Watamote

Watamote (Watashi ga mote nai no wa dou kangaete mo omaera ga warui) is a comedic slice of life series.  It aired in japan in the fall of 2013 for 12 episodes and is based on the manga of the same name by Niko Tanigawa.

    Tomoko Kuroki is a 1^st year high school student who has no friends, no prospects for a future and no ambition.  However she quickly wants to change her position in life and strives to become popular and loved by her peers.  The problem is that she has no clue how to really interact with other people and her understanding of reality comes from video games, manga and anime.  Her otaku tendencies keep her from interacting and other people from being able to approach her.  In an attempt to change her image she runs through various scenarios in her mind as ways to become popular…will she be able to be one of the loved students in her school, or will she always be a socially awkward NEET.

    This odd series reminded me of a mash up between Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge and  Ouran High School Host Club.  There were some funny parts, but honestly I wasn’t impressed or entertained.  I actually started to zone out for the last few episodes, which didn’t seem to matter much in the overall course of the series.  The funny parts were in dealing with Tomoko trying to remake herself in popular girl stereotypes, which she seemed to turn into freaky caricatures.  Tomoko is an idiot and she doesn’t realize it, so it’s pretty hard to care for her success of failure.  The art isn’t anything special and the writing tries to be witty, with some references to other satirical comedy series, but doesn’t come anywhere close to capturing the creativeness of the series it name drops.  You can really just skip this series.  It doesn’t offer anything worthwhile aside from wasting time.

    If you really want to watch it, you can stream it via Crunchyroll.  Honestly it’s still better than half the crap available on CR anyways.