From episode 9 of Watamote, which is short for… the usual reasons that the ever escalating length of Japanese media titles are a pain in the arse to type in full. Seriously, it’s a good thing that the Japanese syllabary is so conducive to contraction. Anyway, it’s in the storage room, so presumably it contains some of Tomoko’s “cherished” childhood possessions.

I guess Watamote is, obtensively, a comedy. I mean, it does make me laugh on a near enough episode by episode basis – it’s just that it usually then progresses for a good few minutes past the initial humour inflection point, as it gradually gets more and more squirm-inducing, ultimately making you feel kind of bad for laughing at someone who is the most horrid(ly adorable?) bundle of social and mental illnesses.

That said, episode 9 was a bit of a respite, in that there wasn’t actually anything that awkward in there, more just Tomoko feeling depressed about her own life situation. I’d like to think that it’s a result of Tomoko finally doing things which make it seem at least slightly evident that she is, perhaps, becoming at least a little self-aware that she’s actually the source of most of her own problems.

I do, however, kind of wonder if it’s just the staff giving us a brief period of respite after the eighth episode, which proved itself so uncomfortable that I found myself forced to skip a full two minutes of content, as it shuffled awkwardly, scorchingly-red face downward, towards the inevitable conclusion of perhaps the most cringe-inducing situation ever committed to animation. It’s probably just luring us into a false sense of security before it raises the stakes to an equal or higher level in a coming installment…

I suppose only time, or reading forward in the manga, will tell.

Coincidentally, who’da thunk that Silverlink would produce two watchable shows, much less both in the same season? Miracles do happen, I guess.