Tomo-chan is a Girl!

AustinDR Mar 1, 2023

8.7

Tomo-chan Is A Girl regards a tomboy named Tomo Aizawa as she tries to confess to her childhood best friend Junichirou "Jun" Kubota by trying to be more "girly."   The characters are all likable with their own quirks. Tomo herself is an adorable character who often ends up beating up Jun whenever he tends to misinterpret her actions, but she is also a loyal friend who would fiercely protect her friends leading to some of the most awesome moments of the show. Her trying to be more "girly" is also admirable, showing that she is not just a tough girl, but she was also interested in girlish things like affectionately hugging her friends.   Jun himself does display that he does love Tomo the way that she was developing a crush on him, but you get the sense that he is trying to make himself stronger in order to feel "worthy" of her. We get that aspect often through flashbacks to how they first met and how he was easily picked on a lot. But, of course, his misunderstandings often end with him fighting Tomo.   Miszuzu Gundou can best be described as that stoic friend you'd have in your group who seems to really only emote by inconveniencing the other friends by trolling them. Misuzu is borderline "evil" and a dark person to be around. She often has a rivalry with Jun due to how they both dated for a short amount of time and the latter beat her to the punch by ending the relationship. Really, it seems that she does what she does out of amusement such as how she'd get kicks out of getting an arise from Jun. But despite her trollish ways, she does care about her friends almost to the point she seemed too attached to Tomo of course not in "that" way but more because they had been friends for years. However, she does often chip in with making Tomo look cuter.   But by far the best character in the show is Carol "Princess" Olston. Not gonna lie, when I first saw her, I thought she would be annoying, but she is actually probably the unit of the show. I don't know if she is either an airhead or secretly a genius. Every scene she is in is simply hilarious. It is hard to say. There's her lending Tomo her headband and then reclaiming it while humming Canticorum Jubilo. The fact that they stop the plot of the episode to let Carol hum her "homecoming" song without any breaks makes it funnier.   Or there's her getting Jun to train her in a fight with Tomo but she could barely do any of the exercises. Or that time she actually scored higher in math than Misuzu. How about when she nonchalantly tased a guy while keeping that happy smile on her face? She even gave Tomo a bar of gold for her birthday. How can I get a friend like that?   Of course, what makes Carol so good is how she bounces off Miszuz due to being her polar opposite. There are times when Misuzu tries to antagonize her, but Carol often deflects that leading to the implication that her bubbly attitude is either completely fabricated, or a small part of it exists.   The supporting cast of characters is also great, but that would be going into a whole new territory by explaining what makes them good.   The voice acting is great as are the opening and ending themes. Ultimately a great time with episode 8 going into more character development.

JustMonika33 Apr 4, 2023

10

One of the best romance comedies I've seen in awhile. You get the complete package in just 13 episodes. Also gotta shout out to Sally Amaki for doing a phenomenal job as Carol in both the English and Japanese dub.

LunaNoah24 Mar 31, 2023

10

At first I was sceptical and worried that the story would be about girls changing themselves to date the guys they want, but it was not that. This should be a common thing, but from my memory sadly isn't.  Tomo-chan is a Girl! isn't a great anime because it is not toxic (miscommunication), it is a great anime because it promotes healfy (cominication wise) realasionships while not making it too high-fantasy. There is of course still room to grow and that is what makes this anime a growing up story.  I actually forgot that Tomo used to hit Junichiro when she was feeling uncomfortable instead of first trying to communicate it in other ways and after that being pointed out, I must say that is the worst part of their relationship, it was even used for laughs, but eventually (in the final episode) seemed to be fixed?