Minor spoilers ahead regarding the genre shift in Watamote Watashi ga Motenia no wa Dou Kangaete mo Omaera ga Warui localized as No Matter How I Look at It Its You Guys Fault Im Not Popular henceforth referred to as Watamote is a manga by duo Nico Tanigawa. Watamote features the awkward hijinks of Kuroki Tomoko as it begins to dawn on her that she is not as popular as she imagined she would be at the start of her high school career. When the average person thinks of Watamote they probably conjure up some cringefest in their head of an awkward lonely teenage girl based on what has been thrown around the internet by this point. And for Watamotes first 8 or so volumes thats exactly what it is. If you dont find any of Watamotes early antics vaguely painful or relatable then congratulations you probably had a good unregretful adolescence. But theres a reason why Watamote garnered so much initial attention and why its protagonist was welcomed into anime fandom with open arms as Watamote began breaking similar ground to Welcome to the NHK except on a more familiar and less tragic scale its easy to imagine oneself in Tomokos situation and to recall ones own pains though one of early Watamotes greatest weaknesses is perhaps that its too content to wallow in its gag manga status. Its protagonist Tomoko is the embodiment of a socially anxious unpopular girl who does her best to be popular and you can imagine how well that goes. Initially I found these antics amusing. After all Ive reached a point in my life where I feel like I could at least laugh at my past misdoings but somewhere along the line it became almost painful to continue. Tomokos stark loneliness in the face of constant social defeat became almost distressing to read about. Small moments shared between her friends Yuu and Komisomething basically the only other supporting characters worth mentioning became sparse and dull but worst of all Tomoko herself stayed a deplorable pervert. It did not feel that Tomoko would ever achieve the needed introspection to realize why she was struggling so much to make friends. And I began to wonder why I wasnt dropping the manga of course by now you may have glanced at the score at the bottom and asked yourself Wait whats going on? This sounds terrible. But Ill get to that in a bit. Ultimately your early experience with Watamote hinges on how much repeated cringe humor you can really take. Though it is hard to talk about Watamote or at least its manga counterpart without addressing the elephant in the room that makes up its genre shift. It happens so cleanly that some chapters afterward I began to feel the strange possibility that it might all have been some fever dream in Tomokos head. Watamote doesnt really hit its stride until volume 8 and so this review might mostly be for the people who would have considered dropping it before this point though you can fairly argue that 8 volumes to get anywhere is a long investment. During Tomokos class trip in her 2nd year of high school Tomoko is chosen as a group leader and naturally ends up with all of the other people who couldnt be with their friends because their respective cliques had too many people for a group. And its in being with this group of people that Tomoko finally starts coming out of her shell and subtly changing as a character. Tomoko tries harder to connect with her new friends and despite various misunderstandings and Tomokos general attitude problems its a change from how Tomoko has usually carried herself. As these other characters are given reign on the last day of the class trip to return to their respective cliques for their free day Tomoko isolates herself. Though she wants to reach out and be friends with everyone else realizing that they all probably want to be with their friends instead becomes painful and in a stunning display of character for Watamote at least Tomoko pushes them away. And on this melancholic note I thought the arc would end. But Tomokos new friends seek her out. One of the new and more interesting characters that gets introduced this arc Yuri Tamura has her own struggles with loneliness and with this in mind Tomokos reunion with her new friends becomes downright heartwarming. Its my own belief that Nico Tanigawa began to notice a decline in popularity in Watamote during its initial 8 volume run and sought to drastically change it because following this class trip arc new characters are introduced old seemingly shallow characters are revisited and Tomoko is written to be a lot more likeable. Id hate to spoil any more on these new and old characters but the relationships and dynamics between these characters spring the manga into a new light and really make me appreciate Tomokos climb from the school loser to basically a center of attention. Tomokos initial cringe compilation is given meaning through these later interactions such as her passing interactions with the student council president and all of these events combined make it easy to root for her as someone who struggled in loneliness for two whole years of her school life. Though to talk anymore on these new relationships would be spoiling what ends up making Watamote so special and one of my personal favorite manga. Its amusing to note that the older characters like Yuu and Komisomething feel very dry and onenote compared to the newer more multifaceted and sometimes just plain funnier characters that begin entering the scene. Though at least Tomokos younger cousin Kiichan stays an amusing psychopath. But if youre one of the few who have just started reading it and love the cringy stuff then uh sorry but it stays really good at least