Hm, haven't watched a thing in weeks, though I did at least manage to finish the two things that I was remaining current with.
[Watamote]:
Perhaps it did stray a little too much with its message, and overall, probably acted a little too jovially for the tone it often implied it was reaching for, but if offered enough to see me through to the end. Though, Tomoko wasnt really what kept me watching, because truth be told, her character was entirely deplorable, and it wasnt hard to see that her situation was more a factor of her poisonous personality, than it ever was due to her hobbies/interests. For as much as the central theme is loneliness and isolation, she both laments and embraces her position in equal measure. When any kind of narrative crossroad is reached, it ultimately leads to a minor fix, with Tomokos conviction (or lack thereof) being the one thing that maintains the status quo. That, in essence, is her character, so I was never going to be surprised that the anime would take that tact - I just would have liked for it to offer more at its conclusion. As it stands, it just sort of stumbles through the last couple of episodes, before setting right back where it began. Not that I have a problem with that being the ending, rather how it arbitrarily settles there.
The show schizophrenically portrays Tomoko, simultaneously wanting us to (mockingly) laugh at her, while also feeling sympathy. Ambivalence is how I would ultimately describe my feelings towards the story, as it never manages to quite strike a balance, and so those moments of poignancy, largely come across feeling wrought. If it had existed purely as self-contained episodes of sketches (which pretty much what the first half was), I probably would have enjoyed of it a lot more. I just ended up confused as to what it was trying to achieve. Dramatically, it was far too broad to ever really hit, and as mentioned, erratic. It essentially began as a comedy, that wasn't all that funny, and ended up quite maudlin.
Enjoyable, all the same, but I feel as though it squanders itself.
