Tomoko Kuroki
Voiced by: Izumi Kitta (Japanese), Monica Rial (English)
The main character of the series, who struggles with becoming "popular", making friends and coping with adolescence. Unfortunately, this is not helped by her social ineptitude and unpleasant personality.
Despite being incredibly anti-social, she craves the companionship and attention of others. She suffers from a raging superiority complex, vivid delusions of grandeur, intense self-loathing, and social anxiety so severe that she can barely get out a sentence when talking to someone she is not intimately acquainted with.
The dark circles under her eyes are genetic (and shared by her brother).
- Accidental Hero: Tomoko manages to help some people now and then, but only by happenstance. She gives Shizuku some half-hearted advice on how to handle the entrance exams (with the intention of discouraging the girl from attending her school at all), only to end up encouraging her to pass and apply to the school in full. Tomoko also gets Hina and Akane to patch things up. How? By showing the latter a clip from an eroge game while explaining to her the likely reasons Hina was so secretive about her dream to become a voice actress, which horrifies Akane so much that she outright confronts Hina about it, allowing them to talk things out.
- Accidental Pervert: Only towards Yoshida, whom she always gropes by complete accident, which more often than not gets her smacked. Anyone else she pervs on is very intentional. For what it's worth though, Tomoko does like how the delinquent feels.
- A-Cup Angst: It's not as apparent as most examples of this trope, but it's there.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Although she doesn't actually hook up with a "bad boy", she seems to be fond of bastard boyfriend characters, as evidenced by her enjoyment of a drama CD about Yandere boys.
- Ambiguously Bi: While her Perverse Sexual Lust for Otome Game characters and early fixation on getting a boyfriend make her attraction to men obvious, her constant sexual harassment of Yuu raises a few eyebrows. What keeps Tomoko's sexuality ambiguous is that it's made clear at multiple points that Tomoko's lack of social awareness and reliance on anime tropes to navigate real life situations cause her to assume that Les Yay in female friendships is not only common, but expected, leading her to enforce it. Even as she develops more real life relationships and her pervertedness dies down, however, being caught in several Not What It Looks Like moments have led to Ucchi becoming absolutely certain that Tomoko is not only a lesbian, but a sexual deviant who surrounds herself with a harem of girls at all times. As Tomoko matures and becomes explicitly more aware of the concept of homosexuality (she even correctly defines "LGBT" in class), she still can't help but fall for Yuu's or Asuka's
charms. She's also shown blatant sexual attraction to Miho, one of Asuka's friends, and Shizuku, her own kohai. In the latter's case she's outright said that if she were a guy she'd want to NTR Shizuku's boyfriend. - Beautiful All Along: It's been brought up that Tomoko actually has good looks, but the problem is that she doesn't try grooming and looking after herself that much. When she actually does, many of her friends do say how cute she is. This aspect can actually be seen in some of the later chapters where Tomoko decides to wear more flattering clothes and cleans herself more.
- Her official profile shows that she has a Charisma score of five, the maximum possible score, shared only with super-model-esque Katou Asuka. This means that Tomoko always had the potential to be popular, if her crippling self-doubt hadn't dragged down her confidence.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: As time goes on and Tomoko finds herself on the receiving end of more Pet the Dog moments, she feels the need to repay the people who show her kindness even if she doesn't really know them.
- She makes a batch of chocolates for everyone who gave her some for Valentine's Day, like Mako, Yuri, and Ucchi. She even gives some to Yoshida, despite their dysfunctional relationship.
- Because Megumi came to her aid a few times in the past, Tomoko congratulates her for graduating high school and even asks the former Student Council President if there's anything she can do for her. She feels rather crushed when she realizes she won't be able to give anything back to Megumi.
- Berserk Button: When Yuu makes a joke about Kotomi marrying Tomoki this is one of the few times that we see Tomoko get legitimately angry at Yuu, making no attempts at hiding her anger at all.
- Betty and Veronica: Tomoko possibly serves as the Archie to Asuka's Betty and Ucchi's Veronica.
- Big Brother Bully: Tomoko tries to pass herself off as a Cool Big Sis to Tomoki, and was indeed like that at one point, but in actuality she's extremely negative and manipulative whenever she's around him. It's also implied that this is the reason why Tomoki stopped being friendly with her to begin with.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Oh yes. For the longest time, Tomoko was only ever interested in her popularity at school, all the while being loathe to do any work around the house, eager to annoy her brother, and quick to snap at her mother. This got her a good share of slaps from the latter, who was often irritated at how irresponsible Tomoko was despite being the older child.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: She has made a huge impact on Ucchi's life, to the point where the girl is utterly obsessed with her. However, Tomoko never intended to do such, their first real interaction was on the last night of their field trip, and Tomoko was just being her normal self. Later "interactions" were mostly Tomoko doing something else and it just so happened Ucchi was the target or a witness.
- Butt-Monkey: Any of her attempts to become popular always come out wrong for her.
- Cannot Talk to Men: Nothing frays Tomoko's nerves more than attractive boys. Even after her social skills improve enough that she can communicate with strangers without tripping over her words too much, she still turns into a nervous, stuttering puddle of goo in the presence of hot guys.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: Tomoko has been walked in on playing her Hentai games, multiple times.
- Character Development: Slowly but surely, Tomoko matures a good deal over the course of the manga, particularly in her second year. She dials back on her ill-thought schemes to become popular to the point where she eventually gives up on them entirely, doesn't stutter nearly as often as before, is more comfortable in public places like cafes, lets go of a lot of the resentment she felt towards her peers, shows occasional bouts of consideration for others, and is more studious and responsible in general. By the end of the year, she even manages to get herself a small circle of friends and acquaintances to regularly socialize with.
- Child Hater: Played with. In chapter 138 she admits that she hates middle schoolers, but she also mentions that she doesn't have strong feelings about grade schoolers, and in the past she used to play card games with kids in a candy store. In any case, she states that her dislike of kids is the reason why she would never want to be a teacher.
- Chronic Villainy: She's never managed to break her bad habit of doing Jerkass things.
- Classical Anti-Hero: Tomoko can care about people, she's shown to have an extremely active imagination with a creative streak to her, and she's extremely resilient in the pursuit of her goal. That being said, she's a liar, a pervert, very lazy, and tries to take the easy way out of anything she can. She even Lies to Children and calls any girls even slightly more popular than her "bitches" and "sluts". Tomoko gradually does undergo character development to get rid of the worst parts of these traits, but they never completely disappear.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: When it comes to Yuu or her brother, the latter of which she declared if he ever brought home a girl, she would take responsibility and kill her.
- Clueless Chick-Magnet: Somehow, against all logic or reason, she's managed to become this in her 3rd year. To wit, Yuri has grown quite attached to her and is prone to jealously whenever Tomoko gets close to someone else. Nemo is similarly quite attached to Tomoko, and while they're also vitriolic best buds, it's clear that Nemo values their "honest" friendship a great deal. Asuka is extremely fond of her, and her affectionate gestures border on outright flirting. Ucchi is outright infatuated by her, having become increasingly more obsessive about Tomoko over the course of the manga. Shizuku hero-worships her, looking at Tomoko as a kind and thoughtful sempai. While her friendships with some of the other girls aren't as pronounced, she's still amassed a huge following of female friends and acquaintances. It's ironic that the usually self-aware Tomoko often seems to be completely unaware of this.
- Consummate Liar: "How do I bullshit my way out of this?"
- Conveniently Seated: At first, she seats in the back row seat by the window. When the second semester starts and Tomoko loses her seat, she lampshades it by commenting about how lucky she was getting "the seat main characters always get in anime and light-novels" in the first semester, lamenting that she now has to dwell in an awkward spot, surrounded by people. Tomoko regains her original seating arrangement come her second year, and keeps it for her third year, now surrounded by people she's either friends or friendly with.
- Cosmic Plaything: She doesn't realize it, which might be a good thing as the truth might plunge her into the pit of despair or worse, since she can't realize why her attempts to make friends are massive failures. The moment she gains some self-awareness of her faults and tries to not be so judgmental anymore, the universe seems to ease up on her ...and decides to spread the weirdness around to her new friends.
- Covert Pervert: Played with; since the viewers are always privy to her thoughts, it's easy for us to see that she's very perverted, but most other characters (aside from Tomoki) are unaware of how perverted she really is. This becomes subverted over time; though Tomoko tries to keep her lewd side under wraps, she either proves to be really bad at hiding her lecherous habits, or has a number of accidents that leave people with the impression that she's a massive pervert anyway. Before her third year is even halfway done, pretty much everyone familiar with Tomoko knows what a huge sex-obsessed perv she is.
- Creepy Loner Girl: Tomoko is an unattractive, friendless Otaku with absolutely No Social Skills who stays up all night playing dating sims to compensate for her nonexistent social and love life. She daydreams about becoming popular, but her social awkwardness ruins her attempts at it every time.
- Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: Seems to be a family trait; however, Tomoko's habit of staying up late at night probably doesn't help, as she notes before trying on glasses to hide them.
- Desperately Craves Affection: This is her her single strongest desire for most of the series. It's likely why she's overly attached to her brother (much to his chagrin) and also part of why she's so attached to her only real friend, Yuu. This ends up becoming subverted pretty later on in the series, once Tomoko actually gets a circle of friends.
- Determinator: Despite the universe doing everything it can to make her give up, Tomoko never relents in her quest to become popular, make friends, or just improve herself in general. Whenever one scheme fails, she just gets up, dusts herself off, and moves on to the next plan.
- Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: She has a bad habit of voicing her more lewd thoughts out loud. Initially this was only toward Yuu, but eventually spread to anyone Tomoko felt mildy attracted to, like Asuka.Tomoko: (Thinking) A cute girl, wearing such cute underwear and such a short skirt must flash a bit from time to time...just imagine, if I were her boyfriend...
Tomoko: (Out loud) Bet those'd really give ya a stiffy.
Yuu: MOKOCCHI!!? - Disappointing Older Sibling: Despite being the older sibling, Tomoki thinks she's an annoying loser. According to the volume 5 omake, it was her obnoxiousness that caused their once-loving relationship to turn sour. On the other hand, one What If? omake shows that he would end up disliking her even if she were to remain kind to him.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: As shown in chapters 33 and 42, she doesn't like it when others take pity on her, as she feels patronized by this.
- Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: In addition to being very large and roughly-sketched, her eyes lack a notable sheen that's present in most other characters, illustrating her perpetually dour mood.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: The bags under her eyes only serve to further emphasize this aspect of hers.
- The Eeyore: She falls into bouts of self-loathing and has a lot of negative thoughts in social situations. Even when she acknowledges that her life got better than how it used to be, such as in chapter 115, she doesn't expect the good times to last.
- Expressive Hair: You can often tell how exasperated she is just by seeing how much her hair is flaring out.
- Failure Hero: In the early chapters she can't do anything right. Every time she has a goal, it's bound to fail or backfire horribly. The few Throw the Dog a Bone moments she gets are usually down to luck and the kindness of others, or when she's not actually trying so hard to become popular. This part of her characterization is largely dropped as the story progresses and Tomoko starts setting more realistic goals for her social life, which she eventually starts achieving.
- Female Misogynist: Her jealousy leads to a general resentment of other girls aside from Yuu, often viewing girls who are more socially adept than her as "bitches" or "sluts". However, this doesn't appear to apply to Yuri, probably because she recognizes that Yuri is almost as socially inept as she is.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The Foolish to Tomoki's Responsible. She tends to laze around and do stupid things to improve her status while Tomoki focuses on his sports, studies, and his household chores. Tomoko being so irresponsible is a frequent source of stress for her mother.
- Gamer Chick: Effortlessly plays a Pop'N Music knockoff with only a blank stare on her face, not to mention her constant playing of otome games.
- Gonk: Often pulls ugly faces when emotional.
- There's also the time where she tries to change her appearance, which works out well until she decides to mess with her face.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Bonus points for the Visual Pun. She enjoys the misfortune of others and frequently wishes for horrible things to happen to people that she perceives as having happy, carefree lives. Her internal monologues frequently call girls more socially successful than herself, including her best friend Yuu, "bitches", "sluts", etc.Tomoko: If you're not a worthless god, I'd like to see you try and make me happy... If you can't manage that, at least make everyone as unhappy as me. If you can't, it's fine I guess... But I'll despise you forever...
- Also why she couldn't get along with Kotomi in middle school despite being much alike, as she wanted to keep Yuu to herself.
- As of chapter 97 she seems to have realized that her former classmates who are more sociable than her don't act sociable to spite her, and she doesn't hate them for this anymore.
- Has a Type: An inversion, when she's finally able to hold a real conversation with a male classmate (Wada), she dismisses it as much of a step forward since she doesn't find him all that attractive, believing that "shota doesn't go with chibi".
- Hey, You!: In general, she is very bad at remembering names, or just doesn't care to learn them in the first place, leading her to often refer to the people around her by (often derisive) descriptors in her mind. In Chapter 124, Tomoko even notes that she's never once actually called Yuri by name, even though Yuri's ostensibly the best friend she has in her high school. This comes to a head in 126, when she tries to get Yuri's attention by just repeatedly calling out "Hey", resulting in a frustrated Yuri telling her that her name is not "Hey".
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: Tomoko implicitly Used to Be a Sweet Kid, but as she entered adolescence, she became a more self-centered Jerkass who only ever thought about sex.
- Hypocrite: She angrily denounces anyone more popular than her as shallow, vapid and selfish, and refers to any girls more sociable than her as "sluts". She's the real shallow and selfish one, who seeks popularity above all else, and proclaims: "Without doing anything, I can get into the pants of the boys for three years!" in the very first chapter. At the same time, she looks down on anyone as unpopular as she is as being losers, freaks and weirdos who are somehow beneath her despite them generally having the same interests that she does.
- Hypocritical Humor: is a Running Gag in this series.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: ...and get laid, apparently.
- As the series progresses, there's a subtle development in that Tomoko's goal moves down from "getting popular" to just "making a friend", and at the very least "talking to people". These get fulfilled during the middle of her second year, as she became close to Yuri, Mako, and Masaki.
- Ineffectual Death Threat: Frequently wishes death and worse on her classmates for the smallest of offences, like someone apparently taking her umbrella.
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: While she's rather self-centered and looks down on a lot of people for petty reasons, it's still clear that her self-esteem is actually very, very low.
- Inner Monologue: Keeps her thoughts to herself more often than actually speaking.
- Innocently Insensitive: Towards Yuri. Yuri is bothered by how aloof Tomoko seems to act towards her despite spending most of their time at school together, but Tomoko has no idea there's even a problem in the first place. She's also oblivious to the effect she's had on Ucchi, disturbing the girl with her mere presence at first, and going on to making her jealous at the drop of a hat.
- In-Series Nickname: "Mokocchi." Only Yuu gets to call her that, though. In chapter 126 Hina Nemoto comes up with another nickname for her, "Kuro".
- Irony: After spending her first year desperately trying to be popular with one Zany Scheme after another Tomoko eventually resigns herself to being a loner ...and then she actually ends up making an increasingly larger social circle of friends and acquaintances to hang out with.
- Ironic Name: Her given name roughly means "wise child". Considering how often she makes bad decisions, it's safe to say "wise" isn't a good way to describe her.
- It Amused Me: Some of her antics aren't done to improve her popularity, but just to stave off boredom or amuse herself, which can include things like trolling her brother or hanging wishes laced with dirty jokes up for Tanabata. She also decides to become Shizuku's sempai largely because she hopes the younger girl will give her some kinky stories, though to Tomoko's credit, she does build up some sympathy for her over time.
- It's All About Me: She's a very self-centered person who doesn't have any particular empathy for anyone around her. Thankfully, Tomoko's been growing out of it, acknowledging that even more social people have problems of their own, and is willing to show genuine consideration for others every now and then.
- Jerkass: Downplayed. In the main series, she can come off as a condescending jackass who can occasionally show humility and self-esteem, although she most often keeps her negativity to herself. However, Tomoki and Komiyama tend to see and feel the more unpleasant side of Tomoko.
- Jerkass Has a Point: As maladjusted, unpleasant, and warped as she is, Tomoko does raise valid points every now and then.
- When Akari's friend, Sayaka, confronts her over the former's feelings for Tomoki and her eagerness to see his genitals, Tomoko is correct when she points out it's perverse and inappropriate to say such things in front of his older sister.
- She accuses Akari and Kotomi of being perverts. While her poor treatment of them is usually uncalled for, she's not wrong, and the latter in particular takes her attraction towards Tomoki to very creepy levels.
- Related to the above, by accusing Kotomi and Akari of only liking Tomoki for his dick, Tomoko implies that their feelings for him are shallow. Considering how taciturn Tomoki is, and how they have never held a real conversation with him, neither girl can claim to actually know him, meaning they really are only interested in him for his good looks.
- While it devolves into a nonsensical rant about how all baseball players are smokers and delinquents, Tomoko is correct when she notes that the baseball club gets preferential treatment in how it forces the whole student body to come cheer for its games when other clubs work just as hard for less recognition.
- In Universe. When Tomoko mocks Yoshida behind her back as the type to go way overboard during her coming of age debut, Yuri is about to admonish her only to realise she can indeed picture Yoshida that way too.
- Jerkass Realization: In Chapter 97, she admits that she was a horribly judgmental person in her first year of high school, and lets go of a lot of the resentment she feels toward her more social peers.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Thanks to character development, Tomoko grows from her warped and selfish self, to a more thoughtful and pleasant individual. While she's still a pervert who sees the world through a cynical lens, she's willing to show consideration for both her friends and the occasional stranger.
- Karmic Butt-Monkey: Her nasty attitude and unscrupulous methods to look cool always have a tendency to blow up in her face in a way that's well deserved. It's only largely when Tomoko stops being such a pill that things start looking up for her.
- Kick the Dog: Her treatment of her brother when he fell ill was pretty appalling. She tried to lower his temperature and poured hot porridge on his face out of spite, and otherwise annoyed him at every opportunity. This went on to bite Tomoko in the ass when she caught his disease at the beginning of a three-day weekend.
- Lazy Bum: When left to her own devices, Tomoko would rather just laze around her room, playing video games, watching anime, and surfing the web. When called out on her unwillingness to help around the house by her mother as opposed to her younger but more responsible brother, Tomoko's first instinct is to blame Tomoki for making her look bad.
- Little Big Sister: She's considerably shorter than her younger brother. Not very unusual given he's only a year younger, but it still highlights her immaturity.
- Lonely Doll Girl: On occasion, Tomoko will use her plushies to act out her fantasies of a better social life, from envisioning what her time in a school club could be like, to...imagining how sex with Yuu would go.
- Loners Are Freaks: Her mindset, which she desperately wants to avoid.
- Loner-Turned-Friend: After the Kyoto field trip, her previously almost non-existent social circle slowly starts to expand.
- Loser Protagonist: Though, she tries hard to not be this. She eventually does edge away from this through Character Development, with all of her remaining quirks instead being mostly portrayed as a part of her unique identity that attracts others to her rather than a source of ostracization.
- Lovable Sex Maniac: While Tomoko never gets to have much in the way of sex, her mind is nevertheless always in the gutter, and she gets a lot of enjoyment out of sexually harassing her female friends.
- As the series delves further, her friends sees her as this. They are all aware of her perverted side, but they make it clear they don't mind it and actually find it as a part of her charm.
- Magnetic Hero: As the series has continued, she has consistently shown to be able to attract the interest and attention of pretty much anyone who spends even a small amount of time with her. Even characters who initially display complete indifference to her become obsessed with learning more about her after witnessing her bizarre behavior firsthand.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: She acts as a downplayed version for Yuri. While their relationship is purely platonic, she tends to encourage Yuri to try things she wouldn't do otherwise, like make Valentine's Day chocolate for her friends. She's even caused the normally stoic girl to laugh, which Mako has noted she's never seen Yuri do before.
- Manipulative Bastard: She tries. Dear lord, she tries.
- Meaningful Name: "Kuroki" can literally mean "black mood". It sums up her character pretty well.
- Messy Hair: Her long hair is rarely combed.
- Mirror Character: For her brother, Tomoki, especially in later chapters. The initial assumptions both have after meeting the same person for the first time are often identical. Even more recently, Tomoko and Tomoki barely acknowledge that people have crushes on them, though Tomoko's case is more downplayed than her brother's: while two girls have admitted to Tomoki's face they want to see his dick, Ucchi has been less direct in her crush on Tomoko, simply trying to find some excuse to be near Tomoko during some activity while she herself is thinking more about the activity itself, or the strange behavior of the other girls she knows.
- Ms. Fanservice: As the manga goes on, Tomoko has gradually gotten increasing numbers of genuine fanservice involving her, including occasionally being shown completely nude. She even has a Shower Scene in Chapter 178.
- Named After Somebody Famous: Shares the surname of Tomohiro Kuroki.
- Nerds Are Virgins: Several storylines are about Tomoko's lack of experience and sexual frustration.
- Never My Fault: Zigzagged. She often derides herself and finds faults with her social skills and appearance, but never dwells on it and immediately finds something else to blame for her social failings.
- Nighttime Bathroom Phobia: In chapter 13, Tomoko reads too many spooky stories at night, so she bugs Tomoki into accompanying her to the bathroom when she's too nervous to walk there in the dark.
- No Social Skills: Pretty much the entire conflict of the plot is based around the fact that Tomoko's skills leave a lot to be desired. As she begins to socialize more, her complete lack of social awareness causes her to regularly put her foot in her mouth and unintentionally piss off others. Subverted over time, as she undergoes Character Development; Tomoko turns out to be actually pretty socially perceptive and adept when not overcome by social anxiety, trying to become popular or invoking anime tropes.
- Oblivious to Love: Tomoko is completely unaware of Ucchi's growing fixation with her and is confused whenever Ucchi does something nice for her. Unfortunately for Ucchi, Tomoko has few opportunities to directly notice Ucchi's advances. Also, despite her own obvious feelings towards Asuka, she doesn't cotton to Asuka's very forward attempts to convey that the latter feels the same way.
- Odd Friendship: Is more or less the facilitator of an entire group of odd friends by the time she becomes a third year. Shown most prominently at the end of the suspension arc where she goes to eat with the group that had been waiting for her to get out: an introverted loner (Yuri), an outgoing nice girl (Mako), popular girls of varying degrees of normalcy (Nemo, Asuka, Akane and Ucchi) and a group of delinquents (Yoshida, Anna and Reina).
- "Oh, Crap!" Smile: Pretty much every time Tomoko's latest plan blows up in her face and leaves her thoroughly humiliated in front of everyone, it's all but guaranteed this is the face she's going to put on. It's one of her most common expressions.
- Older Than They Look: She's 15 when the manga and anime begin, but she's so short, thin, and physically undeveloped that you'd be forgiven if you thought she was 10.
- Only Has Same-Sex Admirers: No guys have taken any interest in Tomoko, but eventually Asuka develops a mutual infatuation, Ucchi becomes her Stalker with a Crush, and a few other girls have gotten at least a platonic desire for her attention.
- Otaku: Of Otome games. So much that she attempts to socialize in real life with tactics from the games.
- Otaku Surrogate: Downplayed; while she does have interests in anime and video games that male otaku in real life would have, she's also into things that are aimed specifically at girls, such as otome games. Unfortunately, her interests in all the perverted media aimed at otaku only make her more unapproachable and unable to function in social situations.
- Person as Verb: In Chapter 39, she tries to stand out more in her class by performing a wacky introduction during the first day of second year. For her efforts, among her classmates, her name becomes a synonym for doing something exceptionally poorly. Fortunately, it seems to have gone out of fashion by Chapter 42.
- Pet the Dog: Originally Tomoko only agreed to start hanging out with Shizuku because she seemed like a slut who might have entertaining stories. Eventually however she decides to follow Imae's example and starts acting as more of a proper senpai despite getting no real benefit out of it.
- The Pig-Pen: Usually averted. Despite being a disheveled shut-in, Tomoko is shown regularly bathing herself and is confirmed to not smell. That said, some of her actions have caused her to unwittingly fall into prolonged periods of dirtiness.
- In chapter 6, after she spends so much time playing a dating sim out of a deluded belief that doing so will make her sexier that she forgets to bathe for several days. She ends up looking so greasy that her brother likens her to a bird caught in an oil slick.
- In chapter 11, she accidentally soaks herself in soda and attracts ants that spend the whole day crawling all over Tomoko without her knowing. Every person she runs into gets creeped out when they see the bugs on her.
- In chapter 56, Tomoko worries she might be a Pig-Pen and opts to combat it by drenching herself in perfume. This causes her to go from having no body odor to absolutely reeking.
- Playboy Bunny: Dresses as one in a fantasy sequence that's a Shout-Out to Haruhi Suzumiya. She somehow manages to make it look ugly and unappealing.
- Pretty in Mink: Wears a faux mink stole during cold weather.
- Progressively Prettier: She begins taking care of her appearance more as she gains a circle of friends and even gets some fanservice-y shots later on.
- The Quiet One: She once went a month and a half without talking to anyone outside her family — her streak was broken when she managed to tell her teacher "goodbye". In contrast, she tends to be very chatty in her Inner Monologues.
- Sanity Ball: Tomoko gets to enjoy being the Only Sane Girl whenever she interacts with Akari. The girl's crush on Tomoki, her easily flustered demeanor, and her terrible habit of misreading the situation all combine to turn her into a sobbing, stammering mess. This goes double whenever Kotomi gets involved, whose infatuation for Tomoki leads her to commit all sorts of craziness as well that leaves her in the same position. Either way, Tomoko is left equally bemused and annoyed by their antics.
- Self-Serving Memory: Whenever Tomoko tries to guilt Tomoki into hanging out with her, she frequently brings up how he used to look up to her when they were kids. She conveniently ignores the fact that the reason why Tomoki is currently so distant from her is because she started bullying him.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Zigzagged. Whenever Tomoko or someone else tried to fix her appearance by dressing her up nicely or putting makeup on her, she would always end up looking even worse than before. However, once she gains a circle of friends, Tomoko starts putting more effort into her appearance, and she can be genuinely cute when she puts in the time.
- Played straight during her meet-up with Katou in Chapter 140; Tomoko's appearance was much nicer and more attractive than usual.
- One of the Christmas chapters has a subversion. Tomoko manages to indeed improve her appearance greatly for the class Christmas party. But she's so shy and quiet that nobody notices.
- As pointed out by Katou and Yuu, Tomoko can actually be very cute when she tries to groom herself more. When she dyes her hair silver, they point out how it looks good on her.
- Thanks to her Character Development, this has become even more frequent with later chapters. Compared to her old outfits where she seemed to make a half-hearted attempt to groom herself, now Tomoko is actually putting effort into how she dresses, including fixing her hair, making sure her clothes match, and even wearing accessories and slight make-up.
- The cover of Volume 18 teases what a stylish Tomoko could look like, and many readers agree that the silver-haired, cardigan-wearing Tomoko is very cute.
- Some What If? omakes show Tomoko doing this in various ways, like styling herself as a delinquent, tidying herself up, and adopting a more fashionable stance. She looks attractive in all of them.
- When visiting Yuu's school at Chapter 198, Tomoko ends up putting on the school uniform which looks great on her, especially when she decides to tie her hair into a ponytail.
- Exemplified best of all when Asuka decides to give Tomoko a makeover for a "landmine" look and actually does a decent job of it this time. With straight hair and her Exhausted Eye Bags hidden, everyone comments on how cute and innocent she looks.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: A platonic variant with Kotomi. When asked about her by characters other than Yuu, she denies that she's friends with Kotomi, and in chapter 112 even claims not to know her when asked by Yuri. In chapter 133 Tomoko and Kotomi simultaneously claim that they aren't friends, leaving their classmates unconvinced; even Tomoko herself realizes that she's acting like a stereotypical tsundere.
- She's All Grown Up: A page in the anthology reveals that she could grow up to be quite pretty.
- Shrinking Violet: Combined with No Social Skills, this is the reason she can barely put together a full sentence with anyone she doesn't know. She improves after getting a circle of friends she regularly socializes with, but she still is prone to stuttering.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: With Tomoki.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: With Komiyama, whom Tomoko dislikes because she feels that she has to compete with her over Yuu's attention, as well as because Komiyama is romantically and sexually interested in Tomoki, causing Tomoko to be disgusted with her, and, as of chapter 47 of the main story, also because Komiyama admitted that she didn't like Tomoko back in middle school.
- During the third year this fades away to an extent likely due both to Tomoko's ongoing development and because Tomoko gains a new nemesis in Fuuka.
- Strong Family Resemblance: As we see in Chapter 121, she gets her particular brand of Creepy Shadowed Undereyes from her father. Later on, a What If? chapter featuring Tomoko with short hair shows that she's a near dead-ringer for her mother.
- Sweet and Sour Grapes: Only by giving up her goal to become popular does Tomoko actually get better at socializing. By the end of her second year in particular, Tomoko has managed to get herself a small circle of friends, stutters over her words far less often, shows genuine consideration for other people's emotions, and helps people (like her kohai) for no tangible benefit to herself. A "What If?" story shows that she wouldn't have been happy had she become popular, anyway; in the story, when Tomoko becomes part of the popular group, she gets hit on constantly by boys, and is shown to hate it.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Overall Tomoko's second year in high school became a lot better and she was actually able to make sort of friends with people. Her third year became even better since now most of the friends she made in high school are all in her homeroom class and she has amassed quite a large social circle that she can hang out with.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Chapter 1: After 5 months trying to convince herself that she's popular, Tomoko literally sees herself at the mirror and admits the horrible truth:Now that I look in the mirror after a few years, I see that I turned into some creepy entity!
- Tomboyish Ponytail: She wore her hair in a ponytail during her middle school years, and that was when she was at her most tomboyish, being most interested in military subjects and dreaming of growing up to be either a mercenary or arms dealer.
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She tends to prefer media that appeals more to boys, like shonen manga and anime, first-person shooters, and RPGs, while having more of a disinterest toward shojo manga. That said, she also played dating sims for a time, and does have an interest in dressing nicely and wearing makeup, but lacks the knowledge and patience to ever stick with it for long.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Part of her character development. While she remains a cynical pervert, she's become a lot more pleasant and thoughtful.
- Transparent Closet: She's either unaware or in deep denial of her attraction to girls, but is very bad about hiding it, particularly when around Asuka. Yuri, Hina and Ucchi are well aware at how easily swayed Tomoko is toward her.
- Troll: She enjoys pranking, insulting, or otherwise getting under the skin of people she knows purely for lulz. Tomoki and Kotomi are her favorite targets.
- Twice Shy: Tomoko has a blatant infatuation with Asuka, but her self-esteem is too low for her to accept Asuka's increasingly obvious hints that she feels the same—up to groping Tomoko's breasts during a walk on the beach.
- Unkempt Beauty: She never loses the Exhausted Eye Bags or disheveled hair, but that doesn't stop her from becoming Progressively Prettier later on thanks to her gaining softer facial expressions and more flattering outfits.
- The Unsmile: Pretty much every attempt she makes at smiling ends up coming off as looking more like a Slasher Smile. Combined with her Creepy Shadowed Undereyes, the effect is... rather unsettling.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Her portrayal switches between this, Cosmic Plaything and some combination of both depending on the chapter. She can be very pitiable, but at the same time rather self-centered, condescending (especially to her classmates, though this is restricted to her Inner Monologues and never expressed outwardly) and, in Chapter 33, is shown to be a devotee of schadenfreude. However, the more unsympathetic aspects do get downplayed or outright vanish later on thanks to Character Development. In the spinoff, she's portrayed much more unsympathetically than in the main story.
- Visual Pun: Her big green eyes.
- Weirdness Magnet: Tomoko seems to have developed a knack for attracting a lot of oddballs to her, or at least in making people develop their own idiosyncrasies. Yoshida is a short-tempered but oddly innocent teen who's often mistaken for a delinquent, Ucchi has grown progressively more obsessive over Tomoko to the point of stalking her, Kii-chan has gone from a normal girl to a borderline Creepy Child, and both Kotomi and Akari have become incredibly perverse (and unlucky) in pursuing their mutual crush on Tomoki. Lampshaded in Chapter 116, where Tomoki notes that all of his sister's friends appear to be a bunch of weirdos.
- Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: She has this expression a lot.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: One of the major factors behind her inability to adapt to society is the fact that she tends to "learn" social skills through anime and video games, and mistakes many character interactions therein (including those that are, from an objective viewpoint, downright outlandish) for actual practice, and tries to emulate them in real life, which more often than not only serves to further humiliate her.
- You Are What You Hate: The reason she despises Kotomi. Both are antisocial and their Only Friend is Yuu. Each one of them believes the other is below her.
