Tomo-chan wa Onnanoko!

Tomo-Chan caught me by surprise. I’m not normally into the muscular mommy dommy waifu vibe so came into this with low expectations, but boy was I blown out of the water with how good this show is. Takahashi Rie puts in one of her most memorable performances to date and this will go down as the best romance show of Winter 2023. Tomo-chan’s story is not the most original, on the surface at least. Childhood friends who are both oblivious to each other’s feelings, grow up, reach puberty and start noticing each other as members of the opposite sex. What makes this one stand out isthat Tomo is a cute tom boy who has essentially acted and dressed like a boy her whole life. Now she wants to be seen as a girl by her best friend. The wide range of antics she got up to over the course of the season to make that wish come true was hilarious. The character interactions in this are top notch, genuinely some of the funniest comedy I have seen in an anime as well. What makes things even better is the supporting characters. Carol and Misuzu are amazing and I would not blame anyone for having them in their top waifus list. Genuinely hilarious characters who are also amazing friends, supporting Tomo the entire way. I particularly loved seeing Misuzu who is a massive tsundere, begin to shed that icy exterior and open up as the show went on. Her gradual friendship with Carol was so sweet and almost as good as any romantic development for me. Carol, the token american blonde, provides so many comedic moments, but while she comes off as a massive airhead, she’s really a thoughtful and concerned friend. I think the best part of this show is that there’s more to all these characters than meets the eye. Whether it’s Tomo’s tomboyish appearance which masks a typical cute teenage girl, Misuzu’s dark tsundere exterior which masks a caring and doting friend, etc., the show does a surprisingly good job of showing the complexities of people. I am a big proponent of short and succinct stories that get everything across without dragging plot lines out and this show did just that. Being based off a 4-koma manga helps a lot with the directness of the story. The characters all get satisfactory ends to their stories and it really left nothing to be desired. Lay-duce did an awesome job with pacing and art in the show, really looks bright and beautiful. Animation is solid, no complaints. The voice acting was honestly my favourite artistic aspect of the show. Takahashi Rie in particular blew me away. I am admittedly not a fan of most of her roles, character wise, but lately she’s been on a role. Voicing two of my faves from this season in Tomo and Ririha from Ooyukiumi no Kaina. Traditionally, she’s done more soft spoken feminine characters, but seeing her handle boisterous Tomo really gave me even more respect for her range. Misuzu and Carol’s seiyuus are great too and add a lot to their scenes. Tomo-Chan is a really fun watch. If you’re looking for comedy, romance, slice of life type stuff, this is the one. If you have limited time and can only check out one romance show this season, this is it. You won’t regret it. Tomo-Chan gets a very easy 10/10.

Tomo-chan is a Girl is a very hit or miss romcom in my opinion, with its louder style of comedy, and while being a bit repetitive at times, it worked for me. It has a rocky start in the romance aspect, and the comedy was definitely what made this show a decent one. It’s pretty goofy and episodic, while having Tomo and Junichiro’s relationship slowly build. It sadly falls into the category of a show where the side characters shine the most, with Carol and Misuzu carrying the show on their back, but they were so entertaining that it saved the show. It’s a comedyreliant on punchlines, and if you like that type of comedy, it may work well for you. The story actually starts with a confession in the very first scene from a tomboy, Tomo Aizawa, the main female character, to Junichiro Kubota, the main male character. As the title of the anime may hint towards, Junichiro has thought that Tomo was a boy for a long time, and thus, treats her like one of the boys, much to Tomo’s chagrin, as her confession isn’t taken seriously. Tomo’s friends, Misuzu and Carol, push her towards being a little more feminine to get Junichiro’s attention, and sometimes this works, sometimes it backfires. The romance is pretty generic, as it’s mostly the friends that push the couple together, and the friends just feel like the peanut gallery to the romance. Misuzu and Carol are amazing, and what made me like the show more. Misuzu is a savage, never holding back in abusing people socially, and in a way, she’s more intimidating than Tomo’s physical abuse. Carol is just a dunce, doing the dumbest things sometimes, though she can be quite clever in other ways, which is a fun balance to have. To make these two even better, their interactions with each other are just comedy gold. One thing I did enjoy from the romance was the exploration of gender roles and how true romance means accepting the other person for who they are, and not a forced version of oneself. Misuzu pushes Tomo to be more feminine, but she does address how in the end, romance isn’t purely liking more feminine or masculine actions from the other person, but for liking the other person as a whole, whether it’s Tomo’s tomboyish behaviour, and or her softer, more emotional side. I wasn’t a huge fan of the romance to start, but this pushed me to at least appreciate the attempt at writing the romance. While the romance felt slow, at times, it also felt like they were rushing through the manga chapters as well. I haven’t read the manga personally, but I know there were a lot of chapters in there that were probably skipped over. Ultimately, the romance development was just a little inconsistent, as it felt slow for a good chunk of the show, and then just sped up suddenly, which was a little jarring. Overall though, the comedy is the real charming point of this show, as a lot of the punchlines were decent and gave me quite a few laughs. The romance could have been executed better, but the comedy and the side characters were enough to allow me to enjoy the show nonetheless. It’s a decent show to check out if you have the time, it’s good for a laugh.

Tomboy romcom, right? Wrong. Tomo-chan is not a tomboy and her namesake series is not a romcom at all. Tomo-chan wa Onnanoko! is a stereotypical case of a story that is genuinely deep and thought-provoking but doesn’t beat the audience over their heads with how smart it's supposed to be, leaving pretentious pseuds not able to see any depth at all and thus dismissing it as a generic *insert-genre-name-that-vaguely-fits-here*. Here is a concrete example: The protagonist spends the opening ten minutes of the show worrying that her love interest Jun doesn’t see her as a girl. Then the perspective switches to him. Jun learns that Tomo has madea new male friend, gets jealous, and demands an explanation from her. She shows him a photo of a lean bishounen with long eyelashes and Jun sighs in relief, “oh, it’s a girl.” Why did he think that? Because Jun doesn’t just see Tomo as a girl, he sees her as THE girl, the very concept of a girl inside his mind is just Tomo. That’s a five-second-long scene that fully spells out the entire dynamic and the driving conflict between the leads, this scene belongs in Merriam-Webster under the definition of “depth.” The major reason for the shallow dismissals is the presence of the so-called romcom cliches - a tomboy, a childhood friends couple, a dense male lead, etc. Except none of those things are even remotely cliched if you’re capable of engaging with a work of fiction on any level beyond the most superficial one. Reducing this series to a cliched romcom is the equivalent of reducing Monogatari to a cliched harem because your monkey neuron activation has managed to notice that Senjougahara is a “tsundere,” Kanbaru - a “tomboy,” etc. No, actually the *entire* point of Monogatari is that people are complex beings that can’t be reduced to simple categories, and the story blatantly spells it out for anyone capable of minimal reading comprehension. Likewise, Tomo-chan wa Onnanoko! literally spells out what its story is about. Hint: read the fucking title. Tomo-chan isn’t “a tomboy.” Tomo-chan is a complex, multidimensional human being whose personality is a logical product of her genes, upbringing, and social environment. She is *a girl.* Her hair isn’t short because weebs in the audience find short hair hot, it’s because she is doing sports. She is doing sports not because weebs find toned midriffs and spats hot, it’s because she is from a professional sportsman family and her entire life revolves around doing sports. The main conflict of the series, being bro-zoned by her love interest, is the consequence of Tomo having a superficially unfeminine character, but actually a very feminine mind - and unable to reconcile one with another. The series isn’t “a romcom.” The series is a psychological drama about self-actualization, which happens to have teen romance as a premise, and is funny at times. Never mind Monogatari, its closest equivalents are Kuzu no Honkai and WataMote. Another reason why calling the series a generic romcom is an intellectual equivalent of calling Mt. Everest “some hill,” is a gigantic, universe-spanning chasm in the writing quality between Tomo-chan and whatever usually comes to mind from the description “generic romcom.” The story progresses with consistent pacing and concludes when its central conflict gets resolved, both the main ship and the side ship sail, and every major character completes their own arc. It’s absolutely delusional to equate this to a genre notorious for stories being dragged out for hundreds of chapters past their logical endpoint by editors not allowing demotivated writers to kill their cash cow (see Kaguya or Nisekoi), and where the idea of development is introducing a new harem member or some soap-opera-tier contrived melodrama (see 5-toubun or Nisekoi again). Here is an outline of each major character arc, as more examples of storytelling depth: Tomo. Her arc is about realizing that she doesn’t need to change who she is to be accepted, this is why I compare the show with WataMote. Jun. He’s a case of more “cliches.” No, Tomo isn’t his “childhood friend,” she is literally his entire life, and no, he isn’t “dense,” he’s not feeling worthy and is afraid that trying to change the nature of their relationship might fuck up what they have. Misuzu. I-want-her-to-step-on-me “cliche” torn between her desire to support the romance of her only friend, and the fear of getting sidelined as a third wheel. Carol. Human cotton candy on the outside, an actual feeling, thinking person on the inside that struggles to make others see her as more than her surface (pretty symbolic). There isn’t a single romcom featuring an even remotely this complex of a cast, again, unless you consider Monogatari or Kuzu no Honkai romcoms. Finally, a few words about the quality of the adaptation, because I’ve seen people talking about it, and by talking, I mean saying dumb shit. The anime adaptation is pretty barebones and doesn’t really elevate the source material much. Not going above and beyond, however, does not make an adaptation bad, this is just disingenuous when actually bad adaptations that ruin the appeal of the source material exist, see Ex-Arm or Kanojo mo Kanojo. Elevating the source can indeed make an anime better, but expecting this as a baseline is an absurd entitlement. To begin with, any anime adaptation inherently adds something to the story in the form of color, movement, music, and voice acting. Tomo-chan’s anime does all that on a perfectly competent level, for example, they’ve got an American of Japanese descent to voice an anglo character in order to get a realistic foreign accent. 11/10 (on a 15-point scale) for a literary masterpiece.

I get the appeal. Tomo-chan is a very sweet romcom anime about young love, that is very apparent. I think it started off quite strong, with good comedy and cute strong characters. I love the dynamics between Carol-chan and Misuzu, with them bickering at times but always having one another's back. Misuzu also is like definitely the best girl in the show. As for our main couple, I'm not really that interested in them? Even after watching I don't feel much sentimental value for them which is? Questionable. It just dragged a-lot with the whole romance aspect, it's a ROM-com, so I was expecting likea little more romance, maybe a few more kiss scenes, like please? We did not really see Jun's perspective like that much at all, which also would've been interesting... I was just disappointed in that aspect, and the fact it it paid so much attention to the fact Tomo is a tomboy, I think it could've been better with like just embracing it? Sure, her being dressed up is adorable but I think their best scenes came from when they were being themselves and there was some cute tension in-between. Comedy wise, I think this show does a good job, some of the jokes are hilarious, and they really make sure to bring them up at the best times. I do wish though we had more of a variety... but nothing to really complain about. Except for the fact it can get pretty boring, I kind of did just leave it on it the background at times while working forgetting it was on because it kind of did get repetitive with the 'Jun doesn't think of me as a girl omg...' scenes. By the way, the voice actors did great on this series, if you do watch this... You'll notice the same. Anyways, this series was fine I guess ,,,, it's not really anything special to me. It needed more work and more planning for me to enjoy it. If you do like slowburn and a good laugh than this show is probably for you.

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