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"Since I'm Not Popular, I'll Become an Enigma" (モテないし, 謎めいてみる Motenai shi, Nazo Meite Miru?) is an OAD of WataMote. The episode was written by Takao Yoshioka based on a draft by Nico Tanigawa and directed by Yoshinobu Tokumoto. It was released on October 22, 2014 bundled with the special limited first edition of the 7th manga volume.

Synopsis[]

Tomoko-Gendo

Tomoko Assumes the Gendo Pose™

The OVA opens with a reference to the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion including Tomoko taking a "Gendo Pose." Tomoko distributes scripts to Yū Naruse and her cousin Kii. Yū's script opens with her declaring that her "clothes are starting to feel tight on my boobs," which expand, causing "Gendo" Tomoko to develop a nosebleed. The scene immediately shifts to two balloons with "smiley" faces, one of which expands as Tomoko's voice-over rants about how she and Yū "were the same size in middle school." Kii approaches Tomoko from behind and asks if, when she becomes Tomoko's age, her breasts will become as big as Yū's. An anime stylized Yū cautions Kii about the benefits of large breasts. "Gendo" Tomoko wonders if Yū's cautions are a "dig" against her.

The scene reveals the three sitting around a table in a part-classroom, part Neon Genesis Evangelion background as Tomoko laments that "we still have to go with that dumb crap since a popular character drives disc sales." "Gendo" Tomoko concludes that the only way to ensure disc sales, "is to keep giving the tards what they want." This means that the characters all must become stale types. While her phone shows a message from her mother asking what she wants for dinner, Tomoko concludes that Yū will be "a mean girl who acts like a ditz," Kiko will be "the underaged, loli genius who skipped a bunch of grades," while both will harbor yuri feelings for her: "That plot element is essential!" Yū asks, "Yuri?" but Tomoko turns to the viewer while responding to Yū that whenever she looks at another girl, Yū must become "jealous and flirty in a way that gets across to the viewers." Further, Yū must break up with her boyfriend, "before the second season starts," because the "anime-watching tards" hate when the female characters have boyfriends. If Yū does not agree, Tomoko will write her out!

Failure to adhere to such expectations will lead to failure in DVD sales, as the scene transitions to a view of a WataMote announcement burning, then a note book, then "Gendo" Tomoko with the Neon Genesis background deciding she needs to create an original gay character for her brother Tomoki to the voice over of Kiko declaring "it is over,"

Face Miserable Life

Truth Hurts

Tomoko asks in protest if they can leave "stuff not related to the second season for later?"  Kiko, in a classroom, happily informs Tomoko it is time for her to face her miserable life. Tomoko screams "Oh God No!" as she dissolves into the Opening Credits.

After the opening, students file out of the classroom. One unnamed bespectacled male middle-school character, who at the end of the OVA will finally be revealed to be Aomatsu, reads a book and laments that he cannot help avoiding, "noticing how these people are complete ignoramuses." He disappointment with his classmates and life matches Tomoko's, including that his life is not like various anime. Unlike Tomoko, he expected his life to change once he entered middle school. Like Tomoko, it is all everyone else's fault.

He walks the corridor, he sees a vision of a rather mature middle-school girl standing in the wind on the roof then rushes to the roof. He rushes to the roof and finds the door surprisingly unlocked. He walks on the roof, finding no one, then notes that the place is "dangerous", "But it's still the standard, enigmatic stage you see in light-novel anime." He reviews the standard "roof scenes" in anime in his mind. As he laughs off such fantasies the wind howls and he turns to see a female figure standing near the water tower above him. As the piano solo swells, the female figure tosses away something small and leaps – with flying doves! – to him, only to hurt her ankle on the landing! Ignoring his concerns, the girl announces she must keep watch from the roof to prevent "certain terrorist activities." She warns him not to come to the roof: "I can't have ordinary citizens involved." She, gingerly, walks away and a door slams.

The scene shifts to "The Next Day." Aomatsu sits in class, next to the window of course, and daydreams about the girl leaping through the air, with doves of course. He looks at the roof from another school building but sees no one. He walks up the stairs to the roof, thinks he briefly sees the girl standing at the door, then sees no one. The scene shifts to "The Day After That." Now Aomatsu finds the door locked. Then follows "And the Day After That." Aomatsu grouses about his gym teacher making the students run when the teacher "didn't even know what the word 'tumescent' meant in health class." He sees the girl standing on the roof. He later again tries to open the roof door, succeeds, then enters the roof to hear the girl ask him why he came when she told him not to. Why did he not come the previous days? He confesses that he did not because she told him not to. She wonders why he could not "read between the lines? Are you that mushy?" While he inwardly has no idea what she is talking about, he smiles in excitement.

She explains how she and others have been trained from a young age to be weapons. This time, she climbs down a ladder rather than jumps. She warns him, again, not to come to the roof: "So you must not come tomorrow. You better not come. I mean it, don't come. No, scratch that." She leaves telling him he now knows a special truth and rhetorically asks him if he knows what that means before departing. The wind blows, the piano fades, and he sneezes.

The scene shifts to "The Next Day" with an alarm ringing. The clearly otaku male character lies in bed, reading manga. He concludes she really wanted him to come, but he caught a cold. "Today" has him go to school over the protests of his mother. He vows he will make the "big leap" and leave behind his boring life. Unfortunately, the door to the roof is locked. As he walks the hallway, "Kuroki Tomoko-san of Class 2-1" is called to the staff office over the intercom. 

The scene shifts to "Three Years Later" where the now high school student Aomatsu walks dejectedly to school while musing that he tried to return to that roof many times only to find the door always locked. While he never understood the girl, he wishes he had seen her again. As he climbs the stairs in the school, he has a vision of him as a middle school student standing before the girl. Inspired, he tries the door to the high school building's roof. He stops, wonders what he is doing, then leaves. He passes a door way from which emerges a shy Tomoko carrying papers. He bumps into her, bows an apology, then walks away only to briefly turn and watch her walking away. 

The scene shifts with the standard Tomoko theme music as Tomoko excitedly thinks the door to the roof should be open. It is not. She recalls her time in middle school with Yū and Kotomi.

Tomoko-Kotomi-Yū

Tomoko and Kotomi reflected in Yū's glasses

While this is the first time Kotomi appears in the anime, her and Tomoko's rivalry for the attention of Yū is evident: Tomoko teases Kotomi about not attracting guys and her breasts not "growing," to which Kotomi inwardly spats that the same applies to Tomoko. Instead, Kotomi pleasantly retorts that "it's sort of like not being able to talk to people outside of video games," as Tomoko inwardly growls. Yū seems pleasantly unaware of their sniping and jockeying for her attention.

The bored middle-school Tomoko walks the corridor lamenting that her life in not like an anime in a direct parallel to the previous scene with Aomatsu. A passing gym teacher drops his keys to the roof. Tomoko enters the roof excited to have the entire area for herself. Rather than doves, she is surrounded by pigeons, one of which coos that she is an "idiot." She relaxes expecting "zombies or terrorists" to come and attack her. Her fantasies are disturbed by Aomatsu entering the roof. She fantasizes how this is a common event that joins male and female characters in anime as the organ music swells. She stands before him similar to the previous scene though inwardly regretting that she stood up without thinking. Noticing he is the same age as her brother, she attempts a grand entrance leap--with pigeons she disturbs with a small stone--only to violently twist her ankle on the landing. She fights to maintain her composure despite the pain. She then repeats, in her normal voice as if reading from a cue card, her claims seen in the previous scenes in the hope of distracting him. She dramatically hobbles away only to roll around on the floor in the building over the pain in her ankle!

The nurse diagnoses a sprain and wraps Tomoko's left ankle. At home, her mother asks her to go to the store for soy sauce, only to be shocked at Tomoko's obvious pain from her now wrapped ankle. She asks Tomoki to go instead, and a relieved Tomoko asks him to also bring her ice cream. Tomoki inwardly remembers that she "walked fine" a few minutes previously. Tomoko inwardly gloats.

The next day, in school, Tomoko figures the boy bought her stories. Yū notes her excitement which Kotomi tries to dismiss as her just gaining a high score in a game. Tomoko merely smiles slyly to Kotomi irritation. The scene shifts to Tomoko lying on the roof wondering what new anime-based story she should spin for Aomatsu next time. However, as the previous scenes explained, he does not return. "The Next Day" shifts to her standing, alone, on the roof. This is repeated to her tearful lament until he does appear, and Tomoko acts the scene from her perspective, including wisely using the ladder.

The Real Cool Tomoko

Tomoko as Anime Heroine from her perspective.

She intially speaks her lines as the timid halting self-conscious Tomoko rather than the secure anime heroine previously. She succeeds in reading, like a script, the plot she created during the night. This time, Aomatsu wonders why she says, "scratch that."

"The Next Day" she carries a pellet gun hoping to convince him of her story. He, of course, does not appear since he developed a cold. Instead, the gym teacher appears noticing that the door is open and loudly demanding whoever is there to appear. Thinking no one is there, he leaves locking the door, leaving Tomoko trapped. She panics, setting off alarms, that no one hears, as she imagines being found as a corpse later. The scene shifts to night with the gym teacher chewing her out. He lets her go home, but states they will discuss the matter in the "Staff Room" the following morning.

The scene shifts to present time with Tomoko lamenting that she never met Aomatsu again. Meanwhile, Aomatsu walks to school musing that he tried to enter the roof many times only to find the door locked. He bumps into Tomoki. He recalls they attended the same middle school then dismisses the time as "one big embarrassment." Tomoki smiles then startles to see his sister entering an office. Panicked at seeing his sister, Tomoki addresses the boy as Aomatsu and encourages him to run to go clean the club room. As Aomatsu starts to follow, Tomoko backs out of the office carrying papers. They bump into one another, he bows in apology, and neither recognizes the other. Tomoko thinks that if the two did reunite and talked about it, she would be more embarrassed then when Yū reminded her of Tomoko's "former dream job," as the OVA ends with the Ending Theme.

Adapted from[]

Characters[]

In order of appearance

Referbacks[]

  • Aomatsu's expectations parallel Tomoko's in that he expected his life to change when he entered middle school.

Trivia[]

  • Unlike the series' final Episode 12, this episode contains the standard opening and theme which begins as Tomoko screams when Kii tells her to face her "miserable life."
  • Aomatsu thus far does not appear in the manga.
  • Aomatsu is Tomoki's age.
  • In middle school, Tomoko attended Class 2-1.
  • In the fantasy, "middle school" Tomoko is taller than Aomatsu.
  • Tomoko's "dream job" was to become an arms merchant.
  • Tomoko does not know Kotomi's full last name in middle school.

Cultural References[]

Memorable Moments[]

  • Tomoko's leap.
  • Appearance of Kotomi
  • Middle School Tomoko teases Middle School Kotomi about how "your breasts aren't growing."

Quotes[]

  • "Kii-chan, large breasts are not as good as you think." – Yū Naruse
  • "Those anime-watching 'tards absolutely hate a character that has a boyfriend." – Tomoko Kuroki
  • "No cute, mysterious girls come out of nowhere to kill me, or assume I'm a demon lord or a Savior from a parallel universe." – Aomatsu
  • "Uh, well . . . I thought I heard your ankle snap." – Aomatsu
  • "Indeed, I really need an MH11 class sniper rifle." – Tomoko
  • "Look! The people are like garbage! Ah-hah! Screw you all!" – Tomoko

Navigation[]

Story Navigation
Anime Episodes 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | OVA
Manga Volumes 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22
TomoMote Chapters 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 10th Anniv
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