Watamote ep6: ANT you had enough yet? Heh, heh heh!

I’ve seen some dumb ideas, especially in this show, but a crusade to secrete more estrogen sounds more like a problem that should be solved by a fifty year old woman, not one who’s fifteen. Tomoko somehow takes the ass-backwards logic that she specializes in, and links her nights of playing dating sims, to nights that equate to pseudo sex. And because she half-reads an article in a magazine, she feels especially validated. So instead of bathing, going to bed at a reasonable time, or picking up a hobby that doesn’t suck away her chances at sunlight; she takes the opportunity to game as long as sloppily as she can, thinking that it will cause man attracting estrogen to literally ooze from her pores.

I like women – A LOT, but this disgusts even me.

Despite signs that all she’s doing is becoming a sticky attraction for ants, not men, she still isn’t convinced that what she’s doing is a bad idea. Things get so ridiculous that by the end of the first half of the episode she’s a walking ant hill.

Estrogen does not equal sugar. (Maybe I should make that the name of this post?)

The second half of the episode starts with the beginning of summer break.

With the first semester over, Tomoko has reached the deadline for one of her important goals.  She was hoping to have someone to see the fireworks with her this evening.  And if you’ve been reading or watching, you know she’s made zero progress these past few months.  In a last ditch effort, she makes her way to the school library to find another loser like her to either invite, or have ask her out.  Man or woman, she just doesn’t care.  And as you can expect, it’s a tedious exercise in futility and failure, sprinkled with her own rare flavor of delusion.  She first tries to approach a girl and ask her, simply based on the fact that they’d both read the book she was reading (not a bad idea).  But the girl is just studious and not lonely.  She was just waiting on her friends.  Next, she attempts to lure in the dude left in the library, reading a book of his own.  When he doesn’t make a move, she comes up with a plan to receive a fake phone call and make it sound like some guy had killed the date for whatever reason.  She went so far as to even yell in the room her “inner thoughts” of not caring who took her to see the fireworks, but damn near three hours later, he had not only not talked to her, but left without her notice.

“PROFOUND SADNESS!”

With the deadline approaching, and her last ditch effort having failed. Tomoko takes the slow walk to the off-limits rooftop of a nearby building.  As she gazes at the sunset (a not healthy practice, mind you), she thinks back to a happier time when she and her friend visited this very same spot in middle school, all dressed in black.  Have to admit, on the way up there I thought she was contemplating suicide.  Thankfully, I was dead wrong.  A pair of middle school kids show up, I guess expecting a private place to watch the fireworks, too.  And Tomoko attempts to leave, but then reconsiders and asks them if she can stay.  The two boys don’t really mind or care.  So Tomoko graciously accepts what she’s been given.  It’s not romantic, but beautiful.  She has a chance to see the fireworks… with somebody.

And oh boy does she see some fireworks!

End of episode.

What a sad, sad episode.  The first part wasn’t so bad.  As usual, it was terribly her fault for misunderstanding and misreading so much.  Everything’s a shortcut to Tomoko’s wants.  She’s constantly on the search for a magic lamp or a winning lottery ticket that will turn her life around, and all these flimsy investments leave her are deeper and deeper in emotional debt.  I can almost guarantee that the answer to her problems is the group of “sluts and morons” that she keeps listening in on and internally berating.

The second part of this episode just seemed really painful to watch at times.  It just shows so clearly that she’s the most lonely and desperate person in her school.  And even worse, no one notices, let alone cares.  If it weren’t for such a clever and endearing ending, I might not have liked this episode as a whole.  That said I had more than few laughs at this episode’s stupidity.  Tomoko’s reaction to her own conclusion that being in love and sex makes you more beautiful, and then seeing two cats having sex (or one raping the other, can never tell with cats); it was all hilarious.  The various moments where guys attempted to tell her that she was crawling with ants, her stupidly calm and refreshed face after blasting herself with soda, and her brother’s reaction to seeing her run down the street flinging ants everywhere; all of it was fun.  And of course the very end where she gets to see two kinds of fireworks; that was easily the best part of the episode.

My opinion of the series as a whole doesn’t dip a bit because of this episode, but it does remind me just how damn sad it can be at times.  In the end, this really is just a story (that progresses very slowly) about a girl that just wants friends.  Any friends.  And I’m totally OK with laughing at that, it’s just that sometimes I really do hope that she eventually finds them.

Further Reading:

• Episode 5