Title: No Matter How I Look at it, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular Vol. 11
Author: Nico Tanigawa
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 144
Genre: Slice of Life, Comedy
Publication Date: December 19, 2017
The Story
In volume eleven of Watamote, Tomoko makes a new friend in the most gloriously awkward way possible. Yuri is out sick so Makocchi will be having lunch with Tomoko by herself. She doesn’t like the idea, especially after Tamura tells her about how she’s a pervert and that she’s possibly into cute girls. Makocchi elects to eat lunch with her friends instead and Tomoko ends up liking it because it’s the first time she’s ate alone in a while. Guilt starts to build up and Makocchi goes to apologize to her… in the restroom. Her friends come in and since she doesn’t want Tomoko to hear them badmouth her, she corners her in a stall and covers her ears. Then… while they are within each other’s personal space, she asks Tomoko to be her friend. Tomoko, thinking that if she says no that unspeakable things would happen to her womanhood, Tomoko reluctantly accepts!
We also touch base with Akari and Tomoki. Tomoko finds them at the library and forces Akari to admit that she wants to see Tomoki’s man bits. Komiyama has zero shame and just blurts out that she would love to see them. Kind of a hilarious chapter, albeit a little short.
Kii-chan also makes another appearance which leads to, yet, another misunderstanding between her and Tomoko. Tomoko feels that Kii-chan has gone down a dark path and has become insane. She incorrectly assumes that Kii-chan is into furries so she starts researching them on the internet, only to get caught by Kii-chan. Kii only wants to understand Tomoko’s hobbies so she begins taking interest in furries, which leads Tomoko to believe her suspicions are correct. Probably the best line in the manga came from this chapter when Tomoko tells Tomoki that she and Kii will be watching from the second floor so he wants him to go out into the yard and take a dump, just so Kii can enjoy looking at a “dog person.”
Since these are episodic chapters, I don’t want to cover everything. Still, these chapters have been pretty hilarious and it’s nice to see Tomoko continue to grow a little.
Characters
There really wasn’t much character development in this volume. Things have seemed to settle out, but if there is one thing I noticed it’s that Tomoko’s squiggled speech bubbles are becoming less and less. She’s starting to talk more openly when around people. I know I made reference to this in my review of volume ten, but it’s more apparent here. It’s like all of these events are forcing Tomoko in a direction against her will, but she’s just letting it all happen and not resisting it all that much. She still has her devilish inner monologues, although those have been cut back on tremendously since the beginning of the series.
The misunderstandings continue to haunt her, though, but it goes both ways with Tomoko. For instance, when Tamura told Makocchi that Tomoko was into cute girls, that was a misunderstanding. It lead to another misunderstanding between Makocchi and Tomoko where Tomoko things she’s a lesbian because of her bathroom stall advances.
And then we have Akari admitting she likes Tomoki’s man bits. No misunderstanding there at all!
Tomoki does get a chapter where it looks like he may be taking an interest in Komiyama. He ends up asking Tomoko about her to which she replies that she’s a major perv. He then asks Akari who says she’s like an angel. Again, misunderstandings playing a big role in character development. Tomoki is trying to process the information, but we don’t really get much of a conclusion to this. Still, I wonder if we’re finally going to pair him up with someone or this could be another case of Tanigawa-san giving us some misdirection.
Final Thoughts
Volume eleven of Watamote delivered on the humor as expected. Although things have seemed to slow down just a bit once again. There wasn’t really a sense of direction, but it does seem that there were some foundations laid for future stories. We’ll have to wait and see in volume twelve if any of this is built off of. It seems that all of these new “friends” Tomoko is getting is through sheer pity. It’s like any friend she makes feels obligated to be her friend due to a circumstance that makes them feel pity for her.
In that regard, can they even be considered true friends? I always wanted to see Tomoko begin to make friends, but this just feels like a weird way to go about it, but then again, given the context of this manga, this is probably the ONLY way to go about it! Watamote continues to take that uncomfortable look at an introvert’s journey through high school life and does so in a way that makes you cringe and smile at the same time!
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press.
