Tomo-Chan Is A Girlcontinues apace with its second episode featuring the titular tomboy as she tries to get her childhood best friend to recognize her as girlfriend material rather than a bro. Broken into two segments, this particular episode features some real-world conflict before diving back into the more insular world of high school romance. For better or worse,Tomo-Chan Is A Girlraises tension and skirts in this second installment.
To review, Tomo-chan lives in her family home attached to the karate dojo run by her father, and blames him for all her masculine behavior that seems to be getting in the way of getting her childhood bestie and next door neighbor Jun to notice her as a potential love interest, rather than a bro to wrestle with. Secret is, Jun actually knows, he just doesn’t want to acknowledge.Throw in frenemy Misuzufrom whom Tomo is constantly seeking advice but who seems to view the whole thing as a science experiment, and you know things are going to be interesting. School Karate Club leader, the effeminate Kousuke, balances things out on the gender non-conforming scale and has a secret crush on Tomo.which adds a bit more spice to the conflict.
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Episode 2, “Tomo’s Skirt” begins innocently enough, with Tomo and Jun riding the bus to get to school. Replicating an all-too-often real-world occurrence,Tomo gets gropedby an older man and freezes, unwilling to reveal her vulnerability before her friend and crush Jun. Jun realizes something is amiss, confronts the groper, and turns him in to the police. Tomo is a bit shaken, but relieved that he seems to be at least acknowledging she’s a girl, until Jun tells her she shouldn’t wear such short skirts. Ouch! Victim blaming rears its ugly head. Even Misuzu tells Tomo that she’s essentially asking for it, although Tomo explains that the skirt and shorts she wears allow her maximum freedom of movement. Misuzu helpfullyreassures the vulnerable Tomo that she’s not at fault and confirms her clothing choicesmakes it super weird by focusing her criticism on Tomo wearing shorts under the skirt and convinces her to ditch them completely, leaving Tomo massively uncomfortable and very exposed in her extremely short skirt.
If you happen to have a thing for shots of schoolgirls clutching very short skirts to prevent their panties being exposed, beprepared to get your fillwith shot after shot of Tomo trying unsuccessfully to pull down her skirt to the point where she would be comfortable. If you don’t, you’re really going to feel for Tomo, especially after this comes hot on the heels of her being groped. Tomo is innocently bewildered as to why Jun is acting so odd on their walk home, refusing to look at her, and running into poles, but she has to acknowledge that Misuzu was right, he’s behaving differently. When the inevitable happens and a gust of wind exposed Tomo’s panties, Jun collapses completely and he and Tomo have an actual conversation. Jun apologizes and acknowledges that he can’t and doesn’t want to control what a classmate wears, but that Tomo herself shouldn’t feel uncomfortable in her own clothes. (Nice save Jun.) Tomo remains oblivious to her own sexual oomph, and Misuzu gets to hear second hand about Jun fainting which gets her the laugh she apparently thought mattered more than her friend’s trauma. Taunting Jun about it gets Misuzu a head flick, but Jun and Tomo “reset” to norm.
Idols and Enemies
The second segment of the episode is titled “The School Idol” and concerns a new female character, Carol Olston. Introduced to Tomo by an embarassed Kousuke, who may or may not be engaged to this distant relative of his, Carol is the stereotypical busty and bubble-headed English blonde, idolized by all the boys…except for Kousuke. She might not seem like she has a lot going on in that sweet “cotton-candy” head, but she realizes very quickly that Tomo is her rival there, and runs around callingher “dummy” all day. Carol appeals to Misuzu for help defeating Tomo, showing that indeed she may be a fool herself. Despite declaring herself a friend of Tomo, a bribery of cake sways her and Misuzu sends Carol to Jun before metaphorically sitting back with some popcorn.
Jun is bewildered why Carol needs to defeat someone, and doubtful that she can level up enough to do it, but he’s willing to help her with some strength training. Carol…is not good at strength training. However, she’s able to jump rope well enough to cause Jun to do some neck exercises to avoid looking at her bouncing chest. Misuzu has the pleasure of turning the screws on poor Tomo when shebecomes jealousafter seeing Jun and Carol leave together (for training). Tomo almost breaks Kousuke during practice through her distraction, then confronts Jun and Carol. Jun is shocked to learn that Tomo was Carol’s enemy, but once again Carol shows that she’s at least socially astute and, recognizing where Tomo’s affection is directed, declares her enmity against Tomo over…as well as the strength training. Bye!
True to her word, Carol takes Misuzu to have cake…in a limo; she’s apparently absurdly wealthy. Carol wants to be Misuzu’s friend, as she doesn’t have any friends, but Misuzu points her towards Tomo. Despite the fact that Carol was mean to Tomo, Misuzu is sure she’ll be Carol’s friend as she’s “nice to a fault to anyone who approaches her.” and even calls Misuzu her best friend, despite what Carol openly calls Misuzu’s bad personality. Points to both for self-awareness. Carol has had a hard time making friends in the past, possibly due to jealousy and…personality. Tomo, of course, immediately accepts her offer of friendship, causing her once again to appear in this anime as an angel to a former enemy. Perhaps it will become a repeated visual gag in all such cases, easy to imagine, given what a sweetheart Tomo is to those around her. Misuzu agrees to be her friend because she’s rich, but Carol doesn’t mind. And suddenlywe have a trioof very different female characters that should make the coming episodes very interesting as they, and their affections, bounce off each other.
Oh, and Jun accidently reveals to a shocked Tomo that he dated Misuzu in middle school…WHAT??!! Tune in Wednesdays at 10 AM Pacific time to catch the next episode and see how that shakes out inTomo-Chan Is A Girl!.
