The prequal to watamote claims to be from the perspective of Tomoko's best friend Yuu-chan, however the familiar lead quickly takes over. Despite its misleading premise, WataTomo is a rather pleasant look at the often brought up middle school days of our unpopular high school girl.
While the cringe humor and otaku references are still very prevalent in the series, there is one notable difference; the portrayal of Tomoko herself. In the main series shes presented as an inversion to the typical shy character trope in that shes extremely unlikable in her thoughts and to many people (most notably her brother and Kotomi). That being said she still comes off as pretty sympathetic, as many of her problems aren't entirely her fault. This manga completely throws the sympathy out the window, as she is just a straight up prick here. While flashbacks in the main series give a good reason why Kotomi doesn't exactly like Tomoko, this series completely drives home how unlikable Tomoko was back in middle school, and boy does it do it well.
Yuuchan is also shown to be not much more than a super innocent girl (borderline to a fault). There is a bit of retcon in her character however. When she was introduced in an early chapter of WataMote Tomoko showed rather little interest in her other than "she was my friend from middle school". You'll quickly notice here that her relationship with Tomoko isn't all that different from her later appearance.
That being said there are a few moments where the two do get along through mutual (rather cringy) shred interests (usually related to Yuu-chan). In fact some of the more interesting chapters are the ones that expand upon events that were shown in flashbacks before (you'll know them if you read the main series). The most interesting part of this series though are chapters that show how the three main characters grew into who they are now. You see the first time Tomoko becoming a shut in, Yuu-chan getting her first taste of the popularity she is implied to have and Kotomi's completely understandable distaste for Tomoko. There are some more dull chapters that just feel like they could've been normal watamote filler chapters (ie Tomoko tries to copy something from anime chapters). These are fine, but if I wanted more of that I would just read the main series
Overall this is a short but enjoyable manga that I recommend to any WataMote fan. It doesn't go over Tomoko's entire time in middle in as much detail as the main series does with high school, but it does provide some rather pleasant character development that fans are sure to appreciate.
