YMMV / Tomo-chan Is a Girl!

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Misuzu is subject to this so much that she is practically a Base-Breaking Character. The most common thought is that she is gay and in love with Tomo, but there is a divide between fans who think her actions in Jun/Tomo's relationship is a form of I Want My Beloved to Be Happy or are more selfish.
  • It's a common joke that Carol is far more perceptive than she lets on, sometimes going all the way to her being The Chessmaster who is several steps ahead of everyone else. The best evidence for this is during the School Festival when she manages to convince the class to have Misuzu be Cinderella and Tomo be the prince in the class play. At the end, Misuzu assumes it was an elaborate plot to get Misuzu to confront Tomo with how she's been feeling guilty about her meddling in Tomo and Jun's relationship. Carol claims she just wanted a photo of Misuzu dressed up as a princess.
• Arc Fatigue:
  • The overarching plot of the series began to grate on some of its audience, since each arc and plan seemed to go nowhere in advancing the relationship between Tomo and Jun while slowly decreasing Jun's presence overall. And with the festival arc having Tomo realize this, but go straight back to the drawing board with no real game plan, the detractors' impatience grew larger.
  • Some fans really weren't excited about Misaki and Carol's arc, since while it does sort of advance their relationship it leaves out potential for Jun/Tomo to resolve itself, and many arcs already have Carol as a major player in them. The fact that the next story line after the fifth volume ended was about Carol and Misaki again angered many fans.
  • That being said, this all goes away with the anime adaptation. At only 13 episodes, arcs only last one to two episodes at most creating a pretty quick pace. The end result makes the main romantic plot easier to digest and any deviations from it don't last too long.
• Badass Decay: As Jun comes to terms with his feelings, he's seen as a shell of his former self by some readers. He goes from touching Tomo with no problems and able to restrain Carol without much thought to being overly conscious of his relationship with Tomo and flinching whenever Carol rears her head. This is also shared In-Universe after the sports festival arc, with Tomo becoming increasingly frustrated over Jun's tenderness, especially since it's implied that she knew this would happen if she confessed her feelings to him. He quickly regained fans after he became more confident following the school festival, and confessed his feelings to Tomo.
• Broken Base: Like you wouldn't believe. Some of the readership is beyond frustrated with the repeated digressions from the main plot and just wants Jun and Tomo to get together already, while others are fine with them because they help develop the rest of the cast and don't want a rushed resolution. The arguing between these two groups can get so toxic that the comments section for the series on least one manga website is heavily policed and the moderators have had to temporarily lock down comments several times when debates got too heated and personal.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Carol acts very clueless about a lot of social conventions that should be obvious even to a very rich, very lonely girl. She reacts weirdly to emotional situations, and has No Sense of Personal Space. Finally, we learn that for all her apparent stupidity, she is actually an ace in the game Othello, which she seems a little obsessed with, as well as mathematical and scientific subjects. While none of those traits by itself is quite so alarming, the combination of them has led some people to wonder if she might be on the autistic spectrum.
• Fan Nickname:
  • To English speaking countries Carol is known as "Cotton Candy" or "Fluff".
  • Misuzu is the "Demon Queen".
  • Jun is often referred to as BLOCK HEAD (owing to a combination of having at least two shirts with that label, as well as apparently being incredibly dense about Tomo's feelings)
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Carol/Misuzu is far more popular than either girls' heterosexual pairing.
  • Jun/Carol seems to be on the rise, since they've had several interactions together and one of her arcs involved messing with Jun because she was bitter about Misaki.
  • Misuzu/Jun has a resurgence of popularity during Jun's middle school flashback arc, which paints their previous interactions as Belligerent Sexual Tension.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Fans of this series tend to drift towards Kaguya-sama: Love Is War due to the similar tone in works and the similarities between Kaguya's Fujiwara and Tomo-chan's Carol.
  • Some fans also started to drift towards Mousou Telepathy during Tomo-chan's month-long hiatus, due to its Yonkoma format, its unique premise, and the fact that the usual posters on /a/ used it as a filler in the break.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: This manga's final arc features Jun fighting Gorou for the right to date Tomo, with Tomo giving her support by saying she'll pick up Jun's slack when he can't fight anymore. Not even a few weeks later, Boarding School Juliet's final arc features the same thing with leads Romio Inuzuka and Juliet Persia, but with the added bonus of Juliet actually making good on her half of the duel... and winning.
• I Knew It!: Prior to the second flashback arc, some fans had already predicted that Tomo's initial relationship problem with Jun (namely, that he just saw themselves as friends) was her own fault. Cue the arc in question, and we learn that Tomo encourages Jun to not mind what others say about them, and gets told by him that he wants them to be together forever. Tomo then clarifies that they can do it as friends, which he readily agrees to, while Tomo herself begins to fall in love with Jun immediately afterwards.
• Just Here for Godzilla: The English dub got some notable attention for the novelty of having one of the rare examples of Japanese to English Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor casting in a major anime production with Sally Amaki playing Carol Olston in both the original and the English dub.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Misuzu has a popular ship with pretty much every other cast member, with Tomo, Jun, and Carol being the most popular.
• Les Yay:
  • Tomo generates more than a bit of this. She even overhears a group of girls discussing how the boys look and they mention her in the same way.
  • Carol at one point says that she'd date Tomo if she was a boy, or that during their outing together she seemed like a boyfriend.
  • Carol loves to mess with Misuzu in this way, from using innuendo to being out right flirtatious. There have also been a few times Carol tried to kiss her.
  • When Carol calls Misuzu about the day she went out with Tomo, the moment she says it felt a little like a date, Misuzu hangs up.
  • After Tomo asks Jun out to the fireworks display, Carol wonders out loud to Misuzu if she's really okay with the two becoming more like a regular couple. It could have really meant that the dynamic Tomo and Jun reaching isn't what they truly want out of each other, but the way it's framed makes it look like Carol's insinuating that Misuzu has feelings for Tomo.
  • Carol recognizes that Misuzu still wants to have a place beside Tomo as friends, so she says to her that she wants to be Misuzu's "number one" before clarifying that as a platonic feeling.
  • When Carol comes over to Misuzu's house, Mrs. Gundou and Misuzu both agree that Carol acts quite a bit like Mr. Gundou, in the brief spot we see of him. Some of her frustration with Carol might come along with that.
  • While Misuzu is standing alone during the school folk dance, she completely ignores Tanabe (who asks to dance with her), while she gets very noticeably surprised when Carol comes for her (though its just to talk, not dance).
  • In the volume 7 extras, Tomo and Jun are portrayed as Cinderella and her prince respectively. At the end of the extras, Carol and Misuzu also show up... as an overly attached Cinderella and a prince who wants nothing to do with her respectively.
  • Carol demonstrates how easy it is to kiss someone by immediately attempting on Misuzu.
  • Everything concerning Mifune and Ogawa, since the comic slowly reveals their massive girl-crushes on Tomo.
  • The class decides to do a Cinderella play for the Culture Festival, Misuzu is the princess, thanks to Carol taking advantage of her absence, and the prince is Tomo.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Tomo makes everything better. ^note  Tomo has the tendency to give an Armor-Piercing Response to everyone, making their initial worries about upsetting her seem trivial.
  • Everyone is Tomosexual ^note  Everyone has displayed some sort of affection for Tomo, be it romantic or otherwise.
  • 5kg ^note Misuzu noted that during the time when she and Jun were dating, she lost 5 kilograms due to him dragging her everywhere. During the flashback arc around that time, a certain fancomic◊ made its way around the fandom, citing it as one of the ways. The fact that Fumita, the author, orginally did hentai doujins before making Tomo-chan only added fuel to the fire of the Misuzu/Jun pairing.
  • Chapter 841's narrative format has given people limitless material. The final panel can be replaced by any out-of-context panel from Tomo-chan itself to other 4-koma manga to any non-manga content. The format itself can be parodied by using other manga to recreate the page in its entirety.
  • "Don't say the "p" word!"^note That word being "progress" because, due to redditors celebrating any romantic development between Tomo and Jun, a hiatus almost certainly followed.
  • Jun is a druid. ^note Following Jun getting seriously into character when he played a tree in the class' play, to the point that he started talking to trees and did such a good job that the only person who even noticed him was Tomo's father, his martial arts teacher, people started making jokes that he'd become a druid, or became one with nature. Especially started popping up after Tomo and Jun finally started dating, with Jun seemingly unable to become flustered, causing people to say that his poker face and ability to take things in stride comes from him being one with nature
  • huggie wuggies ^note A gag translation where Carol starts acting like a furry roleplayer while Jun is horrified. It's often highly associated with furry stereotypes, especially when this video involving Team Fortress 2 characters was released. Predictably, when the anime got to this scene, an animated version was inevitable.
• Nightmare Fuel: The cover for Volume 5 is amazingly creepy. Misaki looks a little demonic clutching his tie with a hand covered in bulging veins and his bangs covering his right eye. Tomo and Jun look appropriately disturbed.
• Ron the Death Eater: Misuzu faced a ton of out of universe backlash for upsetting Carol to the point of tears when all she wanted was a different reaction from the norm, and pressed a landmine that really shouldn't ought to have been pressed. Since she got away with it with little more than an understanding from Tomo, some people are furious with her and say that she meant to do this deliberately as part of her plan to hook up Carol and Misaki together. Except even she agrees she went too far, and immediately regrets the decision, only asking Misaki to be with her in her time of need.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Even if the ideas were cliché, some fans would have preferred that the male leads were won over instead of secretly pining for their respective girls the whole time. That said, Jun sort of has been won over, and is now secretly pining (without realising it) as a result. However, the second long flashback arc shows that it was secret pining all along, given that he'd already recognized her as a girl in middle school.
  • The "Jun's Birthday" series of strips was seen as a bit of a waste of time to many readers. As the premise was about Tomo earning enough money to buy Jun a birthday present, we do see some testing moments between the pair, but the arc ends precisely after Tomo hands over the gift on his birthday, with no exploration during the event itself.
  • When the Official Couples finally get together, not much of their relationships are actually shown; Carol and Misaki barely show up together or interact with each other after their romance arc concluded, and while Tomo and Jun end up having a date, the last arc focuses on Jun earning his right to be with Tomo instead, with very little time focusing on them together, and the two don't officially end up dating until the very last few pages.
  • In the final arc, Gorou absolutely refuses to give Jun his blessing to date Tomo until Jun can beat him in a fight. Jun is temporarily hit with despair, and Tomo herself is outraged. Later, when Jun is finally facing down with Gorou, Tomo is shown sulking about how little chance Jun has and it could be years before he is ever strong enough to beat him on his own, before a conversation with her friends inspires her to get more proactive and rush to the dojo where Jun and Gorou are fighting.
    • You think this seems like it's building up to Tomo and Jun fighting Gorou together, completing the arc of them finding a way to be lovers while still being friends, and ending the series on a message about the Power of Love.
    • Instead, Tomo just goes there and gives Jun some motivating words and then proceeds to cheer him on from the background while Jun, on his own, realizes that Gorou is just testing Jun's resolve and wants him to just go all out rather than actually win. Ultimately, the finale is good for what it is, but many viewers commented about the wasted potential.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Yes, it was very upsetting when the audience sees Carol cry for the first time, but some fans can't reconcile this arc and the others she's starred in. She's upset that Misaki supposedly doesn't see her as a woman, yet she doesn't bother to clear the air about her feelings for him and merely teases him with the thought. Misuzu even muses that a lot of the problems with her setup is that Carol isn't being honest with her feelings, not Misaki. Coupled with the fact that she tries to provoke Misaki himself with an Operation: Jealousy plan, it only feels hypocritical.
  • Misaki himself falls into this as well. The Reveal showing he liked Carol and was insecure about her stagnant personality and reactions made some fans very angry, since to them the only obstacle to resolving their subplot is Misaki's own feelings on the subject, and feel that he's placing most of the blame on Carol for not showing the "proper" response to his feelings.
  • Tomo herself to a chunk of the audience. In her quest to figure out what it will take for Jun to see her as a romantic interest, many readers come out of it thinking Tomo just wants to have her cake and eat it too. Her insistence at maintaining her friendly rivalry with Jun on top of making him see her as a woman, her getting frustrated when reality doesn't match up with her desires, and her flipflopping whenever she has second doubts about the relationship made them less sympathetic to Tomo's inner conflict and end up thinking her selfish.
  • Jun and Gorou in the final arc, for setting up a duel for Jun to have the right to date Tomo behind Tomo's back. While traditional gestures like this are understandable, given Jun's very traditional mindset (he wants to protect Tomo, he thinks he should make the first move as a man, etc.) and Gorou having his insecurities as a father giving his little girl away, they did this with a.) Jun going on a date with her and only informing her that they're not going steady at the end of it and b.) nobody involved informing her of their intentions or reasoning. The result is a very angry Tomo ghosting the both of them, who the audience couldn't help but agree with.
• Values Dissonance:
  • The manga's main premise—a tomboyish girl being unable to get the boy she likes to notice her feelings because he doesn't see her as a girl—is very dependent on how gender roles are strictly enforced in Japan. In the west, especially in North America, a girl who doesn't act very girly and/or has more male related hobbies wouldn't usually be seen as "less of a girl" because of it. To the manga's credit, it has been said a few times that Tomo worries too much about not being girly enough, and Tomo's boyish qualities are also a reason Jun likes her.
  • Mostly just confusion for American readers, but because Fumita's trying to play up the Kissing Cousins angle with Carol and Misaki, some fans were questioning why, since one of the parties is a foreigner and wouldn't immediately go down that route because of the stigma against incest, even distant incest like between cousins.
• Woolseyism: The comic strip "Do you speak English?" Has Carol trick Mr. Tanabe by pretending she's an English speaker who can't understand him. Obviously the joke doesn't work as well in English, so the title was renamed "Do you speak Japanese?" and Carol spoke French instead.