WATAMOTE: No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular is a darkly hilarious cult classic, and a year after its abrupt removal, the anime has finally returned to streaming. WATAMOTE only ran for one season in 2013, but it still developed a devoted fanbase for its dark and raunchy humor and how relatable the series made its protagonist, Tomoko, through the use of cringe comedy. Despite this, the anime was removed from Crunchyroll in 2022, leaving many people without a way to either continue watching it or finally get into it.
Fortunately, WATAMOTE: No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular has finally returned to streaming. As of May 13, every episode of the anime barring the OVA is available for streaming on HIDIVE in both English and Japanese, the first time since it was abruptly taken off of Crunchyroll in 2022. This creates a perfect chance for new fans to learn why the anime has had so much staying power, but at the same time, what also needs to be addressed is why the series, as a whole, has been able to maintain a fanbase for over a decade now.
WATAMOTE Is A Dark Subversion Of The Slice-Of-Life Genre
A big part of why WATAMOTE was able to become a cult classic was through its penchant for dark humor, specifically through its subversion of the slice-of-life genre. The typical slice-of-life anime stars a quirky cast of characters, often cute girls, who are all-around good people going through life and often find themselves involved in various hijinks. WATAMOTE, however, serves as the antithesis to those stories; Tomoko is a loner, she’s drawn to not be conventionally attractive, her internal and external monologues are filled with obscenities and negative comments about herself and others, and each episode serves to have her suffer in more and more ways.
WATAMOTE is essentially the exact opposite of a typical slice-of-life anime, and that’s part of what’s allowed it to maintain a fanbase for so long. While there are lots of variations on the typical slice-of-life formula, many of them do still hit the same basic beats, so there ends up being a lot of value in a show like WATAMOTE that goes out of its way to eschew those conventions to be as much of its own thing as possible. That uniqueness is still present a decade later, and with any luck, the series returning to streaming will allow even more people to experience that.
WATAMOTE’s Manga Flips its Own Premise on its Head
WATAMOTE’s anime ended in 2013, but it’s been able to maintain a fanbase thanks to, oddly enough, the series becoming the exact opposite of itself. As the WATAMOTE manga went on, not only did it tone down a lot of the cringe comedy, but Tomoko started to develop a large circle of friends, and Tomoko herself gradually grew into a somewhat nicer person. All of this meant that WATAMOTE essentially became the exact sort of manga it was originally lampooning, but that allowed for a lot of growth in the kinds of stories it could tell, and its continued success shows that that was certainly the right decision.
Something that also makes it work is how much it adds to Tomoko’s character. As fun as it was to constantly watch Tomoko suffer in social situations, having her grow as a person adds far more depth to her character; if anything, the cringe comedy works even better as a setup for Tomoko’s arc, as her starting as a cynical loner makes it satisfying to see her unironically become something of a social butterfly. WATAMOTE being able to effortlessly pull off a tone switch like that is a testament to its quality, and the anime coming back to streaming allows a new audience to experience that for the first time.
