Tomo-chan is a Girl! (2015)

Using this entry to review the whole manga. Since I became busier with real life starting in June, I've had less free time to spend how I like. I gained renewed interest in activities I can enjoy in short chunks of 1-2 hours while resting after work and before bed, one of which is reading manga. I'm not a connossieur of manga, it's one of those mediums I've never delved into very deeply because a lot of what's out there is too tropey and formulaic for my liking. Granted, the tropes and familiar formulas are also a big appeal for many who enjoy manga both within and outside of Japan, so I'm the odd man out here.

I have a certain affection for slice of life and coming of age storytelling, which can be wistful in its ability to capture multiple emotions (even conflicting ones) simultaneously when done well. Tomo-chan is a romantic comedy variant of these, and pretty popular from what I understand. The basic premise is that the tomboy girl and the guy are childhood friends who've reached later high school age while maintaining the same dynamic since they were kids. The guy basically treats the girl like she's a male friend, which increasingly bugs her because she's grown attracted to him and wants to be seen as a woman and romantically, not just as a platonic buddy.

There's a somewhat nuanced psychology behind what the guy actually thinks and feels towards her. He comes off as and plays the blockheaded dumbass, but he's more aware than she or others realize. In some ways, the story might've been better if it was a little more serious and focused on him a bit more than her because he's developed a complex due to being more timid and weak than she was when they were children. He basically has a lot to prove to himself as a man and is competing with her in a sense to earn his own self-respect. Even though he's physically stronger than her now and no longer timid, he's weighed down by old memories. Our girl Tomo, on the other hand, is primarily dealing with the fact that she is both genuinely a tomboy personality but also very much feminine in certain ways, but unsure how to reconcile with her femininity in an authentic way.

This all sounds fine for a story, but a curse of most manga that I've noticed is that it's popular for them to be overly drawn out and to develop at a glacial, repetitive pace. That's where the tropes and formula comes in. Tomo goes to friends for advice, gets put into awkward situation with guy friend, he remains oblivious to what she's trying to express or encourage (or sometimes pretends to be oblivious) while she flounders with her emotions, she gets frustrated and they get into a fight, make up, rinse and repeat. This cycle goes on for what felt like an eternity until like the final fifth of the series where we finally get somewhere.

I lost most interest in this one around the halfway mark, but finished the manga out of a feeling of obligation. The art is decent, and the characters and plot would be, too, if this were a more concisely told story. It can't really sustain itself for as long as it does, though, so I'd call it an alright read at best.