Recap: Tomoko receives a call from her one friend from middle school and they agree to hang out on the weekend. For the rest of the week, she tries to create some memorable moments to talk about.

Jel’s Thoughts: This episode went a long way in easing my apprehension towards WataMote. Tomoko’s perception of things may be severely skewed, but I think it became more clear that she sincerely does want to improve herself. Perhaps more importantly, I think the message here is going to be a lot more balanced than I was anticipating and that’s really all I was asking for.

Introducing a friend for Tomoko was really the perfect next step. Sure they may not be soul mates and the nerdy-girl-suddenly-gets-hot-in-high-school thing was super predictable, but seeing Tomoko is not totally devoid of human interaction or interest was a nice balancing point. Her little burst of honesty as they parted ways was really sweet and endearing, even if she did immediately slide back into her world at the mention of a boyfriend. I was kind of worried about the message that sent at first, but hey, baby steps right? Any question about her sincerity was answered at the portrait reveal. Again, Tomoko’s perception of things may have been wrong but her happiness came off as genuine. It was kind of like life’s karmic answer to last week’s final scene with her brother’s friends calling her ugly, which was also a misunderstanding in its own way. That is just way more emotional punch than I would have ever expected from this show.

I will need some more convincing to say WataMote is truly something special, but I can at least say I am now looking forward to it without reservation. Part of the credit has to go to the excellent soundtrack and directing. I am surprised to see how much… space, for lack of a better term, each scene has. Long pauses in the dialogue give the emotion of the scene room to breathe while all the crazy reaction faces and vomiting (there seems to be a lot of that) only serve as punctuations. It makes for really enjoyable overall package and I hope the series can keep up this level of quality.