Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun

I want to iterate this before all else being it’s important: This is not nearly as gimmicky as the synopsis puts it. Not only is it arguably one of the most fascinating and culturally relevant anime that has aired in the last decade or so, but it’s a show that contains genuine character exploration and growth.

I can’t blame you for thinking that sounds impossible based on the surface level display this show gives off. Though it’s simplistic and very much adapted from a light novel, it’s fully aware of both its audience and the landscape of anime similar to it. It demonstrably stresses the ... importance of self-improvement, but primarily it's biting against irrational subconscious anti-social mindsets that cause people anguish.

Fittingly to this narrative, Jaku-chara Tomozaki-kun opens with a scene that can easily be interpreted as generic and a meaningless interpretation of a gamer, but in actuality is one half of communicating the entire message of the show. Tomozaki is ranked 1 in TackFam, the universe’s depiction of a popular fighting game. Up against Nakumura, a regular classmate of his and someone far beneath his skill level, he easily destroys him. But Nakumura is arrogant, he blames the game, the characters. He resorts to blaming the matchups. Tomozaki proves it's a matter of skill, talent, and effort. He beats him even with the worst of matchups. A low level Marth player would still get destroyed by a top level Fox on FD, to put it into Smash Bros. terms, the game TackFam is based on. Tomozaki takes pride in his devotion to the game, and won’t accept baseless slander from someone who hasn’t put in the work he has. When we contrast this to the other half of the basis of the show: Tomozaki’s first interaction with Hinami, we become aware of what the major focal point actually is. When it comes to “real life”, Tomozaki is Nakumura in TackFam. He blames others for his own personal woes. (The ‘characters’) He believes there is a sort of social hierarchy he can’t break free from (The ‘game’), and that some people are just born better than others.(The ‘matchups’) It’s the exact same whiny and arrogant point of view he himself rebuked being directed towards TackFam. It’s blaming others when it's your own lack of effort that has you in the position you are. Why can’t it be any different when it comes to reality? Tomozaki is proven hypocritical.

Make no mistake—this isn’t just about someone growing into a socially viable person, it's a show that’s directly criticizing the type of self-loathing and presumptuous belief that it’s others—
not you— culture that anime itself tends to glorify and coddle those with a similar mindset. This was remarkable, and as a devout anime and light novel adaptation consumer, I was legitimately shocked that a show like this could exist in the climate of modern anime.

Even though I was already sold after the first episode, the show continues forward with a main character who receives proper development, and a cast of side characters who are used to explore other plaguing mindsets. If it isn't already clear by now, this is more of a character driven drama rather than a rom-com with hyperbolic tropes of a gamer and normie popular kids.

Tomozaki is directed down a path of social improvement by Hinami. This isn’t just basic advice, however. It's a decisive strategic motion to make friends and create interest in oneself. Easily said, the key to getting to know people is by showing interest in them or their surroundings. People won’t care about you if you don’t care about them. Yuzu likes Nakumura? Help her find ways to appeal to him. Mimimi wants to run for student council? Ask her if you can support her bid. Let people in, share secrets with them, gain their trust and become someone they can rely on. Fuuka likes a certain author? Read their books. When a time comes where you can ask her out to see a movie adaptation of the same author, you have both an excuse and are giving the other party respect by showing admiration to their interests. It’s physical improvements as well. Get a haircut. Stand up straight. Speak louder and stop looking so grim. Take care of your appearance and dress well. This show talks the talk and walks the walk.

Of course, it can sound problematic to see interest in people as “goals” or for your own sake rather than by genuine curiosity and the desire to get to know someone, but the show has answers to this. Gradually throughout, Tomozaki gains his own agency. He realizes that being himself makes the other person more comfortable. Perhaps it was only through deliberate effort and a push from the back that Tomozaki was able to form relationships, but eventually he grows past the need to seek orders. He changes.


The side characters are real people, not bloated tropes. Anime has a tendency to demonize “popular kids” and make them one dimensional bullies solely for the main characters to ultimately dunk on. I can assure you that with the exception of one single character in one scene, none of the characters in this show are like that at all. Yuzu, Mimimi, Takahiro, and Nakumura are vulnerable in some way. Deconstructing what commonly “popular characters” appear as in anime in a show like this seems even more important when it’s all about demonstrating the importance of having and maintaining relationships. As showing what would be the formidable unapproachable characters in other shows as real people, it’s encouraging and a reminder that we are not so different.

Frequently I was struck at how overwhelmingly positive the show could get. Tomozaki would relish in and internalize his growth. He described the feelings of successful social interactions as “primal” like a necessary need. He grows if only a little bit each and every episode. It’s fun watching him gain the trust of others. It’s heartwarming seeing others take interest in him and care for him. He quickly becomes someone you can route for and support.

It’s a rarity of a show. It manages to be mindfully indulgent, bold, and have meaning. And even if it's not as well-written as other more culturally influential anime, it’s accessibility and ease of entry may give someone what they really need.

Story:5
From what I've seen its just a standard romance about a gamer boy who meets a gamer girl and she helps him become a functioning member of society and get a girlfriend

Art:4
Its pretty meh, the mc looks like a hentai protag

Sound:5
Didn't stand out in either a good or bad way

Character:1
... The usage of Gamer and Normie and the overall reddit talk made this show practically unwatchable, anything the mc says is so cringe that you literally have to pause the show and look in the mirror and think about why you are actually doing this to yourself, this obviously also means that...

Enjoyment:1
Its just painful to watch, nothing more to say, just pain

Overall:1
If you unironically go on gamer subreddits this anime is probably for you however if you are a functioning member of society, please stay away from this show

This review will be updated as the episodes go on"


I still don't understand some people out there saying that Tomozaki is complete rubbish,
The anime may not please everyone, but it is far from it and not to mention that it does what it proposes.

I wasn't thinking of writing a review about the anime, but with those four episodes I think I can talk about what I think for now.

Well, the anime has a lot of female characters and this is kind of worrying, to be honest working with a large cast is kind of difficult for the characters to talk a lot, all that remains ... to do is wait. what will happen in the next episodes. I particularly like the dialogues between the characters and not to mention the interaction they have.

Aoi is one of the strongest points of the work and seeing her putting the protagonist in embarrassing situations is fun.

The animation of the anime is very good and from what I saw in the illustrations of the original material the animation was really very good

Life is nothing but just a game. A game of life that is! Every decision you make will affect what's going on around you, especially your classmates.

Tomozaki Fumiya, our main MC here suprisingly is the best gamer in the popular online game "Tackfam". Despite that, he is actually the bottomless-tier character when it comes to socializing. Lacking social skills and also have a slightly unkempt appearance. Then later meet Aoi Hinami who is a god-tier character, an opposite to Tomozaki-kun. With her social skills, Tomozaki-kun embarks on a journey to become a top-tier character in the game of life.

Throughout the episodes, you'll noticed Tomozaki-kun ... gradually changing from being an introvert and become better in socializing as he meet new characters especially an energetic and popular girl named Minami Nanami. The story doesn't appeared to be rushed so that's a plus one for me.

The animation in the anime is great overall. Especially it gives several visualisation of the situations Tomozaki-kun is facing and also whenever Aoi Hinami is giving illustration of the situations.

Overall, the anime has a lot of pointers on the social situations happening around us. It has a lot of things for us to learn in the anime. And as a drama anime, it has done really well and very enjoyable so far. If this is the type of anime you enjoy, feel free to watch it and follow Tomozaki-kun's journey to become a top-tier character.

It’s not bad...but it’s not good.

If I’m being honest this anime is a repetitive idea that surrounds the use of my twin otaku, Fumiya Tomozaki’s, ability to be so iconically similar to every other otaku that has social difficulties. Even with all of that this was probably one of the animes this season I really liked for some odd reason

The animation is overall better than average with smooth and clear visuals. It can show all the otaku features that I can relate to, I can see my ugly face through the screen in essentially 4k resolution with amazing visuals.

The characters are a textbook bland cast. ... The main two characters are Aoi Hinami and Fumiya Tomozaki.

Aoi Hinami is a by the book tsundere and is very similar to Chizuru from Rent-a-Girl-Friend. She makes an effort to make our MC into a proper person and become more sociable. This doesn’t mean she is a bad character, she gives all the qualities one would want in a tsundere and makes the show a little bit more enjoyable.

Our struggling reflection of ourselves is Fumiya Tomozaki, who is that classic outcast and otaku MC next to the window to the right of the classroom. He reluctantly listens to Aoi and creates an effort for a better him and slowly over time has major character developments.

These characters if I’m being honest are two textbook characters that complement each other and create a very average cast of characters, much like the rest of the cast in the anime.

The story as you probably interpreted is simply how long will it take Aoi to confess or something like that. In all seriousness, our story revolves around Aoi making Fumiya a better and more sociable person. I’m probably watching this because I am fervently waiting for our boy to be an absolute CHAD. Maybe it is the fact this story has been used so many times with so many takes that I have finally grown fond of it.

The sounds are as you expect of an anime of this sort-average. The OP and ED are alright and have no positive or negative impact on the overall show. The soundtrack uses essentially basic sounds and there is nothing majorly notable.

Ah, the enjoyment. I, for some reason, really looked forward to this show. The anime itself is executed well and created some laughs and cringe moments to enjoy. I might have a bad tendency to over-love shows that aren't special and aren't well known. This anime isn’t bad but it isn’t good, but I believe you will enjoy this show if you watch it, which you should.

Overall: This anime isn’t special, it isn’t great, but it’s fun.

Animation: 8
Characters:5
Story:4
Sound: 5
Enjoyment:8
Overall: 7

I was pretty surprised to see this having a very low score, seeing as it's one of the good ones this season, so I had to write a review for it.

The low score is understandable since this show is a cringe-fest (in a good way) for most people watching it, because the show is all about a protagonist who is a top Tackfam gamer, but at the same time seemingly gave up on the "game" called life.

He thought that only he can understand the game better than anyone else and that nobody really understood how he feels, or understood how great the game is. ... Thinking to himself that no other game than Tackfam is worthy to play and spend your whole life improving upon.

He then meets his lifelong gaming rival, that happens to be a girl, who's both a top gamer in Tackfam and in life.
She tells him that she understands how he feels that Tackfam is the best game ever, but she also tells him that the game called "life" is also just as good.

It's about a protagonist who has 0 life experience, no social skills, awkwardness, level 1 in the life game, etc. -- who tries his best to improve himself, goes out his comfort zone, does things that would make most people die of embarrassment.

What I like about the protagonist is that he isn't a hateful loser, nor does he blame others for his shortcomings, nor does he play the victim card. He might be boring to most people, but he sure does as hell own his mistakes and learn from it.

In short, He brought the things that got him to the top of Tackfam -- which is "If you fail, learn from it and improve." mentality to the game called "life"

Bottom-Tier Tomozaki is the hidden gem of this season. Many dropped it at first while those who remained slowly began to notice how their view changed, just like the characters did. It’s a Romcom that isn’t revolutionary but introduces concepts that makes it interesting and engaging to follow.
It was certainly a show that exceeded my expectations.
It’s a true character growth driven story of becoming a better person.

On its surface it’s nothing mind-blowing and appears to be a standard Romcom about an unpopular guy who somehow meets the legend of the class and gets a harem that you've seen countless times yet this assumption is very ... misleading and Tomozaki, despite appearing as such, is not at all like that.
All the girls introduced are not meant to be part of his harem and the show has wrongly been labeled as such. They are characters that get development themselves, as well as aiding the development of our MC while not coming off as too cliche or tropey. They really feel like people that you could meet in real life.

While you may argue that the situation that our MC, the top player in Atafami finds himself in is very hard to relate to, you have to acknowledge the effort he puts in to change himself. I'd say that the beginning doesn’t seem promising at all but the more we level up the greater it becomes. Everyone deserves a second chance if given the opportunity, right? Then even he should be able to fight to change himself for the better and we, as the audience should understand where he is coming from and not mock his efforts. Such a view is very misleading, and could lead to incorrect assumptions. No matter what, the fact still remains that in order to achieve something, even winning a mere game, you have to put your entire heart and soul into it - something I find admirable.

It's a show that is neither a generic Romcom nor a harem. Its main appeal is the theme of self improvement through hard work and desire, something that would be praise worthy to many and becomes apparent in how our main hero grows as a character and as a human being.
Growth doesn't happen overnight.
It's a long process that requires a lot of time and soul put into it.
This is the message the show tries to convey and we can see how the behaviour and self esteem of Tomozaki evolves the more he levels up and the audience that learns from his mistakes and the quests given by our main girl, Hinami Aoi.

The quests that the main girl gives to MC may seem trivial but are actually helpful in the grand scheme of things. It's one of the main criticisms that the show has received - that it’s cringy, unrealistic and out of touch with reality which is clearly wrong. We should remember that Tomozaki is a loner that has troubles with social interaction therefore these trivial goals that she sets up for him are actually very meaningful despite being so small. The type of a goal doesn't matter, what truly matters is the effort you put in order to achieve said goal.

The animation of this show is very minimalistic with no dynamic movement. At times it serves as a means to move from point A to point B. The majority of the content delivered is through the dialogue of characters. It's decent. While it's certainly not top tier, it's no doubt bearable to watch.

There were few memorable OSTs that played during crucial scenes but often than not it was a sad piano to create the atmosphere or a very light hearted soundtrack to rekindle hope. Overall the music wasn't as memorable but not that bad. I'd like to point out that even the lyrics of a song matter in this show so keep an eye on that.
From a show that started with an interesting premise that at first became something to make fun of, Tomozaki changed for the better and so did the viewers who were watching his development unfold.

It's a series that while not revolutionizing the genre made something unique and intriguing enough to follow by showcasing real character growth that rarely ever happens these days.
If you wish to see a tale of a man who changed his life from the better, struggled but with effort and heart reached his goals, then I recommend watching "Bottom-Tier Tomozaki".

In a season packed full of highly anticipated sequels, Tomozaki-Kun rose to the top and became my favourite show of the season. Week after week, episodes flew by in what seemed like a few minutes. The characters and premise of the show provided one of the more memorable experiences I’ve had with a slice of life in some time.

For me, Tomozaki-Kun is what most people THINK Oregairu is. The concept of a socially inept loser going from a shut-in to normal high schooler is flawlessly executed here. Normally in these types of shows, the MC’s character development doesn’t feel organic or realistic. Either the MC ... moves too fast, or too slow. Here we have a protagonist who takes gradual but sure steps out of his comfort zone in order to improve himself and make genuine connections with others. Week in and week out we see Tomozaki become more open to other people and learn more about how interpersonal relationships work. I love the analogous relationship of a video game character’s development to Tomozaki’s and think it offers a unique perspective on this type of show.

Unfortunately, there were a great deal of people who wrote this show off after a couple weeks. Is the MC a loser who says and does cringe things at the start? Yes. That’s kind of the point of the series. What would be the point if a character already starts off as an alpha chad who has nothing else to learn or room to grow? If you can bear with the MC’s growing pains in the beginning, I think you’ll find Tomozaki-Kun to be a very enjoyable show.

I’ve said all that and haven’t even touched on the girls in this show. As with most shows in this genre, Tomozaki’s development is caused and expedited by a girl at school, and there are several potential waifus who play major roles in the series. Unlike other anime in this genre, these are fully fleshed out and well written characters with their own unique quirks and personalities. The girls are not just there for fan service or shipping wars, but offer genuine value to this series and are one of the most enjoyable parts.

All in all, Tomozaki-Kun was by far one of the top 2 or 3 most enjoyable shows this season. It’s one of only a few that I actually looked forward to on a weekly basis and now that the season is over, I can’t wait to get into the LNs. Tomozaki-Kun gets 10 tackfams out of 10.

Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun is about your typical loner gamer dude who plays *not* Smash Bros at a very high level, and decides to one day meet up with the person right after him on the leaderboard, who ends up being a cute, popular girl from his class. After this meeting, this girl, Aoi, having scolded our protagonist, decides to help him out by teaching him how to become a riajuu, a “normie” you could say.

I really wish I were be here right now saying good things about this show and how I used some of the advice Aoi gave to Tomozaki myself, but alas, here I ... am, incredibly disappointed by what could have been a nice romcom with a school setting. The show presents an interesting idea, I haven’t actually seen anything like it before, but the execution of the premise set in place by the first few episodes is a complete miss.

So, what is this premise? Tomozaki goes through several lessons with Aoi, who teaches him basic social skills, manners, posture, and so on, and gives him challenges such as “talk to three different girls” or “force a smile while wearing a mask”. Tomozaki doesn’t necessarily do well at completing these challenges, but he does try his earnest to do so, more often than not with the help of Aoi. Here is my first issue with show. If the whole premise is about the evolution of a loner into a riajuu, then why does Aoi do most of the work for him? It would be way more satisfying to watch Tomozaki do these challenges on his own, failing them or not, with all the cringy situations that these challenges may bring. I fail to understand why Aoi would be so invested into a random dude she met online. She’s not in love with him, and Tomozaki’s first impression on her was awful. Is it pity? Is it self-fulfillment? Who knows, but Aoi intervening as much as she does only reinforces all of the problems this show has.

There’s an analogy Jaku-Chara brings up regarding real life and games, even though it’s slightly “cringy”. If real life is treated as a game, then the social skills and achievements can be the equivalent of the skills and achievements in a video game. Tomozaki being really good Tackfam comes with a contrast of him being really bad at real life. This brings up quite a disparity. If you’ve ever played a fighting game, you’d know how much effort it takes to be good, let alone a top level player in said game, even in a game like Smash Bros. It takes years and years of practice before you could consider yourself competent at a fighting game, practice that Tomozaki has clearly put into Tackfam out of his passion for the game. So why is it that he goes from being a complete loner to a good looking socially capable guy in the span of 4-5 episodes?! How come the show is 12 episodes long when Tomozaki achieves all but one of his goals in 5 episodes? Of course, the rest of the show feels like filler content that serves close to no purpose to the overall plotline. I will attribute this to poor pacing. I assume that the light novel goes way deeper into Tomozaki’s struggles and hardships, or at least I hope so.

You might now ask me, “why am I comparing real life scenarios to fiction?” or “Why does it matter that Tomozaki achieved his goals quickly?”. The answer to that is simple, suspension of disbelief.

I’ll let you google what suspension of disbelief means if you don’t know this term, but it’s a fancy way of referring to the reader or watcher believing and investing themselves into a given scenario. Here lies the main problem of Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun: I do not believe a single event that happens in the anime.

When you pick a school setting for your work of fiction, you can go down two paths, a realistic depiction of high school life with down to earth, believable characters (for example, Hibike! Euphonium), or an absurd depiction of high school with extraordinary events and out-of-this-earth characters (for example, Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu). These paths aren’t that well defined, and most of the time you can get away with mixing absurd characters with regular high school events (for example, Chuu2Koi), which ends up being quite a nice way of showing what a character is going through, be it a completely exaggerated depiction of an emotion or an emphasis on the importance of a particular event in the character’s life. Chuu2Koi does this with chuuni magic battles, Monogatari does this with long elaborate dialogue, although Monogatari isn’t your typical high school setting show. Point is, your story and characters have to be believable or relatable. You want the reader or viewer to care for the characters you’ve written. As for Tomozaki, his only relatable point is that he’s a loner, and so are most anime watchers. Nobody will relate to being the best at a certain game, and very few will relate to being competent to a high level at a certain game, and most certainly NOBODY will relate to Tomozaki’s character progression. Without being relatable, the main character now must appeal to the audience with his actions, most of which are dictated by a third party or happenstance. He’s effectively a puppet of the other characters in the show, sometimes adding his own ad lib to the situations he finds himself in. Even after becoming a “normie” 5 episodes in, Tomozaki just comes off as bland and uninteresting. He’s nothing like OreGairu’s Hachiman who’s a way better example of a loner working on himself in order to become a better human being. This is the main problem, Jaku-Chara is too unrealistic to be a down to earth high school romcom, and too ordinary to be an absurd high school romcom. The viewer is stuck in a situation where they cannot relate to the main character while also not being able to enjoy his personality or the results of his actions. They cannot “suspend their disbelief” in order to fully invest themselves in the show.

The other characters don’t help. Aoi has no personality, she hardly even fits a trope. She’s somewhat twofaced, but not enough for her to be an appealing or interesting character. Minami isn’t a character; I refuse to acknowledge that someone wrote her as she is. She’s an amalgamation of completely different charm points and gags that the writer probably finds appealing in a waifu. She is so over-the-top energetic that it becomes hard to watch any scene that involves her. Izumi is your generic high school girl, again, without a personality. Out of the female characters, this only leaves Kikuchi, voiced by Kayano Ai, who I like a lot, and Hanabi, who’s cute and inoffensive. I could mention the male characters, but other than Nakamura, who’s sort of another rival to Tomozaki, they, yet again, serve no purpose and just act as filler content, NPCs for Tomozaki to interact with.

Speaking of Kayano Ai, her and Nobuhiko make this show bearable. The rest of the voice actors are unremarkable at best, obnoxious at worst. Hasegawa Ikumi does an awful job at Minami, but then again, Minami is an abomination of a character, so that’s most likely because of poor direction.

The opening is a cheerful song by DIALOGUE+, an unknown idol group, and sounds as generic as you’d expect it to. I thought it was ok at first, but it very quickly got obnoxious to listen to. The ending is unremarkable, as one would expect.

Finally, the art and character design are fine. They’re bland, and I absolute hate the modern character design standards when it comes to drawing eyes and faces, but that’s just me. Again, unremarkable, but at least the animation isn’t appalling.

Without a solid and interesting story, Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun fails to entice the viewer with its unremarkable characters. The viewer finds themselves watching seemingly unbelievable events unfold as the main character lackadaisically moves from happenstance to happenstance that just happen to work out in his favour. Without achievements that can be attributed to Tomozaki’s efforts, the show feels like an empty shell with no substance, an exhibition of events that collectively have no impact.

There is very little to take away from Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun, I wouldn’t recommend trying Aoi’s advice in real life, let alone watching the show. If you want a good story about a loner working on himself, watch OreGairu.

TL;DR:

Pros:
-Kayano Ai voicing a cute taciturn bookworm
-The first couple of episodes and tips

Cons:
-Unremarkable characters
-Unbelievable events
-The show fails to suspend the viewer’s disbelief
-Little to no substance – an exposition of random events
-Minami
-Awful pacing

Final Score: 2/10

Thank you Kayano Ai for saving this show from being a 1/10. God bless.

We all have our own ways of separating ourselves from the real world. Video game is a hobby that has become synonymous with society especially with the ongoing worldwide pandemic. Of course, that’s the real world I’m talking about. Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun takes place in a fictional world that shows how one character decided to be a bottom-tier loser. And how does he spend all his time? Playing video games. Talk about being a degenerate.

Based on the light novel, I admit coming into this series intimidated me a bit at first. Watching Tomozaki’s life as a gamer contrasts greatly between his real life image. It’s almost ... like he’s living a double life. In the virtual world, he is unstoppable and a pro gamer. But from the real world, he’s a friendless loser that people want to avoid. I’m sure this type of character is relatable in some way at a school or workplace you’ve been to. This is a sharp contrast to characters such as Aoi Hinami, Mizusawa, or Mimimi. Those three represent the popular kids at school, the type that everyone wants to be friends with.

Speaking of Aoi Hinami, she meets Tomozaki after the two faces each other in an online game. It doesn’t take long for her to realize Tomozaki’s outer image. So what happens then? She decides to teach him to play real life. That’s right, Tomozaki has his own personal life coach. It’s the hardest game Tomozaki will ever have to play because life is not like a game. He lacks friends, social experience, and in general, has a low self-esteem. No wonder he’s at the bottom tier. This is where Aoi’s role comes in. She teaches Tomozaki how to win at life but it doesn’t come easy. From the first few episodes, we see how lonely he is with a depressive attitude. He is afraid of himself especially with what he says to others and hence, he always try to be responsive than initiating conversations. It’s not until Aoi enters his life that he begins to change. Because in her opinion, Tomozaki can be just as great in real life compared to video games.

From a character perspective, it’s shown that Tomozaki is actually quite intelligent and always analyzing situations before acting. Although he lacks confidence, he isn’t afraid of being honest and himself. Being truthful to others is especially important as creating a fake image is no way at winning in life. This contrasts to Mimimi, a popular girl who hides her vulnerable façade behind her cherry personality. With Aoi’s influence, Tomozaki begins to open up more including changing his appearance to be look more appealing and even learning how to smile. His social skills also improve as he learns from Aoi through first-hand experience. This includes talking to girls, going on a vacation trip, and interacting with the popular teens at school. It’s like Tomozaki is following a walkthrough with Aoi as her guidance. He’s not just playing the game. He’s living it.

By storytelling standards, you get what you expect. Every episode has Tomozaki advancing forward in some way or form in real life. He makes new friends while gaining new skills and even an appreciation in himself. Now obviously, you have to be patient to see how Tomozaki changes but let’s just say that he makes quite bit of progress. Unfortunately, this doesn’t apply to his relationship status with the main cast. Even with the time they spend together, it feels like Tomozaki and Aoi’s relationship really went nowhere. Being labeled as a romantic dramedy, you’d at least have to expect some form of development right? Well not quite. From the first episode to the last, this show does a bottom tier job at relationship development. I’m not even entirely sure why this anime has ‘romance’ tagged under its umbrella. There’s barely any romantic elements in this show besides the ship teasing. Tomozaki and Aoi is the complete opposite of each other that it’s almost like Beauty and the Beast. His relationship with Izumi and Mimimi also goes to nowhere. So if you came to this show with a curiosity about romance, this is not the right place.

Finally, I would like to mention that while the show has its fair share of drama, it’s mostly light so don’t expect the anime to be a tearjerker either. In fact, I’d label this show more of a lighthearted drama with a big chunk of social dialogues. Whether the show has its right target audience can be a bit ambiguous. However, this isn’t a complex storyteller either. It’s simply about a guy following a walkthrough in a real life.

While the show isn’t a grand spectacle to look at, I will give credit where credit is due. The character designs appeals to teenage youth especially for the popular characters. It seems the camera itself is self-aware that focuses on certain body parts of the female cast. Whether this is intentional or not is up to you decide but it’s obvious the anime wanted to give the female cast an appealing image, especially for the popular characters. On the other hand, Tomozaki is portrayed with a moody face and dressed like a loner. Of course, it isn’t until he meets Aoi that his image begins to shine more. Finally, this show pays its video game homage. Attack Families is obviously based on the popular Super Smash Bros. franchise. It’s actually quite clever the show decided to pay homage to Super Smash Bros. as it’s among the most popular fighting game in the world.

Look into his eyes and what do you see? A changed man or someone who didn’t win the game? Tomozaki has his life coach this season but it’s up to him to follow the steps to win. According to the famous Albert Einsten, “life is just like a game and you have to first learn the rules. And then play it better than anyone else”. How do you think Tomozaki played his game?

I don't understand how anyone could possibly enjoy this. From what I can see, it's simply a show with decent art and a possibly interesting start.

The main point of this show is that an unsocial high schooler gets tips and tricks from a riaju to help him become more social. The premise is really quite stupid as in real life, unsocial people wouldn't be talking with others let alone one of the most popular people in the school.

The characters in this show are somewhat unique, but they're mostly all disgusting people. Take the riaju for example. Her meeting with the main character is ... through a game called "tackfam" or essentially a rip off of super smash where she's rated 2nd in the game while the mc is 1st. To me, her real reason of meeting him is to find someone that's better than her and I'm assuming to date or hang out with. Unfortunately for her, she meets the mc, an unsocial guy in her class, and some of her first few words to him are just insults.

What is her problem? I'm not really sure, but she clearly believes that he's failed in the game of life. She's utterly disappointed that the only person that she found that was better than her was a quitter and basically a loser. The fact that you only respect people better than you is absolutely disgusting.

She accuses the mc of quitting in the game of life and that he's not a "gamer" and the mc is forced to either accept that he's a loser or get better in the game of life. However, there's nothing wrong with quitting. If you're doing drugs and someone explained that you're a quitter for quitting drugs, is there something wrong with that? She then decides to help him win in life. Why? There's really no reason for you to help him out at all, but one possibility is that you're improving him to date him.

She goes on to create a set of goals to help him improve, and one of them specifically is to get a girlfriend. Dating someone for the sake of achieving a goal is honestly really disgusting. You're toying with other people's feelings to simply feel good about achieving your goal and not to nurture the relationship. She clearly doesn't care about other people, yet other people view her as a goddess.

Another thing she recommends the mc to do is to memorize conversation topics. Yes. Memorize conversation topics. Does anyone actually do this because if they do, they definitely have some serious problems. Additionally, she tells him to start a conversation with a female. As someone with few friends in real life, I can confidently say that it's nearly impossible for me to do so and it will certainly be awkward. However, the mc feels practically nothing. While it is awkward, he breezes past it like doing so is normal. He doesn't even have a fml moment and acts like nothing happened.

The mediocre plot and the appalling characters make this show an absolute wash. While a few moments are nice and some characters are waifu material, I don't think they can save the show.

3/10

I was really surprised when Jaku-chara Tomozaki-kun had a very low score at the beginning. I Really Enjoyed this show. It is true that there were a lot of awkward statements made by our Fumiya-kun But it was so funny that I was barely able to hold my laughter.

::Story::8/10::
The story was quite intriguing. It was satisfying to see a unpopular guy turn into a normal kid with a couple of new friends. And I liked the Idea of having goals to beat in each episode. It was pretty interesting.

::Art::8/10::
The Art was Nice and somewhat different compared to many anime. But there is not much you ... can point out.

::Sound::8/10::
I didn't have any concerns regarding the sound. If I can say something about it I can say it is calm and refreshing.

::Character::8/10::
The characters are cute and well drawn. I dont know what more to say so lets get to the next one.

::Excitement::8/10::
Like I said there isn't much to point out in this show. I really liked the story and the way Tomozaki is changing each episode. This is a show that Didn't make me feel disappointed.

Bye-Bye!!

Honestly I can’t even tell you why this show pisses me off like it does. It’s pretty basic and formulaic but it is so pretentious, like it thinks it is so smart. It’s acting like My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU which is actually smart, but it just has no fucking idea what it’s talking about. They try to do the whole social commentary thing but it land flat on it’s fucking face. It was so in your face that any nuance just went right out the fucking window. I mean it was like that in SNAFU as well but at least that one had something ... interesting to say and actually had a lot of different arguments and examples. This show can only say one thing and they shove it down your throat at every chance they get. None of the characters are interesting in the slightest and the fucking premise on how they met is stupid. They literally disrespect their own demographic so hard. I mean don’t get me wrong, what they say is true and its demographic absolutely needs to be called out, but like, could they do it in a smarter way? I don’t want to keep comparing it to SNAFU but once again, it’s literally just a better version of this show. Honestly, I never even thought about why I hated this show and I never even made the connection to SNAFU until I started writing this review. I am a genius. I kinda write whatever comes to my head and I am getting off track. Anyway, shit sucks.

Girl: "If you smile and take care of your appearance to look decent, people will like you more". MC: (Surprised pikachu face) <-- this is the kind of CRINGE fest that abound in this show portraying an introvert as a socially inept dude who doesn't understand basic human interaction. I'm not even exaggerating, from episode 1 you'll see meme-level "Wow" reactions from the MC when he's being taught about HOW HUMAN SMILES WORK.

The main story is about this no-life dude that gives cringe speeches about how life is crap and is obsessed with the Tackfam videogame (basically Super Smash Bros), who then meets a cute ... superficial girl who suddenly decides to be his social life coach to make him a chad in no time.

Basically, the story is a creep otaku fantasy where a cute girl (who "coincidentally" also happens to be a top gamer) will help you get a girlfriend, leading to interactions with more cute girls, and some of them may also want you to teach them how to play your favorite videogame. How cool and UNREALISTIC is that.

Simply put, the whole show is very unlikable. We're talking about a MC who snaps and yells at people who dare to criticize his favorite videogame. You will probably be cringing hard with plenty of face palm and eye-roll moments if you continue watching.

Overall, I cannot recommend this show.

In a world where terrible humour is rampant and a Super Smash Bros rip-off is so popular that even the outgoing normies play it- cue Tomozaki, a lonely, introverted, outcast of the society. Uh oh, you know what that means right? He has all the qualities to be an epic gamer! Can't we all relate to that?

Out of all the tropes in anime, this trope of how the number one player of any popular game has to be an introverted sad freak who is unsuccessful in life and unable to fit in, is the worst trope ever. It's a dumb and illogical trope. Think about ... it, if you're the number one player of a very popular game, are you really unsuccessful? Does it really mean that you have no talent and no one has a use for you? Ever heard of e-sports? Let's just say that there's no e-sports in the world of this anime. Even then it makes no sense. If a game is popular, then a lot of people are wasting their time on it, so obviously people are gonna hold the number one player of that game in some respect. Heck, he could even start teaching others how to get good at the game.
But no, if you're a number one player of a game, it means that you have no life and you can't fit in with other people.

Enough rants about gamers and gaming, I'm not a gamer but I just had to point out how dumb that trope is, since that trope is basically the base of this anime and Tomozaki as a character.

Before I begin the actual review, let me point it out that I'm reviewing this anime, not volume 69 of the novel. I know that there are a lot of light novel purists for this anime, that's why I wanted to remind them that I don't care about the light novel or what happens in the future story line.

The entire first season is just Aoi Hinami, the female MC, trying to teach Tomozaki basic human interaction knowledge, it's so fun isn't it! Instead of getting professional help, Tomozaki completes daily tasks given by Aoi Hinami. These tasks include forcing yourself to talk to another classmate for a few minutes, "messing" with another classmate at least three times and getting a girlfriend. Her idea is that this so called task system resembles a game and if Tomozaki hears the word "Game" he must get super horny, so that's why she keeps giving him all these tasks daily and increases the difficulty of the task day by day.

Every time Tomozaki can't do something, he'll say that he can't do that because he is a "bottom tier character". You can't get a girlfriend? Oh man you must be a bottom tier character. You don't have any friends? You must be a bottom tier character. Tomozaki's coping mechanism is so annoying, at one point I've had it with him. He thinks life is a game and whenever Hinami says that "Think of life as a game!" He gets all riled up, so riled up that he can do anything! Tomozaki is not a bottom tier character, he is more of a spectator because everything in the anime just happens and he just happens to be near those happenings, it's not like he does anything special other than making unfunny jokes which are not really jokes but everyone in the anime laughs anyways.

Here is literally a conversation taken right from the anime-
Mizusawa: You really are a hard worker. Aren't you Tomozaki?
Tomozaki: I'd say I'm more of a gamer.
Mizusawa: You are a funny guy
Tomozaki: That's not really a compliment
Misuzawa: It is!

That's literally one of the conversation. To Tomozaki, this is his idea of messing with someone. And surprisingly, the other character sees Tomozaki as a comedy god, not only that character but literally every other character laughs at these so called jokes that Tomozaki often makes (That I always seem to miss) and everyone starts laughing. If you want, you can ask me for those moments and I will show you a clip of it, you'll understand what I mean by "terrible humour". I can't stand Tomozaki, he's pain inducingly cringe. But hey, at least he gets better later.. right?

And now, we talk about the other MC of the anime, if you think Tomozaki is bad, boy oh boy, you haven't seen anything. Cue Aoi Hinami, a literal deity. She is the perfect human and according to Tomozaki, she is the number one player in the game of life. Let me explain- She's good looking, she is popular among her close friends, classmates and the entire school, she is an amazing track runner, she is an amazing basketball player, she is the top student of her class/school, and she is also the 2nd best player of the Super Smash Bros rip-off game that Tomozaki is no. 1 in. See what I mean by a deity? What I fail to understand, even if she puts a ton of effort into all subjects, how is she good at everything? She has enough time to study and become the top student of her school, she has enough time to mingle and maintain a good relationship with her friends, she has enough time to do makeup, she has enough time to practice for basketball, she has enough time to practice track, she has enough time to climb all the way up to the 2nd place in the most popular video game. How? And when Tomozaki called her a top tier character, she probably also says that she had to put a ton of effort, so I'm guessing she wasn't born a deity. Even so, how did she manage to become so good at everything? We have no answer. Even though she's good at everything, she claims that her being perfect is only an act. When Tomozaki and Hinami had that little fight where Tomozaki being a reasonable person for ONCE in the entire anime, and Hinami got mad at him. Basically Tomozaki refused to do one of her task which was to confess to a girl, because he thought that those weren't his true feelings and he was doing it because Hinami told her to do so. After hearing this Hinami got mad and gave a cringy speech, I might be wrong but from what I understood, all she said was "What is point of doing what you want? That's a waste of time! Doing what others expect of you is a true productive human!" So basically, in summary, Aoi Hinami is a slave and she was mad that Tomozaki wasn't a slave like her.
Other characters are boring and have nothing special to them, emphasize on the 'nothing', absolutely nothing. The side characters are so boring, they often come on screen to remind us that the main characters aren't as boring as them.

Animation is just average, nothing special to it. All the budget went into animating the lips of female characters, which were the only good thing about this entire anime.

The ending sequence, which deserves a better anime, is the only redeeming thing about the sound aspect of this anime. Because voice acting is meh at best and they tried to add sad piano soundtracks like OreGairu and miserably failed.

My overall impression of this anime is just bad. I wouldn't recommend this anime to anyone. This anime is pseudo deep. The only reason why I thought I should give this a chance was because people claimed that this is as good as OreGairu, which was a massive lie. If you're having trouble sleeping, then this anime might help, otherwise if you haven't seen it, then don't. Well, it's all up to you anyways.

First of all, I literally thought that this is going to be a typical Harem anime, but it wasn't. It did justify the "comedy" genre, but somehow I felt it lacked or rather did injustice to
"romance" genre. It was basically a gamer trying to think life as a game too and tried to raise his level but somewhere along the line he realised he wasn't doing what he "really wanted".

It did have some comic moments and its a good slice of life but it wasn't, not even a little a romantic anime. It was more like friendly kind of thing and nothing more. ... But even so, if it does gets a sequel and justifies the "romance" part of the story then that would be something to look forward to.

Overall, you can watch it if you are bored or something like that. But not worth that much of attention though. My rating would be somewhat 4/10.

I've seen plenty of reviews rate it a 2, but I don't understand why. The anime is very good in my opinion.

It's well animated, and the sound is phenomenal. The story is a bit lacking, and the 'romance' isn't really there. It's just about a girl who gets a guy to be more like a normal person. Some of the story was a bit cringe, but I just went past it without much worry.

The character design is amazing, and when our MC gets a glow-up, you could have them side by side as different people.

Overall, very nice, and I would watch it again ... in a year or two.

So , I have watched 4 episodes while currently writing this , And I have been noticing a lot of hate towards this show , I can see why most wont relate to this (Neither do I , I do play games but not this heavily) , but saying this show is absolute trash is just "2Cool4U" attitude .

Now coming to the review section , i would say that , yes , this show is worth your time , this is nowhere near the best anime of this season , but still it is a fun watch . You might even be able to get ... some good pointers if you have anxiety while interacting with people .

What i like most about this anime though is that it portrays most cases perfectly . It actually tries to show how different types of people interact and how to deal with certain social situations . At least try to watch the first 3 episodes of this series and then decide if you like this or not .

So , to summarise , this show is plenty good and you shuld definitely check this out . This was my first review so this might not be very good but you should really try this show regardless of the low score on mal . Rest assured it would be worth the time you put in this !

Bruh this shit is trash. I dont mind the main character being trash but the purpose of the whole show is trash. The show will emphasize on the idea that if you don't want to be a loser, you have to follow the trend and care what others think about you. Aoi is one of the worst characters out there. The author wants us to see that she is hard-working. And WHY is she hard-working? Well, it is a simple answer: She cares about her social status and acts all fake around others. I know I may be going overboard on writing how the themes ... and the meaning behind this show is trash, but I think they should be giving better themes and ideas, rather than it just being on your ego and social life. To be honest the show was not that bad, I did enjoy the main character more when he wanted to be popular. ITS NOT WRONG TO BE LONELY AND UNSOCIAL. This is not me trying to project my insecurites to the world and shit on this dumpsterfire, but this is a poorly made anime. It permits the Tu QuoQue fallacy about a million times. The anime is fallacious LMAOOO!

I'd hate to see a good show with genuine, heartfelt content in it be dried up in what could be considered by some a poor adaptation, and by the more autistic fans perhaps a "normie filter".

It's almost disheartening to see how poor the presentation of this show is in general. The art direction is incredibly bland, with the backgrounds showcasing the most generic depictions of modern day Japan in history and Fly's very pretty art being placed into animation that doesn't quite match up with the pristine glittery nature of his designs. The music, while good, is horribly misplaced and and throws off the ... tones of certain scenes by a substantial amount. The pacing of the adaptation is horrid, with the first 3 episodes whizzing past you without you having even a clue about what's happenign or where the story is headed.

All of the above, compounded by a bizzare "epic gamerz" hook that has little to nothing to do with the show's themes other than an extremely broad "life is like a video game" thing that Hinami and Fumiya like to throw around sometimes and the rather cringe-inducing way Fumiya acts in the beginning seems to have driven people away in droves.

Indeed, this is the return of the "omg he is so me" type of protagonist that seems to eternally exist within the deep realms of our minds that everybody loves to see on screen. He's doesn't care what anybody thinks! He's got no friends! He's a super cool sigma male who's here to spit on your corpse and fuck your wife! They've existed forever and will probably never go away because there's always going to be that one demographic of people who loves to eat this shit up. These type of omegaloner protags seem to always pull the salt of the guys who stare in from outside, calling them edgy or losers or incels or whatever shitty term is in favor that year.

What strikes me as odd is how these characters all seem to categorically blend together in people's minds. As an example, Hachiman, an unsociable kid who's never had a real chance to make any friends, and Ayanokoji, a psychopath who doesn't understand the concept of friendship, are two incredibly different characters who's stories have little in common. And yet, despite their rather unnuanced differences, people have still just collectively grouped them up into the same type of person for what seems to just be the superficial reason of "they're like, both loners or something, right?". Maybe it's just because all of these guys always seem to be randomly packing heat, or maybe it's because the anime adaptations of these light novels are always shit, but regardless of how high Excaliber stands, the title of King can only ever belong to one.

It doesn't mean that there's no reason that all of these characters always seem to attract the same type of audience, however. There is obviously some reason why these characters are all grouped together. The real categorization, instead, should probably be the "unmotivated protagonist". Never wanting to do anything, never wanting to change, and letting destiny coincidently fall into their hands before they even deliberate on acting. This description rings true for almost all of the lowlife good-for-nothing le "i was bullied 40 years ago" guys that sit on their ass and wait for Misaki's salvation.

Fumichad is not that type of guy.

Waking up at 8 am on Saturday morning, he wakes up and gets out of bed. The ground shakes before him as he marches onwards to open up his Nintendo Switch and grab a Gamecube controller from depths of his asshole, he sits on the smelly destroyed cushion on the floor of his room. His hands already ramp up to 10 billion APM, as he ghosts some combos before his button inputs could be detected by the console.

Fumiya is a guy that just has his priorites elsewhere, and this show is just a show about a guy that shifts his motivations towards self improvement into the real world.

That's pretty much it. This show is about a loser improving both himself and his surroundings through his own effort and Hinami's guidance. For anybody going into this show, please do not take this as another crusade against society and those who have wronged us. It isn't a critque of society at large, but rather the of the indiviual. For what the show is offering and for what you could consider a "call to action" for so many losers in the otaku community, transcendent of cultural boundries. I'd love to exist in a dimension where the struggles of the Tomokos of society are free to suffer in their own patheticness without dirty looks from others, but while real life is much a place where nobody can care enough about anybody else to really think that way, the losers of the world are very quick to rise up and tell those other losers how much better they are then them.

If I've been using too many shitty analogies or whatever, what I'm trying to say is that writing the show off as bad because it's "cringe" or whatever is pretty retarded.

And to the same extent, please don't disregard the show if you disagree with what Hinami seems to view as a "winning state" in life. The series is rather careful of what it likes to showcase as the right and wrong morals a character might act upon, and isn't caught up in broadcasting the author's personal beliefs through a holy messiah.

But saying that brings up another question: if this show isn't a drama series or a romance series, what is this show really about?

Tomozaki-kun is a rather unenjoyable show. I'll reiterate though that this anime's presentation is really quite shit. The art is below average and the soundtrack is incredibly distracting due to a bizzare inconsistency between the mood of the certain scenes and what track plays in the background. The pacing of the show is absolutely horrendous, too, and will feel incredibly rushed and confusing until the later half of the show.

The show itself isn't very entertaining. The comedy is subpar at best, the majority of Fumiya's dialogue with other characters aren't very interesting, and a lot of Fumiya's behaviour is at best sad and at worst incredibly cringe-inducing. It's all compounded by the fact that many of the people who wouldn't mind that last part too much are completely scared away because half the cast, and especially Hinami, can be seen as both the idealized and totemized versions of the perfect riajuu.

It's basically driven many people in it's own target demographic away from the start. Of course, being lonely and antisocial isn't wrong nor is wanting to experience relationships in a natural, more genuine matter, but many seem to already have taken whatever Hinami said and just ran away with it like the author has injected his own blood and tears into her words.

Keep in mind that Tomozaki-kun isn't a romance series or a proper drama series until the later volumes/season 2, either. So what we've really been left with seems to be an adaptation not too disimilar to the "quality difference" between the Monogatari's series' first and second seasons.

But for anybody who's interested in seeing the show, please keep your balls empty and your mind open to whatever is to come, and I promise you that you will have a much better time then you would otherwise.