Tomoko Kuroki

Tomoko Kuroki is the lead protagonist of No Matter How I Look At It, It's You Guys Fault I'm Not Popular! ("Watamote") anime and manga.

Tomoko is socially inept and often desperate, the series chronicles her various attempts to try to be more popular at her school, Makuhari Shuuei High School.

In the AWA fics, Tomoko is a student at the AWA Academy and is a part of Class 23. Tomoko is also a member of the Loser's Club.

Appearance
Tomoko has fairly pale skin, large jade green eyes, and long unkempt black hair that she wears down on her shoulders, often covering her right eye. Her eyes have visible purple dark shadows beneath them, which is mostly due to her lack of sleep. As a child, Tomoko did not occupy dark undertones. Tomoko has a fairly small, circular face compared to the rest of her peers, and her figure is very delicate and petite. However, she generally imagines herself to be a tall, curvaceous woman, contrasting to her real frame.

Tomoko is quite shorter than younger brother with her head coming up to about his mouth or nose. Her height is about 5'0" or 152cm, though in episode 12 of the anime it is written as 120cm or 4'0." The anime opening shows her against height marks up to just under 5'0" when she stands up straight as opposed to bending forward and smirking at the viewer. When she stretches to throw her sign, she reaches about 5'2". Of these, 5' may be the most reasonable measurement.

Her most common outfit, her High School uniform, consists of a collared, white buttoned up blouse accompanied by a garnet necktie. Additionally, she wears a pale, yellow jacket that is adorned with cyan-colored buttons, and a knee-length wavy skirt the same color as the jacket she wears with black trimmings. She wears jet black stockings and brown shoes. When Tomoko was in Middle School, she wore a traditional navy sailor fuku outfit. At home, Tomoko wears non-feminine like clothes, and when she later realizes this is insufficient for a "popular" girl, she attempts to make her clothing slutty to convince Kii that she is experienced, although her clothing did not exactly qualify as slutty.

Personality
Tomoko has a grim outlook on life - so much that during a daydream she imagines herself on a motorcycle, only to crash and end up in the hospital. She makes a "censored" with a tone reference to the anime Gantz, hoping her world will be destroyed and replaced. As the series goes on, Tomoko tries to become popular by coming up with ideas on how to get attention. She usually either fails or receives negative attention. She often lacks a "filter" in that she will say what she thinks without considering the consequences. For example, realizing she has never seen male genitalia, she matter-of-factly asks her brother, Tomoki to show his to her without any understanding of how bizarre that request is. Much of the story takes place "in her head" through her continuous thinking and ranting to herself on almost everyone and everything. Her awkward behavior seems odd to even perverted to others. She can be disrespectful and selfish at times, like when she tried to make Tomoki do housework when he was doing entrance exams when the year previously she ducked doing housework with the excuse she had entrance exams. She overreacts to small things, such as seeing her classmates at WcDonalds and trying to avoid them by disguising herself. Her imagination tends to fuel her overreactions.

She can also appear rather perverted to others. Tomoko is a young teen curious but awkward and embarrassed by having no experience other than what she gains from playing games and surfing the internet. Aside from comic misunderstanding situations in the manga and anime where her parents walk in on her, Tomoko will also blurt out what she is thinking especially if she thinks it will make her appear cool and mature, usually with little grasp on the consequences. Early in the series, listening to other girls happily talk about bikinis, she imagines they are all "secreting pheromones" and are sluts. In the anime, she quickly thinks the female manager of the baseball team spends her time tending to the boys' "bats." Bored by being forced to watch a baseball game in the manga, she muses that baseball would be better if the line-up depended on relative penis length or if the batters had to use a bat with a length that compared to their own! She tries to impress her younger cousin with her experiences with a non-existent boyfriend with hilarious results. In school, feeling embarrassed that she may be the only girl her age who has not seen a boy's unmentionables, she enters an image search for "big dicks" on her phone only to drop it, have it scatter across the floor for her teacher to find and see, and to then gain the reputation as the "girl who looks at dicks." Later in the manga, when she has progressed to having lunch daily with two other girls, she reads a young woman's magazine which has a seasonal "Sex Special" searching for something interesting to say. Even though she knows she cannot just blurt out "things you can understand about someone based on their penis" in a conversation, she does so anyways.

Her actual experience is limited mainly to fantasies from playing games, making up scenarios, and listening to her special yandere audios. In one incident early in the anime and manga, she sees into the window of a "Love Hotel" where she can watch two people making love. She is shocked by the detail she has not seen before in her games. When she becomes reacquainted with Yū, who in middle school wore glasses and seemed nerdy to Tomoko, she is shocked to find Yū has lightened her hair, discarded her glasses for contacts, has developed more than she, and has had boyfriends. When Yū hugs her, Tomoko is embarrassed that Yū's breasts touch her then misunderstands what is happening and thinks she should grab Yū's bottom. This does not happen, but Tomoko remains fascinated.

One has to take care in interpreting Tomoko's developing sexuality. As expected, she has fantasies she engages in which the manga and anime hint at and often play for humorous effect. She will play a game and have tissues ready. She will listen to yandere boys CDs. Reading on how to have "erotic dreams" she wastes a night trying to have them only to fall asleep in class having one. A lot of humor involves her trying to act more experienced than she is. She is curious about her body but sometimes tries to hide it. Thus, the scene with Yū is played more for her curiosity rather than actual attraction to Yū. Similarly, during her high school field trip, when she has a difficult time rousing another girl named Yoshida, she decides to tickle her under the covers and it is clear she lets her fingers wander. The Japanese manga makes it clear she starts pinching her. Tomoko later admits this and apologizes. This will serve as the beginning of a few comic misunderstandings between the two characters. In another incident in chapter 84, Nemoto asks her in the bathroom to scratch her back: "Put your hand inside my sweater." Tomoko blushes and has to take a moment in the stall afterwards. On the other hand, soon after in chapter 86 Tomoko must participate in school-wide athletic activities. She has to pick a "hot guy" as a pair in a running race. Desperate, she approaches her brother who refuses but provides an upperclassman from his soccer team. Tomoko becomes so overwhelmed she fears participating in the three-legged race with another boy. Doing so, in her words, breaks her mind. She realizes that other than "business handshakes with voice actors," she has had no real interactions with boys.

Trivia

 * Tomoko is the first character from WataMote to be introduced in the AWA fics.
 * In the AWA fics, Tomoko is currently Davis Motomiya's girlfriend.


 * Tomoko means "wise child" and Kuroki means "black tree."
 * Tomoko was born on February 29th.
 * Tomoko is agnostic but willing to follow traditional rituals.
 * The dark skin under her eyes appears the result of insufficient sleep.
 * Tomoko currently has a group of friends on LINE, which include Yū, Yuri and Mako.
 * Tomoko cheats in card games.