Title: No Matter How I Look at it, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular Vol. 2
Author: Nico Tanigawa
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 144
Genre: Slice of Life, Comedy
Publication Date: January 21, 2014
The Story
Volume two of Watamote continues the embarrassing, yet hilarious, attempts of Tomoko trying to become popular. In this volume, the first term of high school has come to an end which puts Tomoko on summer break. Rather than try to better herself, Tomoko traps herself in her room and just wastes the summer away… that is until she gets a visit from her cousin Kii. Her summer break caps off with her meeting a voice actor from one of her favorite Otome games and getting him to say some pretty outlandish stuff.
The manga went from telling a story chapter by chapter to stretching a few stories across multiple chapters, most notably the ones where Kii came to visit. Tomoko used to gloat to Kii about being popular, having lots of friends and having a boyfriend that couldn’t keep his hands off of her. The only problem is that she told Kii all of this when she was in elementary school. Now that Kii is older and in middle school, Tomoko was afraid that she would be caught in her lie. So instead of just telling the truth, she buries herself in even more lies that even involves one of the boys that gave her an umbrella in the rain from the first volume. She even decides to try and impress Kii by beating a bunch of elementary school kids at a card game where she even had to cheat to win!
Characters
Tomoko didn’t really grow all that much as a character. We only got to see Yuu in one scene where she was on a train, heading to the beach with some friends. Tomoki wasn’t featured all that much either.
Instead, we spent quite a bit of time with Kii, Tomoko’s cousin. She started off looking up to Tomoko, but once she realized that she had been lied to, Kii kind of gave Tomoko the cold shoulder, which prompted Tomoko to display her dominance over little kids in a card game. After Kii witnesses Tomoko cheat, she begins to wonder if she should start being nice to her out of pure fear that she would do something nefarious to her!
Final Thoughts
The first volume was pretty funny, but the second volume of Watamote turned it up even higher. Tomoko’s perception of the world around versus what the world is truly like is the polarizing comedy that’s driving this series forward. Each situation she finds herself in just gets worse and worse for her.
The scene where she’s on the toilet in the library after overhearing Kii confronting Kosaka (umbrella boy from volume one) about going out with a girl when he was dating Tomoko was probably one of the best reaction scenes I’ve seen in a manga. The amount of embarrassment Tomoko was feeling at that moment made you feel embarrassed as well. Tomoko knew that she had been caught in her lie and now she had to profusely apologize to Kosaka for everything, thus making the situation worse! It was my favorite scene throughout the entire volume!
The comedy in this volume was amazing. This is shaping up to be a great series! If you want a good laugh, then Watamote is a series you’re going to want to pick up!
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