Title: No Matter How I Look at it, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular Vol. 8
Author: Nico Tanigawa
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 144
Genre: Slice of Life, Comedy
Publication Date: March 22, 2016
The Story
Volume eight of Watamote focuses on Tomoko’s class trip. She tries to leave school early in order to avoid selecting a group, but her teacher stops her and states that she will be assigned a group instead. That was all according to Tomoko’s plan, but what wasn’t planned was the fact that her teacher made her the group leader! She ended up planning the entire trip by herself as a result. During the trip, Tomoko was joined by two girls named Tamura and Yoshida. Surprisingly, Tomoko was actually able to talk to them quite normally at times. Outside of the places they visited, there really wasn’t much “story” in this volume as the class trip arc spanned the entire volume.
There was an interesting twist where the teacher asked if Yoshida and Tamura would look after Kuroki both during and after the school trip. She said she placed her in this group in order for her to try and make friends. Despite some of the situations that happened earlier (such as Tomoko twisting Yoshida’s nipples in order to try and wake her, thus sparking a heated exchange), both of them didn’t really seem to mind the thought of bring friends with Tomoko. Could this finally be the turning point that we have been waiting for all along?
Characters
There was a brief encounter with Komiyama in this volume where they ran into each other on the shinkansen on the way to their destination. They decided to take a picture of themselves to send to Yuu because she had requested a photo. Outside of this, there really wasn’t any interaction, but at least her appearance kept their love/hate relationship alive.
Yoshida took center stage as far as the new characters were concerned and it was all thanks to the aforementioned nipple twisting. Yoshida has a disdain for Tomoko because of it, but she ends up tolerating her. Just like with Komiyama, the heated exchange the two of them had caused Tomoko to break out of her shell a few times, even going as far as openly insulting Yoshida, something that’s highly uncharacteristic of her. Even with the heat between them, Yoshida still carried Tomoko up the mountain when she twisted her ankle so there is some decency in there.
Tamura, on the other hand, is kind of like Tomoko minus the social anxiety. She’s quiet and usually keeps to herself. You can tell she has a caring attitude, but she doesn’t really go out of her way to be an outgoing person. She will step in and play mediator if things get heated between Tomoko and Yoshida, though so it seems she’ll put herself out there on a selective basis. If anyone has a good chance of being friends with Tomoko, it’s going to be Tamura. I can actually see the two of them hanging out once the school trip is over.
Final Thoughts
I really liked the developments here in volume eight. It seems that we are getting closer and closer to overcoming the biggest obstacle on Tomoko’s path to breaking out of her shell. I thought that it would have happened with Nemoto, but she just seems like she’s being friendly out of obligation. Nemoto didn’t really spend any time with Tomoko like Yoshida and Tamura did. Add in the fact that her teacher is really trying to get her to make friends, that x factor could be what’s needed to set this whole thing off.
Either way, it was another mild volume of Watamote and even Tomoki got his quick one-off appearance with no development whatsoever. Just when you thought there would have been a touching moment between brother and sister, Tomoki had to ruin all of that by stating that the one souvenir that Tomoko was about to buy him wasn’t needed anymore, although I laughed when she bought him a gun keychain instead, thinking that’s what he wanted to upgrade to over having a sword key chain.
I’m excited to see what volume nine of Watamote is going to bring. The class trip should be over and we’ll see if Tamura and Yoshida decide to continue to hang out with Tomoko or not.
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