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「未放送第13話」
“Episode 13”
Fittingly enough, the experience of watching this OVA was an avalanche of mixed emotions.
First things first – Watamote is still great. The OVA doesn’t miss a beat – it’s every bit as smart, hilarious and gut-wrenching as the TV series, and plays much like a regular episode with a bit more scope (and fourth wall breakage). But it’s a kind of perfect storm of bittersweet feelings, because I always feel more than a little sad watching an OVA of a series I love when I know it’s likely going to be the last anime ever produced for that series. When you add to that the fact that Watamote is perhaps uniquely perched on the knife’s edge between comedy and tragedy anyway, you have a potent emotional stew boiling over.
Things kick off with an insanely clever Evangelion parody in the pre-open, which eviscerates the shallowness and dysfunction of anime (and idol) commercialism. It casts Tomoko as Gendo Ikari, planning for the “second season” (the tragedy of course being that we know it will never come) by cooking up new plotlines involving Yuu-chan (as the mean beauty who acts like a ditz) and Kii-chan (as the super-smart loli who skipped grades to enter high school). All of this under the watchful eye of SEELE, of course.
Tomoko instructs Yuu-chan to dump her boyfriend because “those anime-watching tards hate a character who has a boyfriend”, and to stop talking to guys altogether because “that also has a negative effect”. Also de rigueur is that both girls have yuri feelings for Tomoko, and a gay plotline for Tomoki. All of this, of course, is to appeal to the masses of the anime buying public who would never buy a Watamote disc in a hundred lifetimes – the reason why that second season is a fantasy. And this all ends with Kuroko being woken from this dream and dumped back into her “real” life, with the same Munch-like transition into the OP we saw in Episode 10. Brilliant.
No less so is the actual episode, which mostly takes place three years earlier during middle school. In a Rashomon-like setup we see a series of events on the school rooftop, first through the eyes of seventh-grader Aomatsu (Suwabe Junichi). He’s a not-quite chuunibyou boy who muses about what idiots his classmates are for not thinking of deep things like he does, and dreams that his life will be touched by the magical events from the pages of some or other light novel. One day he finds the door of the roof (where such events are destined to occur) unlocked and ventures outside, where a finds a long-haired and dark-eyed beauty who leaps down from next to the water tank, snaps her ankle (in truth, just a sprain) and spins a wild tale of using the rooftop to watch out for terrorists.
As with so much in Watamote, comedy and despair walk hand-in-hand with this storyline. Watching the events play out through first Aomatsu and later Tomoko’s eyes is very funny – especially when we see how mundane they were without Aomatsu’s fantasy glasses. But of course the flipside is that this is yet another opportunity for Tomoko to connect with someone – a boy, no less, and probably a perfect one for her as he’s both younger and sympathetic to her worldview – that never happens because she can’t come right out and admit to herself that she wants it. The truth is that she’s simply picked up the roof key the gym teacher dropped and sought out a fortress of solitude, but fate has once again handed her an opportunity she fritters away.
As if all that weren’t bad enough, Tomoko gets herself locked outside when the teacher catches on to what’s happened and she hides from him, and is thoroughly humiliated and never sees the mysterious boy again. Except she does, as not only are they now in the same high school but that boy is friends with Tomoki – they even bump into each other but because she’d sooner die than make eye contact, neither realizes that the other is the person they’ve been longing to see again. The flashbacks are also an anime introduction to a very important manga character – Komiyama Kotomi (Mizuhashi Kaori), who Tomoko eternally refers to as “Komi-whatever” as they vie for Yuu-chan’s affections.
Almost a year after it ended, my affection for Watamote hasn’t dimmed at all. I still consider this one of the most brilliant and challenging anime of recent years, a rare case where a great manga has actually been improved in the transition to anime. It’s fearless in its satire of so-called “Cool Japan” and unsparing in its depiction of the singularly fucked-up and obnoxious Tomoko. Yet it still manages to present her as a sad and lonely little girl who just wants to be loved and can’t figure out how to navigate existence, much less make that happen.
Watamote is honest and unsparing, and the fact that the anime failed commercially (the manga is a modest success) is further indication that if there’s one thing mainstream anime fans would rather not deal with, it’s introspection. In theory this show should be a hit – it pokes fun at the world anime fans inhabit with unerring accuracy and in a hilarious way. These people should be in on the joke – but if there’s a commercial lesson here, it’s that shining a light on places the audience would rather not have to see is no recipe for commercial success. That’s a real shame, because Watamote says an awful lot of things that need to be said, and tells the story of a heroine that may be sad and even bleak, but ultimately inspires compassion for her experience.
Waiting for good subs was excruciating ~(*~*)~
As excruciating as actually watching the show?
Sorry for asking about other anime. Do someone see subs for the last Genshiken’s OVA? Was it subbed?
There’s an OVA??! I had no idea!
All too brilliant…and depressing t same time.
Kuroko is definitely set to become lonely woman…
I feel sorry for her. =( I just want her to be happy. Either by learning to handle anxiety or meeting a nice understanding guy.
I think Kuroko will be happy enough groping Misaka at every chance she can get.
If you mean Tomoko (whose last name is Kuroki), however, then either she coerces Yuu in having lesbian sex with her (if only once, as I doubt she’ll ever get Kii-chan that far), or stay alone all her life (if she doesn’t kill herself in the mean time).
oops a Freudian slip. perhaps?
Yeah Kuroki Tomoko has no brigh tfuture ahead, thats sure…
Did they try to make her look like Amamiya Yuuko…?
Ah, Watomote, a comedy going to the heart of what comedy’s about: tragedy.
That guy looks like Kyon! with glasses!
That aside, what Watashi does amazingly well is lay bare the truly mortifying crap you pull off during middle/high school in the awkward attempts to fit in or look cool. Tomoko’s half-assed dream of being a weapons supplier… spouting “mysterious” anime lines… it hits so close to home, it hurts.
Wow, Enzo, you really nailed why this show didn’t do so well. I personally always found it hilarious.
Considering it was Anno Hideki who laid into the industry on these same grounds at TIFF, the theme of the pre-open satire is even more appropriate.
I don’t understand some people.. If you’re going to sub something why do a terrible job of it?
As a great man once said… =3=
Lolol.
Most of the time I don’t mind bad subs, but really… “Don’t tell me you’re going to fucking side with this cunt”. Come on now…
https://randomc.net/image/Watamote/Watamote%20-%20OVA%20-%20Large%2014.jpg
I was totally digging that older sexyfied Tomoko though.
https://randomc.net/image/Watamote/Watamote%20-%20OVA%20-%20Large%2042.jpg
Daaaaaawh. I still think she’s adorbs.
Makes me wonder how the author plans to end the manga, stick to the bleak future or perhaps make it slightly brighter?
So did we just see how Tomoko looks to outsiders, instead of her negative self image that we usually see?
I think we saw how she looked as a 14 year-old to a 13 year-old borderline Chu2boi desperate for some magic in his life. I wouldn’t generalize it any more than that.
It threw me at first that she looked so much older in the first half of the episode, but it was very effective portrayal of perspective.
I am an introspective kinda guy, so I love Watamote. This OVA was better than i expected, when i realized that we are doing the whole ‘same scene from two characters points of view’, i was disappointed as that has just been a cheap tool in several animes.
However, it was done with genius here, and i did love the juxtaposition between them.
Thanks Guardian for blogging this show. I feel like going out and buying $10,000 worth of Watamote stuff to let the creator know that their talents did not go to waste.
A noble sentiment! Though, given the depressing lack of merchandising for Watamote, I suspect you’d have to buy a hundred Blu-rays just to get yourself anywhere close.
The possibilities for who kuroko could become in the future are dismally infinite….yet one in the same???….great stuff…there should be a movie, but that aint gonna happen
I guess I’ll have to look for the manga now to see if there’s a glimpse of hope for Tomoko’s change
Oh man, that first part was a big middle finger if ever there was one. That’s good satire for ya.
I actually kind of put off this episode for a few days because of the same sentiment expressed at the start of the post, though. This is the last animated bit we’ll ever get of Watamote, so that kind of put me in a melancholy mood. I kind of wanted to savor it, I suppose. Because it’s still my favourite show of last year, easily. It’s a brilliant mix of satire combined with a character study of a very intriguing, tragic (and familiar) character. Tomoko’s the perfect example of a deeply flawed character that you end up caring for anyway.
This episode managed to nail the essence of the show in that regard. It’s frequently hilarious, from satirizing the hell out of the industry to the delusions of the two main characters this episode. And at the same time, you can’t help but feel sad for what could have been. Tomoko’s still as miserable as ever, but she’s always so close to finding at least a little bit of happiness – in this case, meeting the guy again – but she turns away from it herself again. It’s like watching Fievel from An American Tail constantly miss finding his parents by so little. You’d almost want to intervene. Well, it was good seeing (and hearing, her voice fits her so perfectly) her again, in any case.
Kinda sucks we’re never getting a second season either (would’ve liked to see more of Komi-whatever). But at least I can collect the manga in English (and figures, and DVD’s if they ever bring those to Europe), so there’s that. Because this is a series that I feel wholeheartedly deserves my money.
Actually, if you’re feeling especially optimistic you could point to one way there might be a second season – maybe a 2% chance. There seems no question the manga is a bigger hit (relatively) in English than it is in Japanese. I think Watamote would be a perfect fit for Adult Swim, and American anime fans are probably going to be generally more receptive to this show than Japanese disc buying ones. If Watamote went the Space Dandy route, it might be quite successful. Sadly though, I see no evidence that anyone that matters has even considered the possibility.
You are cruel for giving us hope.
Well, good news for Adult Swim is that Sentai managed to censor themselves when dubbing Watamote. I swore I died a little inside when they changed Kii-chan’s most memorable line from “She’s obviously talking out of her hymen” to “She’s obviously a virgin.”