Life at home is great, so there is no reason there as to why she is the way she is, so you can’t feel sorry for her because of a broken home.
She does like to torment her younger brother Tomoki, a lot. Tomoki is currently in his last year in middle school. He is taller than Tomoko, stronger, is popular, and is on the school’s soccer team. He also has circles under his eyes, but not the same as Tomoko’s. As Tomoko has dark circles for a lack of sleep, I think Tomoki has eyes that have a look of agitation as he always has to put up with Tomoko’s irritation behavior like finding out she ate or drank something that was clearly his or always barging into his room when he’s doing something important like studying for entrance exams.
Now even though she doesn’t have any friends at the high school she goes to, she does have a friend from middle school that she still hangs out with on occasion. Her friend, Yuu-chan, was a dorky looking girl with glasses back in middle school, but when staring high school she made a cosmetic and fashion style change to make herself fit more better at the high school she attends. She ditched the glasses for contacts, dyed and styled her hair, and wears stylish clothes. Even though she looks different, she still has similar interests as Tomoko like watching anime and playing games.
As a barometer of sorts, she is used to portray how different two friends have become since starting high school -- at least from a social perspective. While Tomoko is by herself, wearing bland clothes, and staying at home for the most part; Yuu-chan has made a number of friends, looks trendy, is always out doing stuff, and has a boyfriend. She even has a part-time job on occasion. Yuu-chan basically has the life Tomoko always wanted. Tomoko will usually ask her questions for advice on things or use her as an example to achieve a goal.
In addition to her family, Tomoko has relatives, too. More specifically, she has a younger cousin named Kii-chan. Having just started middle school, Kii-chan looks up to Tomoko and thinks she’s the coolest person on Earth. There is a short arc with her that’s included in both the manga and anime when she vacations at Tomoko’s during their summer break. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go too well due to Tomoko always lying about her social status to make herself appear much cooler to her cousin than she really is. There’s definitely some embarrassing moments in this adventure with her cousin.
Regarding the manga, I love how the books are short, but packed with content. Mainly reading the Bleach manga where each book is 300+ pages, it sure is a nice breather to have books that are about half the size (I don’t know if this is just the style of slice of life mangas). Also with comparing to Bleach, I enjoy the fact that there isn’t a huge arching story that can span across a dozen volumes. For the most part, each chapter is a single story. But there are some stories that span across a few chapters, or going in the opposite direction, a chapter may have a number of short, one page topics.
The cover of the books feels of high quality, too. I like how the style of the covers display a number of panels that are in the book, but I think it’s weird that they include a kawaii styled image on the cover. It’s kind of misleading of what the content actually is within the pages of the manga; which may explain the reasoning of including panels on the cover to balance it out. So don’t let the cover fool you! This is not a cutesy manga.
In addition, if you look closely, the front and back covers have transparent images that can only be seen when you have a light source reflecting off the cover. For example, volume one includes pixelated hearts, volume two has pixelated music notes, and volume three has pixelated snowflakes. Each of these books cost a bit more than the ones for Bleach, but I don’t mind paying the extra cost for quality books like these.
If you ask me, I recommend checking out the anime first. If you like what the TV show offers, I recommend checking out the manga.
