Tomoko Kuroki

Tomoko Kuroki
Information
Title
Gender	Female
Hair	Black
Eyes	Green
Family Members	Tomoki Kuroki (brother) Hahaoya Kuroki (mother) Chichioya Kuroki (father) Kī (cousin)
Voice Actor	Izumi Kitta

Tomoko Kuroki (黒木 智子, Kuroki Tomoko^?) is the protagonist of No Matter How I Look At It, It's You Guys Fault I'm Not Popular! ("Watamote"). Socially inept and often desperate, the series chronicles  her various attempts to try and be more popular at her school. Tomoko has a grim outlook on life, to the extent that during a day dream, she imagines herself on a motorcycle, only to crash and end up in the hospital. She often has heavy bags under her eyes due to staying up too late playing games or watching anime. She is also rather perverted at times. However, she is often fairly optimistic, for example, she believes that it will only take about a month to get a boyfriend.

She will often imagine dubious situations with other boys or lust after her best friend, Yū Naruse. Tomoko also has a younger brother named Tomoki Kuroki, and a cousin, Kī.

Spoiler warning! This article contains plot details about an episode.

Relationships

Yū Naruse

Tomoko befriended Yū in middle school when Yū joined Tomoko's class. Tomoko offers to eat lunch with her after being told to eat lunch with her friends, believing that she could take advantage of her good will. Yū attempts to add Komi into the group, being another loner. However, she and Tomoko don't get along well, and as she has not been seen in the main series it can be assumed that they have not attempted to remain in contact. At the start of the main series, Tomoko mainly contacts Yū to ask for advice including about what kind of underwear she was wearing at the time. Though as it progresses Yū asks Tomoko for help, and even notes how mature she feels Tomoko is. During the culture festival she visits Tomoko's school, where Tomoko attempts to get a hug from her by bringing her into the haunted house (resulting in her annoyance that they were unable to scare her).

Kī

Tomoko's cousin. Kī respects Tomoko more than anyone else in her family. She looks up to her and refers to her as an older sister which pleases Tomoko greatly. Tomoko lies a great deal to Kī in an attempt to seem more mature, however this ultimately backfires when Kī finds out when she confronts the guy she claimed to be her boyfriend, only to have her illusion shattered. Since then Tomoko has tried to be nicer to her in an attempt to win her back, even bringing her along to watch her win a card game against younger children, and trying to give her money at new year to which Kī refuses.

Hina Nemoto

Nemoto was a classmate of Tomoko in her first year. She introduces herself at the start of their second year, surprising Tomoko as she feared no one remembered her from her last class. She found Tomoko's introduction in her first year funny (as Tomoko had intended), and built up the rest of the class's expectations for her introduction. Leading to Tomoko trying, unsuccessfully, to come up with a new introduction. This leads to her embarrassment and the disappointment of the rest of the class (see Kuroki Level). Despite this, Tomoko seems to warm to her, and later mentions talking to her on occasion.

Ogino

Tomoko's homeroom teacher. Ogino tries to get Tomoko to make friends within her class, much to Tomoko's annoyance. However, after finding a picture of a penis on Tomoko's phone in class, it is unknown how she feels about her.

Hahaoya Kuroki

Tomoko's mother starts as one of the few people she is able to talk to. Her mother often gets annoyed by Tomoko, however, she does, to some extent, trust her, even giving her Tomoki's application to a local high school, which Tomoko forgets to deliver. Whilst she becomes angry at Tomoko, she admits it was probably her fault for trusting her. Whenever she tries to get Tomoko to do housework, Tomoko will complain, and get away with the bare minimum. Despite this, she does care about Tomoko, giving Tomoko her allowance early when she sees an invitation to a party, albeit one Tomoko doesn't go to, and her scoldings have always been justified, such as when Tomoko tried to make it look like she had kiss marks using a vacuum cleaner.

Tomoki Kuroki

Tomoki Kuroki is the younger brother. Tomoko and her brother's relationship is, strained, to say the least. Tomoko often looks to her brother for help, despite being older than him. However, her requests often come off as creepy, such as asking him to show her his penis, causing him to become annoyed and often resulting in him throwing her out of his room. She also tries to use him for her own end, such as pretending to look after him in order to get sick herself. However, they do both care for each other. When Tomoko saw him alone in class, she planned on trying to help him make friends, though it is revealed that she was mistaken. Tomoki often helps out Tomoko, even taking her to the bathroom when she's too scared to go alone. 

Character Overview

Tomoko starts off excited about high school, having over 50 years of dating experience of 100 boys in Otome games whilst in the real world she is a shut in. However, once at high school, she finds things aren't going considerably well as having reached May without her talking to anyone in her class. It is at this point she decides to try and make herself more popular.

Tomoko has varying degrees of success with this, ranging from embarrassing herself  to some success. She often turns to either her brother, Tomoki Kuroki, or her best friend Yū Naruse to ask for advice, often to help with her own plans, which are usually somewhat perverted and generally backfire.

Though she has little to no success at first, she has slowly gained people's respect, and in her second year she has managed to get make a friend, Nemoto , in her class whom she talks to. She also befriends a member of the culture festival committee, though she has had very little interaction with the latter. It is also apparent that she has  become slightly more confident in dealing with other people in social interaction. For example, being able to had over her home ec.  ingredients, something she had been unable previously.

Appearances

Manga:

All

Anime:

All

Memorable quotes

• "No, no. Actually I should be super popular among those pedos. Is it really because I'm small?"
• "Yeah. You're right. I'll kill myself."
• "If shortening my lifespan by a year would kill these guys, I'd do it..."
• "I'm getting really turned on..."
• "It's when a guy uses that to do that with that for that."
• "Phew... My mind is so stuck on dicks I can't concentrate at all..."
• "Show me your dick."
• "Don't read if you're a bitch."