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YMMV / No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!

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YMMV tropes for the No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular! series

Tropes with their own pages:

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    A-E 
  • Abandon Shipping:
    • Shipping the Kuroki sibilings together was by far the most popular shipping option in the early days of the fandom, unsurprisingly given the Minimalist Cast approach back when the manga started and their constant bickering. Once the series moved from the Cringe Comedy approach and gained a larger cast it became a much less popular option with Tomoki gaining a canonical Unwanted Harem and Tomoko becoming the Launcher of a Thousand Ships.
    • Tomoko and Wada was also a rather popular option given he was the first male character Tomoko could talk to regularly back in the day, sadly it lost steam once Wada went back to be a Living Prop. Then Chapter 192 gave Wada an Ambiguously Gay implication that may or may not have been a joke.
    • Both Tomoki/Yoshida and Mako/Yoshida were very popular ships back when they started to be teased and remain popular now, but both have started to lose support from previous shippers thanks to more recent events. In the case of the former ship, many fans grew frustrated over Tomoki constantly treating Yoshida with indifference and annoyance, feeling Yoshida's character started to get derailed into just being another girl in Tomoki's harem. The latter ship, on the other hand, suffered thanks to latter chapters showing Mako displaying more manipulative tendencies thanks to her growing interest in Yoshida, feeling the relationship had started showcasing the worst aspects of Mako's personality. Some fans even started applying Dry Docking to Yoshida out of feeling neither option was good for her.
  • Adaptation Displacement: The anime only got to adapt the first 34 chapters of the manga, as such most audiences seem aware of Watamote as a Minimalist Cast Cringe Comedy involving the always failed attempts of a Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist Butt-Monkey friendless girl trying to become popular despite the fact this only applies to the first third of the manga and ignores all of the positive Character Development she gains through the manga. Likewise while the recurring cast of the series like Nemoto, Yuri and Ucchi are iconic and well-loved characters among the fanbase they are completely obscure to the average Anime fan.
  • Adorkable: Yoshida, who mixes being a Bruiser with a Soft Center with an endearing child-like obsession with everything related to Disney and a display of very clumsy social abilities when she makes an attempt to approach Tomoki.
  • Alternative Joke Interpretation: Some fans have taken Tomoko's admission that she has no idea what ending to give to the movie and that she thought she would figure it out when the moment came at the end of Chapter 211 as a meta comment from Nico Tanigawa, admitting they had no idea what ending to give to the very long movie arc or even the series as a whole.
  • Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • Angst Aversion: A major reason why the series wasn't a big hit when it was released. Many viewers found the premise of a friendless girl being subject to embarassing and humiliating situations in poor attempts to become popular was too depresing to watch even if it was Played for Laughs. It was originally gonna be much worse as Yuu-chan didn't exist before Executive Meddling and the idea of Tomoko being bullied was considered before the writers realized it would make the whole thing too personal.
  • Audience-Alienating Premise: For a lot of people, Tomoko's situation is a little too familiar. Rather than a funny reflection they can laugh off, it feels more like an embarrassing reminder of what having crippling social anxiety feels like, while those who don't have social anxiety can't identify with the story and pass it over. This, combined with Japanese culture's general disregard for mental illness, is a big reason why the anime flopped in Japan, yet has a strong American fanbase. It's also why the manga would eventually tone down Tomoko's suffering and throw her some bones by having her go through positive Character Development and actually make some friends, eventually moving away from the focus on Cringe Comedy.
  • Arc Fatigue: In general some fans have grew tired of the third year setting of later chapters feeling it has overstayed his welcome. In contrast with the first year running for 38 chapters (2 years in real life) and the second year running for 83 chapters (4 years in real life), the third year has being going on for 95 chapters (6 years and counting) and has covered barely a little more that the first half of the year. A major reason of the fatigue is that this portion of the manga would commonly have the characters reflect over things they would do in the future like what would they do when they go to college or teasing a potential road trip once the year ends, leading to some fans wishing it would skip to any of those options already.
    • The movie arc became infamous in the fandom to the point of being compared with the previous Trope Namer. It started on Chapter 178 when Tomoko and Nemoto started planning to make a movie for the Cultural Festival and it started avanzing intermittently for the following forty chapters, Chapter 186 has her presenting the idea. Chapter 201 has Tomoko finally writing the script after multiple chapters of doubting on what she was gonna make, Chapter 204 is a 3-parter of the characters trying to start filming (with all of them backfiring) and they don't conclude with the movie until Chapter 212. Then Chapter 213-214 are both 3-parters dealing with the day before the festival only for the Cultural Festival to finally start in Chapter 215, once the Festival finally started many fans were less excited and more expecting it to be over soon so the manga could go with something else.
    • The aftermath of the movie arc proved to have the same problem, as a full year worth of chapters were dedicated to the first day of the Cultural Festival.
    • For all of Sachi's popularity, some fans have grown tired of much time has passed since her introduction while she has yet to make anything of relevance to the plot, and hasn't even met Tomoko yet, despise having multiple chapters focused on her. Part of the reason can be atributed to the ongoing Movie Arc going on at the same time that the Sachi subplot.
  • Awesome Music: The anime opening which, hilariously, feels more at home in a battle anime than a slice-of-life show.
  • Better on DVD: The consensus around the Movie arc is that is pretty good in it's own right but that it went for so long and it suffered for so much Schedule Slips it became unbereable to wait for it while it was still going with some longtime fans even refusing to keep reading the manga until it ended. Opinions from the fans who started reading the manga while the Movie Arc was more that halfway through tend to be more positive.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The beginning of the OVA. It's a trippy, fourth wall-breaking scene where Tomoko enacts some Executive Meddling on her own show to boost ratings, going so far as to propose adding more lesbian subtext between her, Yuu, and Kii-chan, all the while dressed as Gendo Ikari in a place that looks like SEELE's meeting room. It has absolutely nothing to do with the plot for the rest of the episode, and is never mentioned again.
  • Bizarro Episode: The second Top Tier Tomoko What If? has the titular character finding an alternative version of herself that resembles the Tomoko from the early portion of the manga, while is treated as a case of Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane, is still jarring seeing a concept out of a Sci-Fi setting in an otherwise non fantasy-driven Slice of Life.
  • Catharsis Factor: Everything after the Kyoto field trip arc. If you were someone who was in Tomoko's shoes or simply felt very sorry for her in the early chapters then seen her gaining some positive Character Development and finally starting gaining some friends can be beyond satisfactory.
  • Common Knowledge: If the manga is ever mentioned online you will heard at least one person saying Tomoko gains a Yuri Harem post-Genre Shift. This is mostly a combination of the manga being rich in Les Yay and Tomoko being the Launcher of a Thousand Ships, but in canon, only Ucchi has being confirmed to be romantically interested in Tomoko (Asuka is right on the borderline), with everyone else being just the close friends she gains throughout the series.
  • Continuity Lockout: The series has an tendency of re-introducing characters that hadn't being relevant in years without explanation to suddenly make them relevant again (in the most extreme cases, characters would be brought back for one gag and then dissapear for other twenty chapters) or constantly turning irrelevant characters into Ascended Extras. The fanbase is small but very dedicated so a lot of them can follow it but more casual fans are often confused on who the hell are half of the characters in the newest chapter. Also, later third year chapters had a tendency of referencing events or details from older chapters either in the form of Brick Jokes or suddenly turning it relevant to the main plot which is rewarding for invested fans but confusing for those who don't remember every single detail from previous chapters.
  • Creepy Cute: Tomoko. Her Creepy Shadowed Undereyes, disheveled appearance, gloomy demeanor, extreme perversity, violent thoughts, and crippling awkwardness make her very uncomfortable to watch and be around, but her childish looks and inability to do anything right do much to make her endearing, instilling more sympathy than disgust. In-universe, this seems to be Ucchi's opinion of her, as while she thinks Tomoko is creepy, she notes that there's a strange charm to her creepiness.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: A lot of the series comedy is built on Tomoko's social awkwardness and depravity going so far that they shoot past painful into absurd. Tomoko seemingly hitting on her little brother? Not funny. Tomoko hitting on her little brother for no reason other than she's trying to contract his cold so she can miss school? Hilarious.
  • Crossover Ship:
  • Cult Classic: The anime flopped in Japan and the manga is far from mainstream but it has a very devoted fanbase online that has managed to keep it alive for over twelve years.
  • Designated Monkey: One of the major points of contention around the series is whatever Tomoko is one of this. On one hand, she's quite a jerkass in her own right that would commonly drive a lot of bad things towards her, who would commonly look down on equally unpopular classmates as losers, popular people as sluts and her relationship with Tomoki and Kotomi were clearly ruined by her own actions. On the other hand the fact that a lot of her actions come from her trying to deal with her crippling social anxiety and that her actions are in a attempt of gaining friends can make some of her Butt-Monkey status a bit too harsh.
  • Die for Our Ship:
  • Do Not Do This Cool Thing: Ogino is clearly meant to be an example of what not to do when dealing with your students' issues, given that her lack of tact at dealing with Tomoko's situation would often put her in more humiliating situations more often that not and she ends up coming up as a invasive annoyance rather than the Cool Teacher she wants people to think she is. However, if you take into account that (besides Megumi) Ogino was the only character who was actually trying to help Tomoko in the early portion of the manga and the fact that she ends up grouping Tomoko up with Yoshida, Yuri, and Ucchi for the school trip which indeed ends up making Tomoko get friends at last, there's a lot of fans who actually consider Ogino to be an unironic Cool Teacher despite her extremely flawed way of handling the situation.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Considering most of the cast is made up of ascended extras who started getting some level of popularity with fans before their expanded roles in the story this is in large effect.
    • Megumi Imae. She only made a handful of appearances before graduating but she's practically considered a saint among fans.
    • Kii-chan has appeared in less than a dozen chapters, but being a Creepy Child who is responsible for some of the most uncomfortably hilarious moments in the manga made her wildly popular.
    • Anna's popularity seemed to jump after Chapter 142 where she was given a proper name and, more importantly, invited Tomoko to hang out at lunch because she found her funny.
    • Ucchi's friends after Chapter 152 generally and specifically Kayo and Nagi. Kayo already had this status a bit due largely to her design but the former Glasses-chan saw a surge of fanart due to her easygoing personality and taking the lead in trying to get Tomoko and Ucchi closer.
    • Miho has gained a lot of popularity during the study camp arc due to her friendly and fun-loving personality, especially the way she quickly warms up to Tomoko.
    • The alternative Tomokos had only appeared in two Special Editions but are very popular among fans.
    • Wada is rather popular for his Wholesome Crossdresser tendencies, sharing some of Tomoko's quirks and pastimes and for being the very first male Tomoko could talk to regularly.
    • Sachi's popularity skyrocketed after Minami's story arc. In the official popularity poll for the series' 10th anniversary she placed 5th behind only Yuri, Tomoko, Nemo and Ucchi and she was one of the featured characters on the project's banner and merch over ones like Yoshida and Mako.
    • Kakinuma has a surprising amount of fanart for a character that's mostly a Living Prop. Possibly out of being the resident male Otaku Surrogate
    • Lampshaded in the Popularity Poll where the creators noted surprised how some minor characters -Kakinuma, Wada, Hatsushiba, Kiyota, Kayo, Nagi and Tomoko's mom- got a surprising amount of votes despite their lack of screentime.
  • Esoteric Happy Ending: The second What If? involving the Top Tier Tomoko ends with Tomoko finding her friends and hoping the mysterious loner she found would find a life like the one she has at some point at the road. This seems to be a happy final note but it never adresses Tomoko is still in a lifestyle she's not happy with so it feels more like she's just accepting she will never be able to return to her loner days rather that a happy conclusion for the character.
  • Evil Is Cool: Downplayed in that she isn't evil, just very unpleasant, but this is very much the reason Sachi exploded in popularity almost overnight. In a manga where most people are generally pretty nice and those who aren't tend to be Butt Monkeys, she stands out as a genuine Alpha Bitch with a domineering and manipulative edge to her that's actually pretty chilling.

    F-M 
  • Fandom Rivalry:
  • Fanfic Fuel: The Special Edition for Volume 18 includes a number of What If? stories showing what would have happened if Tomoko was able to join one of the various social groups during her first year of high school, including Masaki's, Minami's, and Asuka's. They're short, but they plant a lot of seeds for writers to explore in greater depth
  • Fanon Discontinuity:
    • The Misaimed Fandom refuse to acknowledge Tomoko ever managed to make friends, so they can still identify with her.
    • While far from universal, there's some fans who though the Disneyland Arc worked perfectly as a Grand Finale and found everything afterwards to be unnecesary, therefore those fans tend to pretend the latter chapters didn't happen.
    • The Manga's use of Comic-Book Time tends to be ignored, as a lot of fans prefer to believe the events of the series happened in a established time, usually starting in 2011 (the year the manga started) and ending in 2014. As such most fans prefer to ignore references to post-2014 things in later chapters like TikTok or Bocchi the Rock! and mentions of later years (a certain 2016 chapter mentions the year, but is so minor that it's often ignored).
  • Friendly Fandoms: Oddly enough, with Lucky Star thanks to both series having short, nerdy otaku protagonists and copious amounts of Ho Yay.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
    • The manga rapidly gained a fanbase outside of Japan via 4chan's /a/ — mainly out of empathy. It also has a fanbase on /v/ as well, despite their eternal rivalry with the former. The cover of the first volume even acknowledges the foreign fanbase. And thanks to becoming Les Yay driven since the Kyoto trip, it's one of /u/'s favorites to discuss.
    • This has also become a Colbert Bump - a significant number of people have bought copies of the tankōbon (despite not knowing the language) simply to support the authors, which in itself has drawn even more attention to the manga.
    • So much so that Square Enix ended up lampshading it with an April Fools announcement.
    • The authors even said on Twitter that this act was responsible not only for the anime being made, but also the continuation of the manga itself.
    • Early on, some fans on 4chan showed they cared by tweeting the authors pictures of their penises, which the authors acknowledged in an omake.
    • Reddit also loves this show.
    • Heck, it's actually popular enough that it was given an English dub and BD treatment by Sentai Filmworks.
  • Growing the Beard: The early volumes were well-done but having Tomoko be an absolute social wreck with scarcely anyone to turn to could feel repetitive after a while, bordering on pointless for some people. The manga picked up when it built up Komiyama as her not-so-different Sitcom Arch-Nemesis and eventually "frenemy", but many agree that the Kyoto Field trip was a major turning point for the manga, as it led to a small explosion of other recurring characters Tomoko could bounce off of. The anime just adapts the early part, though.
    • This is eventually acknowledged by Tomoko herself in-universe, where she muses to Shizuku in Chapter 149 that her life turned around after meeting Yuri and Yoshida during the field trip.
    • This is a bit of a divisive example however as there's some fans who found the pre-Kyoto Field Trip portion of the manga more unique and find everything after to either be good but not as good as the early volumes or Seasonal Rot, nevertheless the Genre Shift helped a lot to the popularity of the manga in Japan, so most will agree it was a necessity so the story will continue.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: The petty annoyances Tomoko inflicts on Tomoki, such as hogging the shower while he's getting sick and playing a prank on him purely on a whim, become less funny considering that this behavior is what made him start hating her in the first place.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • The manga club guy comments that he draws the same type of face for background characters because it is the easiest for him to draw. Later, Nico Tanigawa would publish Number Girl, a 4-Koma about... clones.
    • In Chapter 9 of the manga, Tomoko has a self-insert fantasy about Fate/Zero, where she's an eighth Master and her Servant is Souji Okita as an Assassin. Several years later, Fate/Grand Order would introduce Souji Okita as a Servant, but Okita turns out to be a Saber-class Servant as well as female.note 
    • Pokémon X and Y reintroduces the Hex Maniac trainer class - which now bears a striking resemblance to Tomoko (and the Fairy Girl trainer class to Yuu). Much Memetic Mutation ensued.
    • Unfortunately, local BD sales of the anime weren't good. But Tomoko was right since the very beginning: the title No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular! is entirely true because it really is those Japanese guys' fault, as she's more popular among foreign fans.
    • In Episode 8, the boy who brought Tomoko an umbrella sees Tomoko again, and she tells him her name. He mishears it as "Momoko" and Tomoko freaks out, which is incidentally the name of another character that Monica Rial played, from Ghost Stories.
    • Tomoko muses with Komi and Yuu that if her life was a show, she'd probably have it turn into a schoolgirl ensemble show, increase yuri subtext, and find a male friend for her brother so that people can ship them together. By the end of Tomoko's second year and going into her third, she's amazingly achieved most of that list through no fault of her own. The BL teasing however does not go to Tomoki, but to her classmate Wada, who is often the subject of crossdressing and gay jokes for his twinkish appearance.
    • All of Tomoko's Slut-Shaming comments toward Hina and Akane in the early chapters become a whole lot funnier when later chapters confirm that not only are both girls virgins as well, but they're also much more innocent than Tomoko.
    • Considering the other WataMote is about a Yaoi Fangirl slowly building up a (mostly) heterosexual harem over the course of the series, Otome nerd Tomoko's own Homoerotic Subtext-riddled circle of friends seems like an inverse.
    • The more overtly yuri tone and questions regarding Tomoko's sexuality once fans learned that Izumi Kitta, Tomoko's VA, is herself a huge proponent of the yuri genre and has even written her own yuri manga.
    • Tomoko's Sitcom Arch-Nemesis being nicknamed "Komi-chan" or "Komi-something" seems weirdly prophetic of the Fandom Rivalry between this series and Komi Can't Communicate
  • Ho Yay: Lovingly crafted here. It's a lot of Les Yay.
  • Hollywood Homely:
    • Tomoko, though less so than most examples, especially by anime standards. For an anti-social shut-in, she actually looks the part, with dull, baggy eyes and regularly making some rather unflattering facial expressions. Later on, several characters remark that Tomoko actually can look attractive when she bothers to make an effort.
    • Discussed in Chapter 132. While reading a shoujo manga, Tomoko observes how the protagonist looks beautiful and attracts a lot of male admirers even though she's supposed to be plain, and goes on to speculate that a live-action adaptation would most likely cast her with a model. Tomoko notes how the use of this trope in manga is what largely instilled in her the hope that a real plain girl like her could have a similar high school experience.
  • Humor Dissonance: Justified. For the in-universe audience, A Youth Like This comes off as an awkward amateur movie, with most of the jokes failing to land. This would probably be the impression readers would have, but given they would be aware of the movie's Troubled Production, the reasoning behind the weirder choices in it, the in-universe Reality Subtext, and the awkwardness of the whole thing feeding into the manga's trademark Cringe Comedy, they're more likely to find it funnier than the characters do, albeit for different reasons than Tomoko intended.
  • Hype Backlash: As noted in Base-Breaking Character, a lot of fans struggle to understand why Sachi became so popular with the fanbase, either arguing she's nothing but a generic Alpha Bitch that adds nothing of relevance to the story, regard her as a boring character or simply feel she doesn't fit with the tone of the manga. Even those who do like or love her admitted surprise once she got 5th place in the popularity poll, with more that a few fans feeling the series has much more interesting or funnier characters that got lower places in favour of her.
  • I Am Not Shazam: Some casual viewers tend to refer to Tomoko as "Watamote". Especially funny, considering "Watamote" is not even the title of the manga but rather it's abbreviation.
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Sachi starting to misundertand the relationships around Tomoki got some criticisms as is the third time a subplot about a secondary character being Entertainingly Wrong about the Kurokis has happened after Akari and Fuuka.
  • It Was His Sled: Tomoko ends up making friends after the Kyoto arc. Not only is well know to anyone who knows a bit about the manga as well as a Late-Arrival Spoiler given her friends appear in the covers, fans deliberately spoil this to incentivate people sad with the anime's conclusion to read the manga.
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • Tomoko responds to her social isolation by becoming really embittered and mean spirited. It's a regrettably accurate depiction of the way a lot of people do react to social isolation, especially adolescents who are usually a bit self centered and immature to begin with. Viewers can recognize this as a counterproductive personal flaw, but it's also a very relatable one. Of course, Tomoko's jerkass tendencies are somewhat softened by the fact that she's too introverted and inept to do any real harm, and nobody is sufficiently invested in their relationship with her for her to have much of an impact one way or the other.
    • Minami is not a nice person. If she's not laughing at other people's misfortunes, she's talking smack about them behind their backs, and is just a smug Alpha Bitch all around. However, it's hard not to feel at least a little sorry for her during her third year. She was separated from her usual clique, and her personality leaves her incapable of connecting with anyone in her new class, which has left her lonely and isolated in a way that's not so different from Tomoko.
    • Ucchi can take for granted her friends way too much and can come up as unpleasant every time her plans to be with Tomoko go south, not to mention her Cannot Spit It Out tendencies would often hurt Tomoko and put even more distance between the two but she's also a very confused girl that's trying to approach her crush who doesn't have any idea how to connect with and doesn't even seem to fully understand her feelings really well and to top it all, not only the girl she has a crush on is unaware of her feelings but is completely indifferent towards her. It helps that the times we see her not related to Tomoko she's shown to be nothing but a Nice Girl.
  • Just Here for Godzilla: The OVA is by no means unpopular but the reason most fans even bother to look it up is because of having Kotomi's only anime appearence.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Let's just say that both Kuroki's sibilings have a Chick Magnet reputation among the fanbase. If a new character isn't shipped with one of them, chances are it will be shipped with the other sibiling.
    • Pick a named character. Any named character. Chances are good someone is shipping them with Tomoko. Yuu, Yuri, Nemo, Asuka, Shizuku, Ucchi, Wada, Tomoki? All valid picks.
    • Tomoki being The One Guy also gets a bit share of this. Not helped by at least 4 girls (Komiyama, Akari, Yoshida and Sacchi) being attracted to him in canon and the possibillity of other girls being interesed in him (Sayaka and Yuri) had been discussed.
  • LGBT Fanbase: The protagonist being a perverted Ambiguously Bi, the focus on female characters and the relationships formed between them, the amount of Les Yay it started to gain after the Genre Shift, a good number of characters being implied to be lesbians and Ucchi has turned the series into a favorite among Yuri enthusiasts. It has come to the point it was ranked 25th in a poll about Yuri manga in a Yuri-dedicated site, despite the fact the manga isn't actually a Yuri.
  • Love to Hate: A weird non-villanous example. Ogino is the worst nightmare of any introvert, an adult that tries to help Tomoko to make friends but has so little tact and subtleness that constantly makes things worse or more embarrassing for her. She would probably be The Scrappy if she wasn't such a good representation of that sort of person and that to more that a few of the readers that passed for a situation similar to Tomoko, would have met someone similar to her, she's also very funny.
  • Memetic Bystander: Futaki (Fan Nickname'd "Potential-san" based on this omake◊), the recurring student with a completely blank dot-eyed expression and later an equally-fixed triangle-mouth. She's immediately memorable just for looking really, really weird, and fans have been coming up with theories as to who she might be despite having only a few background appearances and two short lines before the authors gave her a more prominent role starting with Chapter 147.
  • Memetic Loser:
    • Poor Ucchi, she's already a Butt-Monkey in canon, but Fan Works love to play it up to eleven, turning her into such a huge Hopeless Suitor that everyone in the school including her own best friends had better chances to hook up with Tomoko that she has (not helped by Tomoko/Miyazaki being a decently popular Crack Pairing).
    • Komiyama doesn't fare much better. Despite being in love with Tomoki the longest, she has managed to have the least amount of contact with him and has barely passed the acquaintance category while the other suitors can at least be considered his friends to some degree. This mixed, with her lack of improvement on her social skills in comparison to Tomoko or Yuri had lead to her being denominated as the biggest loser in a series where Tomoko is the protagonist.
  • Memetic Molester: Tomoko, thanks to the infamous Second Christmas Special where she tries to recreate what she thinks happened between Yuu and her boyfriend during the two hours she didn't answer her a message, including the sex by using an electric massager in one of her stuffed toys. Jokes about Tomoko constantly molesting her toys are common in the fandom to this day.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • SERVES YOU RIGHT!◊
    • Mako being a terrible sexual degenerate.note 
    • Harem Genre.note 
    • Asuka looking depressed due to Tomoko's suspension◊ gained memetic status almost as soon as the chapter was released. Many pieces of fanart and comics were made in the immediate aftermath depicting her as at best sullen and at worst completely unable to function or slowly losing her mind due to Tomoko's absence.
  • Memetic Psychopath:
    • Fans like to jokingly paint Kii in a sinister light thanks to her often unsettling expressions and her uncanny ability to put Tomoko in her place, usually likening her to a Yandere who is absolutely obsessed with taking absolute control of her cousin. It helps that even in-universe, Tomoko is intimidated by Kii and thinks she's become psychotic.
    • Once Asuka started gaining Green-Eyed Monster tendencies towards Tomoko despise being otherwise the nicest person on the entire cast it became common to joke she is a few days away of becoming a Yandere with the Watamote wiki even calling her "a future serial killer" in some of the chapters summaries. Also Tomoko's tendency of falling sleep on her legs is sometimes joked to be because of her drugging her so she can be close to her.
    • Mako started gaining this reputation in the aftermath of the movie arc, with many fans pointing out she had started to engage in badmouthing out of jealousy towards Yoshida's relationship with Tomoki and later was starting to display manipulative tendencies similar to those of Sachi to the point of allying with Sachi to have Tomoki out of her way. Suddenly, Mako's perception changed from an All-Loving Heroine to a Manipulative Bastard, with recurring jokes of her being Evil All Along and the true Big Bad of the manga, if not a Greater-Scope Villain.
  • Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales:
    • This manga about an unflatteringly stereotypical geek owes its success to the very type of geek Tomoko herself is. This is primarily because, as at least one has said, it hits so close to home.
    • Yuri's comments about movies are obviously meant to paint her as a pretentious snob who won't shut up about movies when given the chance and will quickly blame any of her friends if their movie has something she doesn't like but some fans, who are movie buffs themselves tend to love this facet of Yuri, mostly because despite causing groans from Tomoko and Nemoto, many think some of her comments are surprisingly insightful and that she gives some great film recommendations.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Despite Tomoko's dysfunctional nature, not to mention her more unpleasant traits (which show up more as the manga progresses), some readers and viewers are proud to claim they're just like her without an ounce of Self-Deprecation - though she's usually not very admirable to start with. Relatable, pitiable, even sympathetic, yes - but admirable?
  • Moe:
    • Yuu fits well in this trope. Except when it comes to innocence in regard to sex.
    • Also, Tomoko's younger cousin Kii-chan.
    • Arguably Tomoko in the original sense, though it's offset by her less savory traits.
    • The Author Avatars of Nico Tanigawa as little mammals in omakes, the avatar of the female artist in particular. When foreign fans sent them pictures of their penises, she claimed never to have seen one before. She was also bothered by the male writer perving over Tomoko's voice actress recording her lines, and by the conditions of workers in the animation studio.

    N-W 
  • Narm Charm: The anime opening is so incredibly unfitting that it circles back to being awesome and makes you want to cheer for Tomoko.
  • Never Live It Down:
    • A weirdly positive example. Despite how constantly unhelpful and invasive Ogino's attempts to help her students are portrayed as, she's mostly remembered for the one time she did something right, with that being grouping Tomoko with Yuri, Yoshida and Ucchi in the school trip, which lead to Tomoko befriending the three of them.
    • Yuri is remembered among her detractors for her Jerkass Ball during the Disneyland Arc. Never mind that she acted as mostly a Nice Girl before this point and that later arcs gave her Character Development over these issues, to some fans she will always be the possessive and jealous girl who had a breakdown in Disneyland because Tomoko was paying attention to her other friends.
    • Tomoki jerking off to pictures of Lionel Messi. It didn't actually happen, it was an Imagine Spot from Sayaka trying to figure out why he was so indifferent to girls and speculating he may only be interested in soccer. The fandom, however, took this gag and flanderized it into Tomoki being a complete Loony Fan obsessed with Messi or even having a Single-Target Sexuality attraction towards him. Common jokes often involved Tomoki becoming Not So Stoic after finally meeting his hero, even though there's not a single thing in canon that even hints that he has any interest in the guy. It probably doesn't help that throughout the whole series, he has infamously not shown any romantic or sexual interest in anyone.
  • O.C. Stand-in: Pretty much any male character who isn't Tomoki is either a Living Prop, a Satellite Character or a Recurring Extra, leading to tons of otherwise irrelevant or minor characters getting more relevance and defined personalities in fanfic and fanart every time someone wants to write a male character in the setting. By far the most prominent are Wada and Kakinuma, the former for being the very first male character Tomoko could talk regularly with (and therefore the easiest way to ship Tomoko with a male character) and the latter for being the closest thing to a male Otaku Surrogate the series has and because in his latter appearances he's commonly bickering with Minami (and therefore the easiest way to ship Minami with a male character).
  • One-Scene Wonder:
    • The friendless senior student with who Tomoko talks during his graduation in Chapter 37, he's really only in this one chapter but it's quite a memorable one.
    • Yoshida's mom has so far only made one small appearence in Chapter 160.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
    • Ucchi wasn't well-liked at first given in her earliest apperances she came up as a rather shallow popular girl that looked down on Tomoko, Yuri and Yoshida. After the Kyoto field trip however she started to gain an obsession with Tomoko that slowly started hinting something else making her a rather amusing Butt-Monkey that fans found both hilarious and likeable which end up turning her into one of the popular characters of the series. Just compare the way fans talked about her when Chapter 80 was originally released with the way fans talked about her during the re-read of the same chapter
    • While Koharu Minami was never widely disliked by the fan base, she nevertheless always served as something of a Hate Sink that gave her little love. That changed when she was given her own story arc that ran from Chapters 187 to 191, where she was shown in a more sympathetic light and underwent a lot of Character Development.
    • Fuuka, while she had fans since day one, many fans criticized her as a forced Sitcom Arch-Nemesis for Tomoko and a boring character that appears too much. Then, she got flanderized into a Too Dumb to Live Plucky Comic Relief and she quickly became an Ensemble Dark Horse, not only because she became a funnier character but because now her appearances tended to lend on the Cringe Comedy aspect that the manga has downplayed for a while, leading to many older fans looking foward to her appearences, she also became the only character capable of making Asuka lose her temper, which gave Asuka more comical elements to her character that some fans felt she missed before.
    • Mako was never hated, but she tended to be overlooked by some fans as a Flat Character that only served to make Yuri look less like a loner and give Minami a Morality Pet. This all changed in the aftermath of the Movie Arc, where her interest on Yoshida started to highlight her own manipulative streak and ends up allying with Sacchi, to have Tomoki out of the way. Suddenly, Mako became one of the most discussed elements on the newer chapters and gained an Memetic Psychopath reputation.
  • Ron the Death Eater: Asuka has some Green-Eyed Monster moments towards Tomoko but is fairly downplayed and mostly keeps it to herself and doesn't seem to actually do anything about it against the other girls. That doesn't stop fanon sometimes from portraying her as a Clingy Jealous Girl if not a blatant Yandere that wants Tomoko only to herself.
  • Self-Fanservice:
    • Tomoko was never meant to be an attractive character, but that didn't stop fan artists from drawing her in more flattering lights, making her more conventionally attractive even with her perpetual Exhausted Eye Bags. It seems that after a while, Nico Tanigawa got the hint and started giving Tomoko more genuine instances where She Cleans Up Nicely, gave here some real fanservice moments, and even drew promotional art pieces depicting her in very flattering lights, including dressing her up in a maid uniform, a sexy Halloween costume, and even a wedding dress.
    • Any depiction of Uchi with normal features will inevitably show her... rather pretty actually. This is likely due to her Informed Attractiveness, which only tends to really shine through during her more emotional moments.
    • Arguably everyone. The manga is actually pretty tame in fanservice, with most instances of sexual themes either being downplayed, played for Cringe Comedy or Fan Disservice, but you can expect the fanart of the exact same scenes to be almost always Hotter and Sexier.
  • Ship Mates: Nemoto/Yuri is easily the most popular non-Tomoko ship in the fandom, making it an nice complement with Tomoko/Any other character.
  • Signature Series Arc: Mixed with First Installment Wins, The Kyoto trip arc is by far the most beloved larger arc in the series with only the Disneyland arc being close to be as popular, for being the arc that introduced Yuri, Yoshida and Ucchi and the point where Tomoko life started changing for the better.
  • Shocking Moments: The reveal of Sachi's eyes in Chapter 188 and her subsequent intentional torching of her friend group in Chapter 189. It's considered one of the most uncomfortable moments in the entire series and unlike other uncomfortable moments it's not played for laughs. It's so unlike anything else in the series that it vaulted Sachi's popularity practically overnight.
  • Spiritual Successor: To Welcome to the NHK, at least until the Genre Shift in the third year.
    • Spiritual Antithesis: According to some people, WataMote is this to The World God Only Knows. Both works feature main characters with huge experience in romance games and dating sims, but while Tomoko is obsessed about using that knowledge to become popular and respected, the protagonist of the latter doesn't care that much about Real Life. Not to mention that Tomoko's experiences with games, in contrast, all prove to be utterly incompatible with reality.
  • Squick: Tomoko sure is bent on getting her little brother to be attracted to her. Though when he gets up close to her during such a moment (just to show her out) she freaks out a bit.
  • Starboarding: Minor character Kakinuma is almost always portrayed in fanon as having a crush on Nemoto, but you will have a hard time finding anyone who thinks Nemoto is interesed back.
  • Stoic Woobie:
    • Yuri. While she puts up a convincing front of indifference throughout, she too is prone to feelings of loneliness and has trouble coping whenever she gets separated from the few friends she has.
    • The Top Tier Tomoko. She gained everything Tomoko wanted in the early days of the manga by joining Asuka's friend group. Friends, popularity, lots of boys craving her attention and actually losing her virginity and yet while she doesn't look like it she isn't happy about it since she can't be herself or get any time alone at school, she's only happy when indulging in her otaku interests at home and secretly craves her old life back.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
    • A retroactive example. A lot of fans dislike the anime adaptation changing Nemoto's hair colour to brown and taking away her Stepford Smiler tendencies and also giving Akari and Sayaka more simpler designs that don't really look like their manga versions. However given the anime came out before either of those three characters had any relevance it can be handwaved as Early-Installment Weirdness that crossed with the anime only getting one season.
    • While most fans had embrassed the Genre Shift since then, there's a good number of fans who felt changing the series from a Cringe Comedy focused on the attempts of a girl trying and failing to make friends and becoming popular to a Lighter and Softer Slice of Life focused on a larger cast with Les Yay undertones ruined the series. Is far from a universal opinion however given the series remained popular after it and to some fans it was even the Growing the Beard moment for the series or at least a necesary change to balance the Kafka Comedy from the earlier portion of the manga.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • You'd think Tomoko's parents would have a bigger role and maybe help Tomoko deal with her problems. They're heavily ignored, which is most likely due to Values Dissonance (since in Japan many people look down on those who seek therapy; even the most compassionate parents would rather ignore the problem and hope their child just "grows out of this phase" rather than face the shame of seeking out a licensed professional).
    • In general male characters that aren't Tomoki tend to be relegated to background characters or ocassional appearences that don't have much relevance in to the series.
      • Aomatsu was introduced in the OVA as someone who had a Forgotten First Meeting with Tomoko back in Middle School that the two still remember without actually knowing the identity of the person. The OVA ends revealing he's now in the same class as Tomoki and is a friend of his. Despite seemingly to be setting him as a potential friend or even a Love Interest to Tomoko, the character never appeared in the Manga (despite being a story written by the original author) and so far there doesn't even seem to exist an canonical equivalent to the character making it hardly unlikely he will appear again.
      • Wada was another Ascended Extra that suddenly started talking with Tomoko once she became more social but he stands up as the first male character Tomoko started talking to regularly and who happened to share some of her interests. While Tomoko dismisses the chance to being attracted to him almost immediately (not like that's gonna stop fans from shipping them, anyway) he could have still being a interesting addition to the cast and a potential The One Guy for Tomoko's friend group specially after his Wholesome Crossdresser tendencies were revealed later on the manga, but after a couple of appearances he went back to be a Living Prop and doesn't seem to hang out with Tomoko anymore.
      • Kakinuma was set up as a Distaff Counterpart of Tomoko being another Otaku Butt-Monkey with No Social Skills that's implied to be the Only Sane Man of his personal Social Circle, someone who of course Tomoko being Tomoko dismissed as an even bigger loser and never bothered to talk with him not even after her Character Development started to kick in. Strangely the character was brought back 80 chapters later as one of Futaki's friends and gaining a bickering relationship with Minami on the way seemingly setting him up to become another Ascended Extra as both characters became more and more relevant in to the series.....only for him to remain a background character after that once again.
    • Despite being one of Tomoko's first friends and arguably one of the most recurring characters of the manga, Mako has mostly remained Out of Focus throught the series to the point she can feel like a Satellite Character towards Yuri and Minami, not to mention that so far she has only gotten two Days In The Limelight in Chapters 99 and 214 (and even then the latter has lots of characters making her the protagonist only by default.) Her relationship with Tomoko is also rather unexplored in comparison to the rest of the cast with them only getting one chapter separated from the rest of the group.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • After Tomoko gains a solid group of friends, her original objective of gaining a boyfriend is completely forgotten besides the brief reminder every 30 or 40 chapters, while there is a very popular fan interpretation of why that happened, Tomoko trying to gain a boyfriend could have being a way to keep Tomoko with an objective post-Genre Shift and keeping the focus on the Cringe Comedy the series started downplaying in that point without denying Tomoko of the friendships she has gained (and showing her life was still far from perfect and not making look her supposed unpopularity as a Artifact Title) even if the writers were not intending to give her a boyfriend.
    • Alternatively Tomoko could have gained a close male friend showing not all important relationship between male and females have to be romantic. Wada seemed to be leading to this way before he went back to be a Living Prop.
    • Chapter 90 has Tomoko's mom finding out about her being a loner with no friends. This is not followed up in any following chapter and given it was around the time Tomoko was gaining friends it doesn't really have any impact in the story.
    • After 10 years of failed attempts, Chapter 199 has Tomoko finally getting a succesful She Cleans Up Nicely and.........nothing really happens with it and is gone by the end of the chapter. You will think that after so many years of Tomoko thinking her life would be easier if she was prettier she would get to some sort of conclusion about herself or at least someone would comment about it but it mostly limits to be the gimmick of the chapter. To top it all Ucchi, Tomoko's biggest admirer is absent of the chapter so we don't see her reaction to it.
    • In and out of universe, many felt that Tomoko's original pitch for the movie sounded awesome before she chickened out and decided to go for something easier. This isn't helped by Chapter 215 starting with Tomoko deciding to do it after all to fill up more time for the screening before messing up the presentation, skipping the pre-show, and going straight to the movie. Granted, it is a Surprisingly Realistic Outcome, but it's still a letdown.
    • Fans of Kuzu to Megane to Bungaku Shoujo (Nise) were hoping that since Watamote and their series happen in the same universe, Nico Tanigawa could make a Fully Absorbed Finale to that series after it was Cut Short or have some characters integrated in to the manga, but so far it hasn't happen.
  • Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: A probable reason why the manga underwent a major Genre Shift was because the brutal cringe comedy and Tomoko being a Failure Hero was too depressing for a lot of fans to enjoy, and at best predictable.
  • Trapped by Mountain Lions: Minamote. It involves two minor characters, one who had a Small Role, Big Impact at best and another who was a literal faceless mob extra, have nothing to do with the ongoing arcs besides happening at the same time and some characters that went Out of Focus in the main storyline like Tomoki, Mako or Futaki getting some relevance in it. Tropes Are Tools however as the subplot is fairly popular with fans despite having yet to connect with the ongoing arcs.
  • Ugly Cute:
    • Tomoko. It's certainly easy to see why she isn't considered attractive, but there's definitely a charm to her goofy appearance.
    • In-universe, Asuka finds an antlion Tomoko catches absolutely adorable. She describes it as "kinda wrinkly, but also round and puffy, and just a bit cute."
  • Unnecessary Makeover: Tomoko getting a successful makeover for once in Chapter 199 lead to a certain portion of the fanbase to proclaim this. Feeling her iconic Mojyo design was changed to make her look more like a standard cute anime girl. This only lasted one chapter however, so it averted becoming a big deal.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Ogino in Chapter 211. She's absolutely right that the movie is very inappropriate to put in a school festival, but the fact she decided to check on the content of the movie barely two days before the festival giving them little to no time to make any changes in case it is inappropriate (which ends up being the case) makes her look just as irresponsible as the crew.
  • Unpopular Popular Character:
    • Tomoko herself. A shy, Otaku girl with No Social Skills who gets into many humiliating situations because she, as the title may indicate, wants to be popular. Got quite the following on /a/, primarily for how close to home it hits. And how huggable the character is.
    • Yuri is, in many ways, even more socially inept than Tomoko, and she definitely has fewer friends in third year. But in Japan, she's far and away the most popular character in the manga, beating even Tomoko in the favorite character polls.
    • Sachi is notable for spiking in popularity among readers more or less the moment lost most of the friends she had.
    • Minami as well who losed most of her friends in the same incident that Sachi and spended most of the third year chapters isolated and incapable of connecting with her new classmates but since all of this happened at the same time she was getting an strong dose of Character Development she quickly became one of the most popular characters of the series.
    • Kotomi is probably the one character in the whole series that has worse social skills that Tomoko or Yuri and unlike them she never improves socially or gains more friends besides Yuu, Hikari and her Friendly Rival Akari with everyone else barely tolerating her or being indifferent to her. Fans however tend to regard her as one of the funniest characters of the series.
  • Vanilla Protagonist: Far from an universal opinion, but there's some fans who feel once her Character Development properly kicks in and her friends started to get more fleshed out, Tomoko became not nearly as interesting as the characters she was surrounded by. Lampshaded in Chapter 195, where Tomoko starts questioning if her personality is way too simple in comparison to her friends and classmates.
  • Values Dissonance:
    • One of the bigger gripes with the plot from western fans is the overall lack of input from Tomoko's parents, or adults in general, to get her help with her glaring antisocial tendencies. In context, this isn't that surprising: Japan has a much higher stigma against social therapy/counseling than in North America or Europe, as seeking help for anxiety or mental health is considered shameful. Strangely enough, Tomoko's second year homeroom teacher doesn't seem to have gotten that memo and butts in, trying to get her to open up in very blunt ways, with Tomoko's expressions definitely looking of the "Unwanted Assistance" variety.
    • During their third year, Tomoko and Yuri go through some extensive hemming and hawing over when and how they should start referring to each other by their given names, and tend to find doing so very embarrassing. This typically isn't an issue in the west, where peers refer to each other by their first names all the time, but in the very formal Japan, only people who are especially close to each other are expected to do that.
    • In Chapter 156 and 157, many Western readers might be confused at how Tomoko and Yoshida managed to get in-school suspension riding a motor scooter completely outside school grounds. Both were wearing their school uniforms, and Japan that means they're considered to reflect on the school's reputation regardless of where they are. If they somehow get into an accident, it would reflect badly on the school. This type of "suspension"note  also isn't considered a very harsh punishment in Japan, contrast in the US where it's considered just a few steps short of being expelled.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: One of Tomoko's classmates, a boy named Wada, is often mistaken for a girl by some readers for his short stature and wide facial expressions (not helped by him looking similar to Mako). In chapters where he has a bigger speaking role, he's often seen from the waist up as well, making the confusion greater. It's more of a problem in the 3rd year chapters, and less in the earlier parts of the manga. The creators seem aware of the confusion and later on the manga turned him into a Wholesome Crossdresser.
  • The Woobie:
    • Tomoko. Her social anxiety is literally crippling her, to the point that she can't even order food at a restaurant without averting her gaze and mumbling and is desperate enough try to get sexually harassed on the train on purpose just so she can feel like someone is paying attention to her. Worse is that her inability to read other people's basic emotions, at one point mistaking an innocent crush as perverse lust (see her incident with Komiyama), which makes her few efforts to get better at socializing self-defeating. She only comes off as cruel or rude because that's literally the best she can do.
    • Kotomi has problems expressing her feelings for Tomoki, and each time she turns to his sister for help, Tomoko always humiliates her publicly purely out of spite. Later chapters show she's just as hopeless without Tomoko's meddling, as all Kotomi's efforts to connect with him end up just making her look like a pervy stalker that honestly creeps Tomoki out.
    • Akari, like Kotomi has problems expressing her feelings for Tomoki but unlike her she has managed to approach him multiple times and become his friend.....only for him to be completely indifferent towards her despite have being in the same grade for at least three years and of course every time Tomoko or her best friend Sayaka appears in scene she would often end up completely humillated and sometimes in tears.

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