Read on Twitter
watching the first Tomozaki-kun episode and seeing its OP, and this is something that's true of the design of the light novels too, but the way it's very otaku media in that it heavily presents the female cast is... kinda deceptive. Maybe it's silly to arrive at this so late...
but trying to speak vaguely, honestly the guys in Tomozaki-kun are important too, in a way the OP and the colored illustrations in the LN fail to communicate? It takes a while but I like those guys a lot, they're complex and and have things going on, and it's a shame that...
due to the, realities? of how otaku media is marketed, their presence is downplayed. That's too bad, I think.
speaking of which, watching the 1st ep made me think of how much better written Tomozaki-kun is at a fundamental level than a lot of other otaku-oriented, kinda wish fulfillment stuff. Nakamura Shuuji, the dude who loses at Atafami, his presence as this sort of initial...
aggressor is a set up that's terribly common in otaku media. The set up of a "relatable" protgonist and an unreasonable tormentor is one of those classic set ups in nerd media, since so many nerds have sorta persecution complexes...
but even within this first episode you can see glimpses of how Shuuji just is not the scarecrow that usually gets set up for these things. He's whiny and handles losing terribly, he lashes out and tries to downplay his loss in an embarassing way, but ultimately...
when Hinami asks him who won in his match with Tomozaki, he answers truthfully, albeit in a disgruntled way that wants to change the subject, lol.
It's that of thing that I like a lot about Tomozaki-kun. Even someone like Shuuji who is often an obstacle and foil set up...
It's that of thing that I like a lot about Tomozaki-kun. Even someone like Shuuji who is often an obstacle and foil set up...
against Tomozaki through out the early goings of the story, it never makes the mistake of just using him as a device to pump up Tomozaki, or just be an antagonist. Shuuji's got stuff going on, fragile masculinity makes him a pain in the ass, but somewhere in there he's a good kid
