Dec 4, 2015
(First review. Sorry for the formality, I'm too accustomed to churning out verbose bullshit for university essays.) Watamote is a strong and memorable anime because it offers an evocative and incisive insight into the nature of anxiety. Watamote maps the high school experiences of Tomoko, a chronically anxious, cynical, alienated and occasionally depressed protagonist. I generally judge anime according to its conceptual and emotional complexity. Watamote definitely delivers on the latter but not the former. The narrative doesn't show any particular thematic or character-related development, so it is ultimately limited in its meaningful quality. However, Tomoko's story succeeds in evoking the
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ups-and-downs of high school on the smaller stage of an anxiety-ridden life. Watamote uses black humour to present the practical and emotional flux of Tomoko's undertakings in an unaffected, unmoderated way. Tomoko comes up with a lot of initiatives to become popular and secure her sense of identity amongst her peers. Yet each time she tries to implement a scheme, she receives contradictory feedback from her distorted perspective and from her variable real-world experiences. Diverging from the idealistic character empowerment within many different anime-verses, Watamote never attempts to rescue Tomoko from her humiliation through tropes or other convenient plot devices. This is what makes Watamote such an enduringly affective anime. Tomoko remains a complex and realistic protagonist who is both embittered and individualized. We are shown the full, largely static picture of Tomoko's life and personality, gory details included. It is left to the individual viewer to draw their own impressions and decisions.
Tomoko's social world appears to be a fairly tolerant (albeit indifferent) one, particularly for high school. Tomoko also retains a loyal, caring friend from middle school and a slightly jaded younger brother. What really holds her back in every potential transformation is her extreme social anxiety and comorbid isolation. Tomoko frequently visualizes her fundamental social alienation by perceiving surrounding people as grey, non-interactive silhouettes; at some points, she imagines herself as appearing bland or transparent to other people. Tomoko's dark and nondescript colours contrast with the brighter colours of perceived socially functional characters, particularly female ones. Interestingly, Tomoko's insecurity in this area is quite gendered. She worries about drawing too much (or too little) attention as a female, shows some signs of internal misogyny (such as spitefully calling other girls 'sluts') and fantasises about presenting an ideal feminine persona. I think this is an interesting and important insight, as it suggests how women may experience anxiety in particularized ways. Watamote's portrayal of Tomoko as a socially anxious girl may offers a valuable counterpart to other comparable depictions of anxiety (like Satou's in NHK). Overall, Watamote is an absorbing anime that evokes a range of visceral emotions and invites an empathetic understanding of social anxiety.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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