Joshua S. Hoque
Professor Jack Ucciardino
English 2305
20 March 2017
Tomoko’s Guide to High School Popularity
“Who cares about those girls and their random cliques!? They’re all just shallow, boy-crazy
idiots… and guys who go for ditzes like that are just dirt anyhow… I’m way better off as a loner
than with twits like them! Nah. I’m not really a loner I just like to play solo is all. Wearing
makeup hiking up your skirt… flirting with boys that’s what sluts do. Go on! Please! Live out
your dumb, clichéd youths to the fullest, ladies and gentle scum!” (Tanigawa 8)
The importance of this passage is relevant throughout the manga because it reveals
Tomoko’s characteristics. It is significant because everything about her personality, nature,
quality, and other traits are exhibited. It shows Tomoko as a person who can be critical of other
people and say things about people that are either untrue, naive, or downright mean. However, it
is her insecurities that are at the root of her harsh judgments. It also displays her indecisiveness
and failure to learn from her mistakes. In the manga she continues to go on thinking everyone is
against her or is talking about her. Yet, it’s all in her head and people are not doing anything but
minding their own business. For example, there were a few times that someone may have said
something that caught her off guard but that is her own fault because she brought that on herself
because of her actions. In the real world, if someone is staring at strangers, which occurred in the
manga, of course someone will say something.
Tomoko says one thing and then she’ll say something else just to make it seem like she’s
not the problem. She says she doesn’t need to worry about the other girls and how they are
obsessed with makeup and boys but then she ends up doing the same thing and tries so hard to be
just like them. She tries to dress nicer and starts wearing makeup to change her appearance and
uses her brother to help with talking to boys. This passage reveals the kind of person Tomoko
really is. Tomoko is quite surprised when she sees her friend from middle school. She expects
Yuu to be the same simple nerdy girl she was in middle school. However, Yuu has completely
changed her appearance and is an entirely new person. She dresses beautiful and even has a
boyfriend. In the passage above, Tomoko mentions that girls who hike up their skirts and talk to
boys are sluts. This was said before she even saw Yuu. So when she sees that Yuu has become
one of those girls she despises yet envies her. Tomoko is a very likeable person in that she is
very relatable. Tomoko, like everyone else, has her struggles. Not everyone is perfect and as
Tomoko’s life progresses in the manga she faces many similar problems that we all face. Near
the beginning of the manga, Tomoko says “no, wait there’s no need to panic yet I’ll be fine if I
start making friends and meeting boys from here on out.” (Tanigawa 7)
Her expectations as a high school student do not go as planned and she ends up being a
