It's Not My Fault I'm Not Popular!

It's awesome, that means no peer pressure and no one can judge you on anything you want to do.

Yeah, there are a bunch of places I go and only enjoy when I'm alone. Like the movie theater: if you go with friends you either going to be saying nothing to each other, or constantly bothering everyone else by talking over the movie.

Yes, but it is nice when you have options and not just the alone option when going out.

More chapter commentaries:

Chapter 22: Where Tomoko tries her hand at a photo booth, and fails miserably. I have never even once set foot in a photo booth, so I don't have any experiences of my own to compare this chapter to. Then again, this is a purikura booth, which, according to the translation notes, is far more elaborate than ordinary photo booths. As for how much so, I can't really say, since I've never used one.

Chapter 23: Another set of shorts on a rainy day.

For the "Psych Quiz", I'd think choice 3 (turn back at the fork) would better correspond to "virgin for life". Not that I put much stock in quizzes like that. There was one time when I bought a book called "How Happy is your Love Life" in the hope of gaining some insight into the lack of romance in my life. The first chapter was a quiz of the same name. The questions in that one were more straightforward, but half of them were not even applicable to me, since they were about my past relationships. I Broke the Rating Scale. All it really gave me insight into was how much people take romance for granted, for even a book written for people who seek help in romance assumed its readers had at least some success.

Then there's the part where Tomoko thought her umbrella got stolen. She makes all kinds of assumptions about the supposed thief.

The refrain of self-proclaimed "nice guys" everywhere. I must admit my hands are not entirely clean here. Similar thoughts have gone my head at times. Back when I was in college, the bus I took to and from the school went past a prison, and I've actually seem women fighting over the affections of inmates. I've spent my share of time fuming to myself over how unfair it was that convicted felons were fought over while I remained single. But when you take that line of thought too far...

Whoa, calm down, Tomoko!

It goes to show just how dangerous envy can be.

Chapter 24: The perils of public transportation, which, in Japan, include getting groped by perverts. Here's another cultural difference. A few years ago, an incident where a woman got molested on a train made the evening news. That's not to say American mass transit doesn't have its own problems. The worst I see on a regular basis on the train to and from work (the Market-Frankford Line) is the occasional beggar. To quote that page;

I ride buses sometimes, too. "Weird Al" Yankovic describes that experience a lot better than I can.

But to be honest, if I wasn't spoiled on this chapter by having read the translator's notes beforehand, this would've been a pretty scary one. It's a good thing it wasn't what it seemed.

edited 19th Aug '14 8:14:34 PM by Lightblade

I think the magazine linked the forest setting with an "impure virgin". Basically, a virgin who dreams of really porny sex.

Also guilty here. But it is already hard to not get shackled by that mindset without you seeing that kind of prison shit, wolfs of Wall Street, and a girl here in Brazil saying to the news "A true man has a gun in his hands" (talking about drugdealers).

A negative brain really feeds on negativity. I also had a lot of massacre daydreams like Tomoko.

A remarkable thing about the train rape chapter is how Tomoko considers defilement as status symbol. There's a whole distance of desperation a woman must go through to think of doing something uncouth in an attempt to justify and give meaning to her being and womanhood, and that's fucked up.

Let me paraphrase that, TOMOKO INTENTIONALLY WANTED TO GET RAPED BECAUSE OF PEER PRESSURE. I wouldn't say that's something that can be detatched too far from the reality of many girls her age.

Fortunately, she realises her mistake and that harassment in any way is always bad juju, which is delightfuly resolved and results in one of the manga's all-time best punch-lines.

edited 20th Aug '14 12:03:52 PM by Clownboss

The REAL beach chapter is out, and it is great.

I bet you they really weren't even gone for 15 minutes.

At last, a six-months worth of wait has paid off smashingly.

Highlights (spoilers)

Yuu's bikini: "Bueno." "Fuck Me."

Comment:

That mindset: 'I am having fun with my friends but it sucks because I didn't get boys."

Self-sabotage at it's finest. I have that a lot. Get out, have fun but day/night lost because didn't get women. It fucking sucks when that digs in.

edited 1st Sep '14 2:18:15 PM by grahav

You forgot But I'm not a slut so I wouldn't go along with it" It's actually kinda amazed that she's so stable and disfunctional at the same time.

Chapter 66 shows a rather cool example of how dreams easily fuck up with your perception of reality. Like, recently I dreamed I was reading a book and even though I memorised some of its contents, when I woke up and later picked it up, I realised I've never touched it in the first place! But for a long time I was convinced I had, and of course everything I dreamed was actually in it was all made up.

I usually have some fantastic dreams I like writing in my journals, but it's very annoying once it starts meddling with your real-life convictions.

Tomoko has now spent half of her high school attendance.

I managed to get myself very sidetracked from posting my comments on the chapters I've read. Anyway, here's a few more.

Chapter 25: I know the feeling of being ignored during gym class all too well. In some sports and games, it sucked royally, but in others, it was an asset. I often would get Picked Last due to my lack of athletic ability and my "favorite bully target" status. But poor Tomoko didn't get picked at all. The few sports I didn't completely suck at was floor hockey and some of the dodgeball variants.

The hockey games I played in high school were very disorganized, but I usually defaulted to a defensive position, where I had a knack for being in the right place at the right time to disrupt opposing players. I remember one time there was someone who was trying to cut whatever class he was supposed to be in by pretenting to be in ours. He got the puck, and then had no idea what to do with it. It was the perfect opportunity for me to swoop in and get it away from him while he was standing there doing nothing. It was the easiest steal ever, but I still look back fondly on it.

Dodgeball was another matter, since every school I went to over the years had vastly different ways of playing it. One school I went to had a circle of throwers surrounding the players who had to do the dodging. There was one version that combined it with freeze tag (you got "frozen" and couldn't move if you got hit, but another player could "unfreeze" you by tagging you). That variation usually resulted in the bullies basically spawn-camping me. Another one was what the teacher called "Space Invaders", which, in hindsight, was most like the "official" dodgeball rules with equal teams who both threw and dodged at the same time. That was the version I was best at, thanks to my ability to go unnoticed meaning I rarely got targeted, and I in fact relished the opportunity for retribution it provided me.

But back to the main topic of the chapter, I never got injured seriously enough to get sent home early. The worst I got was a hockey puck to the groin, but that only took me out for the rest of the gym period, which was the last period of the day for my class, and was almost over anyway.

Can it really be called "faking", then? Though as bad as the bullying got sometimes, I never had the urge to fake illness to get out of going to class, and I sure as hell wasn't going to deliberately expose myself to disease just to get out of class.

Chapter 26: The claw machine bit reminds me once again of the carnival I mentioned earlier in the thread where I won a big stuffed dog plushie.

Then Tomoko gets the idea of stating her own club, like so many anime, manga, and light novel characters before her. But Tomoko once more gets done in by being Wrong Genre Savvy.

Chapter 27: And now we get to the connection to the previous post that reminded me I still hadn't made this one yet. I wonder if there's any truth to the idea that sleeping position can affect the kinds of dreams one has. Sometimes when waking up from a nightmare I notice that I was either on my back or some really weird position, but that might just be Confirmation Bias. For the record, I usually sleep on my side. Apparently, sleeping on her stomach gives Tomoko nightmares rather than the Erotic Dream she was trying for.

And that's it for Volume 3. I've also read through Volume 4, and will comment on those later.

Little bro used Wake-Up Slap! It's not very effective...

Some /a/nons have translated the rest of the anthology, get them here:

https://mega.co.nz/#F!30BBRIQa!FrImA7HyLS1Na-Mu5HSqTQ

New Chapter ! In which Zero Suit Samus and Rosalina get banned...

And is also proven that romantic/porn fiction gives you unreasonable expextations... Evil.

Also the OVA is released on Japan. Waiting...

edited 22nd Oct '14 1:45:25 PM by Grahav

Decent subs are out. Search for [Doutei].

Watched the OVA:

It is an original content material.I confess that I was worried that would be a sappy love story. How I underestimated the writers. It is a cringing love story full of lies, delusion and manipulation. Basically, it didn't betray the spirit of Watamote. The new guy whad some delusions of grandeur of the youth. Heartwarming to see somebody seeing Tomoko as beautifull. Nice to hear Komiyama's voice (even for a moment), and purple fits her. Ah Tomoko. I cheer for you and also want to smack the back of your head.

edited 9th Nov '14 5:04:59 PM by Grahav

Kuroki as a chuuni is <3

I'm also a bit disatisfied with Komi's palette. You could do so much more in the Watamote world than making some brunette. Purple fits her so good because together with Tomoko's green, they're both toxic kinds of colour. Contrast them to Yuu who wears bright colours.

I'm satisfied with the OVA in general, especially when it hits Tomoko's point of view, but the Aomatsu guy is pretty unsympathetic for the most part. Slightly concerned he'll make an appearance in the manga, but hopefully he's just a one-shot.

The intro sequence to the OVA was meta as fuck, holy shit. Can we hope for a S2?

edited 10th Nov '14 2:03:36 PM by clownboss

I think I saw a hint on her color scheme. My guess, is that it can't be blatant purple. That would make her a stereotypical anime character. Also is a more subdued poison in contrast to Tomoko.

We don't know much about Aomatsu. In the beginning he had those unsypathetic thoughts (not unlikely a certain person) but I think he has grown up, (my guess is that he developed similarly like Yuu.)

It is depressing that the anime audience don't like the girls to have boyfriends. Is that a trope?

Also new chapter is out. She is having a hard time to accept herself as a nerd. As evverything else in this manga, not uncommon.

I think Aomatsu(guy from the OVA right? I can't actually remember his name) fills same role as the guy who lends Tomoko the umbrella and who she then claims is her boyfriend to Kii-chan. I.e. "guy Tomo has an encounter with that could go somewhere but doesn't". I doubt we see him again other than as a cameo with her brother. And we already know they don't recognize each other and never said their names. I kinda doubt he comes up again.

The OVA was really good. Poor deluded Aomatsu. Poor stupid Tomoko.

That freaking God that got nipped in the bud.

I'm guessing the way Japanese language works (besides kanji, it's basically a syllabary) means the Scunthorpe Problem doesn't apply—words "being in" other words is so common that no sane person would even think an obscene one being in there means anything.

edited 12th Nov '14 2:46:46 AM by thatother1dude