WataMote manga guide

A guide for the English editions. The Japanese editions are published months earlier, and some companion volumes such as the prequel TomoMote are not available in English at all.

If you started out with the anime, you'll find that the manga is organized a little differently. Instead of medium-sized comic book stories, each WataMote chapter is a short vignette. As the manga progresses into Tomoko's second year of high school (after the anime) the chapters become more linear, and a few longer story arcs appear.

If you want direct advice on where to skip to after the anime, read this instead.

The volumes do not have individual titles, but we're going to give each one an unofficial name. We also want to issue a mild spoiler alert, since each volume includes a synopsis of events.

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High School Loner

Volume 1: High School Loner

Introducing Tomoko Kuroki, an unpopular and unattractive teenager who is convinced that boys will fall at her feet the moment she becomes a high school student. She stupidly believes that endlessly wasting time playing otome (video game dating for girls) has made her an expert on relationships. Instead, in real life she finds herself stricken with an almost debilitating shyness that prevents her from holding normal conversations with most other people.

Further complicating her failure is her vast array of personality defects. She is lazy and unambitious, mean-spirited and annoying. She lies and she cheats. She prays for misfortune to befall others, especially people who are happier than she is. She's got a dirty mind, but thinks all the other girls are sluts.

But in her favor, she manages to bear the worst embarrassments and disappointments that life throws at her, and knows for certain that today is a new chapter, and a new chance to get it right.

Special moments for Tomoko:

• Conversing with her brother for therapy
• A reunion with her friend Yuu-chan from middle school
• Eating out at WcDonald's
• Stuck in the rain with two older boys
• The dark circles under her eyes temporarily clearing up
• Manga club member Hatsushiba drawing her portrait after school
• Buying pretty underwear with help from Yuu-chan

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Summer Break

Volume 2: Summer Break

Tomoko Kuroki's miserable first semester draws to a close, and she panics when she realizes that she's doing nothing but wasting her summer break.

An even worse disaster strikes when her young cousin Kii-chan comes for a visit. Tomoko told the impressionable grade schooler about her sex-crazed older boyfriend, but now that Kii-chan's in middle school she'll surely see right through all of those lies.

Tomoko must find a way to convince her cousin that she's a big high school slut, even if it kills her! The plan backfires in the most miserable way imaginable, and an attempt to salvage the situation only leads to greater humiliation.

Special moments for Tomoko:

• Becoming an anime-style "emotionless" character
• Watching some real fireworks with middle school boys
• Finding a new use for the common household vacuum cleaner
• Meeting a boy at the library
• Playing a card game with little kids
• Getting a handshake from a sexy voice actor
• Making a wish on a shooting star

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The Cultural Festival

Volume 3: The Cultural Festival

Tomoko resumes the school year, and finds that her situation is worse than ever. A change in seating assignments puts her right in the middle of a group of popular students, and she can't take the stress.

While the other students prepare for the big cultural festival, she finds a private nook to hide. But her escape from the maddening crowd is short-lived.

Even when she volunteers to take part in the school activities, she only manages to send herself to the nurse's office. But something unexpected happens when Yuu-chan shows up the day of the festival.

She has fun.

Special moments for Tomoko:

• Popular kids in class talking to Tomoko for the first time
• Buying treats for Yuu-chan
• Hugged by a person in a bear costume
• Posing for photos in a booth by herself
• Panicking over an imaginary rape in a crowded train
• Pretending to nurse her sick brother
• Winning the purple guy at the arcade
• Submitting an application for a school club

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Older and Wiser

Volume 4: Older and Wiser

Tomoko Kuroki is still trying to find ways to better herself. To improve her communication skills, she hatches a plot to lie about her age and get a job as a hostess in the red light district. Maybe instead she should get a job in a trendy shop that makes cakes, so she can live out her otome fantasies. Or should she become an arms dealer? No, anything but that!

After the new year starts, she spies on her classmates, and discovers what they really think about her.

No matter. After celebrating her 16th birthday with Yuu-chan, Tomoko decides she should just take her time growing up, after all.

Special moments for Tomoko:

• Visiting the red light district
• Tasting some of Yuu-chan's cake
• Using a stranger's bathroom during a marathon
• Fighting with her mom over housecleaning
• Going to the class Christmas party
• Stepping on a cockroach
• Forgetting to mail her brother's high school application
• Reading Haruki Murakami at the coffee shop

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Second Year, Second Chance

Volume 5: Second Year, Second Chance

Returning to Makuhari for her second year of high school, Tomoko Kuroki has drastically downscaled her ambitions. She realizes it was a mistake to worry about being popular, and has decided she'd be happy if she could just have a normal high school life, with maybe a friend or two.

That's not enough to satisfy her new homeroom teacher. Gym coach Ogino is concerned because Tomoko appears to always keep to herself, never talks to anyone, and eats her lunches alone. From now on, Ogino will see to it that Tomoko straightens up, speaks louder, and makes some friends.

A chance meeting at the library provides Tomoko with a new opportunity to make a friend, when the librarian's assistant claims to have known her way back in middle school. She seems kind of pissed off, though. Was it because Tomoko couldn't remember her name?

Kotomi Komiyama isn't just mad about that, though. She's seething with rage at Tomoko for something far worse in their past, something unforgivable.

Special moments for Tomoko:

• Spending time with an upperclassman after the graduation ceremony
• Enjoying spring in the park with goggles and a mask
• Sitting next to Hina Nemoto
• Failing to attract other students to her desk with manga and snacks
• Creating a point system for becoming more sociable
• Playing around in the nurse's office
• Obsessing over the things in boys' pants
• Studying harder when her grades slip to avoid being sent to a different school

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Reunion

Volume 6: Reunion

Tomoko finally remembers why she blocked the memory of Kotomi Komiyama, Yuu-chan's other middle school friend, and the otaku battle of the century is underway!

After an opening volley of humiliations, Kotomi pits manga club member Hatsushiba against Tomoko. Tomoko retaliates using her little brother as a pawn in order to revenge herself on the "shitty cockroach".

Kotomi becomes curious when Tomoko boasts about going to meet an old friend from middle school, because back then they both had only one other friend--Yuu-chan.

When Kotomi trails Tomoko to the coffee shop, a brawl ensues, but Yuu forces an uneasy truce on the combatants. Yuu is overjoyed to have the middle school trio reassembled, but Tomoko wants Yuu all to herself.

Meanwhile, the class is preparing for the big school trip. It's the one event that Tomoko's been dreading more than anything.

Special moments for Tomoko:

• Discovering a loser eating lunch in the bathroom
• Getting punched in the nose by an elbow
• Deciding where to go for the school field trip
• Waiting for a romantic event at dusk
• Receiving mixed signals from chapstick
• Composing a hit song
• Peeping at a couple making out at a manga cafe
• Spoiling Harry Potter for Komiyama
• Getting creative with wishes for the Tanabata festival

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Kii-Chan's Revenge

Volume 7: Kii-chan's Revenge

Tomoko promises herself not to waste her summer break like she did last year, but is almost immediately punished for her good intentions by having to rejoin her classmates to cheer on the baseball team.

Her summer gets worse when her mom drops her off to stay with cousin Kii-chan out in the countryside. Kii-chan forces Tomoko to endure a make-over and a humiliating "dog show". It becomes depressingly clear that Kii-chan now thinks of her "big sister" as a sad puppy who needs help.

On the plus side, Tomoko finally learns how to ride a bicycle without training wheels.

She finishes off the summer with a round of activities she had planned with Yuu-chan and Komiyama. Yuu-chan almost has a mental breakdown when Tomoko diverts them to a condemned beach full of garbage and dried out sting rays, and to make it up to her they go to a real beach in real swimsuits and have fun "like in those shitty slice of life animes".

But summer break's almost over, and Tomoko has to convince herself to go back to high school or risk becoming a truant.

Special moments for Tomoko:

• Smelling nice with perfume, and lots of it
• Getting ideas for making baseball more interesting
• Challenging Kii-chan to a sumo match
• Suffering a bladder malfunction when she sees the Hachishakusama
• Trying to ram Kii-chan with an out-of-control bicycle
• Yuu-chan catching a rhinoceros beetle
• Discovering a dried-out sting ray on a polluted beach
• Wimping out at Comiket
• Wearing a swimsuit and confusing verbs with a foreigner
• Practicing hypnosis

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The School Trip

Volume 8: The School Trip

Coming March 22, 2016.

"Now this is when the true hell begins."

Tomoko accidentally maneuvers herself into becoming captain of a team of "leftovers" for the big school trip.

One girl (Yuri) is mad because her friend joined another group. She doesn't know what to make of Tomoko, except that she seems to be kind of an idiot.

Another girl (Yoshida) is apparently an angry delinquent with a violent streak.

The last girl (Ucchi) is only pretending to be part of the group in order to spend time with her real friends, since the students were technically restricted to groups of four.

The itinerary for the trip is a disaster, and when Tomoko thinks it can't get any worse, Ogino intervenes and tells the others something she doesn't want them to know.

Special moments for Tomoko:

• Plotting to have her group decided for her by leaving early
• Discovering her team are all loner scumbags
• Hiding in the mall movie theater while shopping for clothes
• Taking selfies on the bullet train with Komiyama
• Ignored by deer in Kyoto
• Getting slugged by Yoshida while trying to wake her up
• Buying souvenirs for Tomo-kun
• Getting carried up a hill by Yoshida after spraining her ankle
• Trying to watch porn in the hotel room

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The Athletic Meet (Japanese edition)

Volume 9: The Athletic Meet

Coming later this year, probably.

The school trip continues, and Tomoko assumes the others don't want her around on their free day, but they catch up with her just in time to save her from the pity of Komiyama.

After the trip, Tomoko returns to school and finds that things have changed, some. More people are saying "good morning" to her, and she gets invited to have lunch with her new friends. The only problem is that she's finding it more work to have friends than to be a loner!

Right on the heels of the school trip comes the athletic meet. Tomoko is forced to take part in the most social of the events, the borrowing race, and the three-legged race, providing her with more mind-breaking physical contact with other students than she's ever experienced.

Special moments for Tomoko:

• Hiding Ucchi's panties
• Mistaken for a "walking date" high school girl in Akihabara
• Trying to smoke
• Spotting Akari (the girl who likes Tomo-kun) in the coffee shop
• Finding conversational topics for her new lunch companions
• Giving Nemoto a back rub
• Plotting to be patted
• Begging Tomo-kun for help at the athletic meet
• Creeping out Ucchi at the cheering competition
• Ratting on Komiyama for taking lewd photos
• Reversing defeat on Akari after the cavalry battle

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Past, Present, and Future

Volume 10: Past, Present, and Future

Not yet available. Chapters still underway at Gangan Online.

Tomoko panics when she loses her phone, full of damning and unsavory data, and feels compelled to reward Komiyama for returning it without peeping at what's inside. However, Tomoko's brother discovers her in the middle of enjoying her "reward", and recognizes her later when Tomoko calls him over in the lunchroom to straighten out a misunderstanding with two other girls.

Ogino holds a conference with students and their parents in order to discuss their future plans, and Tomoko's mom discovers a little too much about Tomoko's past.

More to come...

Special moments for Tomoko:

• Forgetting her cellphone in the library with a "peeper"
• Imagining her life as a housewife and mother
• Discovering one of her classmates plans on being a voice actor
• Lunching in the cafeteria with the "pervert sisters"
• Playing a UFO catcher to win a prize for Yoshida

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