JAKU-CHARA TOMOZAKI-KUN
STATUS
RELEASING
VOLUMES
Not Available
RELEASE
Invalid Date
CHAPTERS
Not Available
DESCRIPTION
Tomozaki is one of the best gamers in Japan, and in his opinion, the game of real life is one of the worst. No clear-cut rules for success, horribly balanced, and nothing makes sense. But then he meets a gamer who's just as good as him, and she offers to teach him a few exploits...
(Source: Yen Press)
CAST
Aoi Hinami
Fumiya Tomozaki
Minami Nanami
Fuuka Kikuchi
Yuuzu Izumi
Hanabi Natsubayashi
Takahiro Mizusawa
Tsugumi Narita
Shuuji Nakamura
Erika Konno
Takei
Tomozaki no Imouto
Mika Akiyama
Mao Kamimae
Sakura Kashiwazaki
Kawamura
Haruka Hinami
Kyouya Hashiguchi
Daichi Matsumoto
CHAPTERS
RELATED TO JAKU-CHARA TOMOZAKI-KUN
REVIEWS
slabdrill
Highschool class politics are like an RPGContinue on AniListThis review was written after reading volume 6, which is the last english-translated volume released when it was written. (I had also watched the anime before reading this light novel.)
(This review contains light spoilers for things up to the point the anime ends at.)Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun is a story about a class in highschool, and in it the various mechanisms that run class politics are analyzed like it's a video game. Although not entirely realistic, I think some of the things from this viewpoint could've been nice if I had read this when I was in highschool (where I was the ugly loner no one liked) - most of the class politics side of things actually does seem very legit.
The overall structure of the story involves the protaganist (the bottom-tier character, Fumiya Tomozaki) learning how to play the game of life (highschool class politics) by getting coached by an expert (the top-tier character, Aoi Hinami). Through various assignments, Tomozaki learns how to better converse and manipulate people into achieving his goals.
The main thing I like is how this story is not made to be a romcom. The main focus of the story is the class politics rather than romance, and the issues that show up are issues that are reasonable and I think make a lot of sense given how the characters are. They're also not one-dimensional; always a big plus.
Onto the main part of the review:
Fumiya Tomozaki is the protaganist. He's tasked with the goal of getting a girlfriend, and although there's an obvious girlfriend candidate he just can't quite pull it off. He looks down on himself excessively like in true protaganist fashion, which is the main thing that makes me cringe about him. He's also very good at Super Smash Bros, and prefers to redefine the meta rather than to refine current strategies (as Hinami prefers).
Aoi Hinami is a Mary Sue character, but she actually just puts up a really strong mask which only loosens when near her fellow pro gamer Tomozaki (though Tomozaki beats her in Smash). She treats the world like a game, and so struggles when people have something that they want rather than just maximum efficiency - and she doesn't let her own wants get in the way of what she does (until she does). I don't think she's very popular of a character, as most people don't like people who are extremely manipulative as she is.Her training involves getting Tomozaki to treat the world like a game and so adopt her views, which causes a clash when he can't. After this point, while Tomozaki still gets coached, he begins a lot more independant action rather than simply doing something due to being told to do so; in essence, larger quests rather than small immediate tasks, which lets a lot of Tomozaki's real personality out rather than just mimicking Hinami's. I think it's when Tomozaki isn't just failing horribly at reaching some quota that the story shines, anyway.
Along the way, we also get to learn about a bunch of the other classmates that stand out. The most significant are:
Yuzu Izumi is someone who had always gone with the flow, but gets inspired by Tomozaki to gain a bit of her own will instead of going along with others. She's a good vanilla friend.
Minami Nanami is the class clown. She's also someone who does really well at almost everything, but just can't beat Hinami at anything, which is something she gets mad about... but she still can't do it, because Hinami wants to be the winner more than anyone else. She's the most popular character for some reason; while her arc was good, I don't think I could stand her usual clown activities if she was actually around. (I'm sticking with team Gumi.)
Fuuka Kikuchi is a quiet person who blatently loves Tomozaki. Whenever she's around, the descriptions (specifically of her) get a lot more verbose, which I think is nice because it makes it easier to imagine how things are. She originally lives life like it's a boring task and so reads books to get absorbed in their worlds, but gets inspired to change by the way Tomozaki changes from thinking in much the same way (although with games) to living a "normal" highschool life. I really like her; someone who spends their time always reading their books reminds me of my highschool life, and I like the style of the advice they tend to give.
Hanabi Natsubayashi (Tama for short) is someone who cares about their own opinion a bit too much, to the point that most people don't really like her. Since Tomozaki is exactly the same way and yet is actually accepted in the class, she gets some advice. Once she gains some charm and learns that everyone can be likable if you just learn their backstory first, she becomes a lot more openly approachable and joins the popular crowd without really having changed at all. Minami is her best friend (comedy partner). I like her too; she's small, and a bit of distance is fine.And the more minor ones that I still feel like pointing out:
Takahiro Mizusawa is a guy who, like Hinami, puts on an act in their daily life. However, his act is nowhere near as strong as Hinami's is, as he probably doesn't actually distance himself from his... self. Overall very supportative of Tomozaki and his antics, and tries to teach him how to pick up girls (but Tomozaki's too much of a wimp to try). I find him hilarous.
Shuuji Nakamura is the leader guy in the class, and mutually likes Izumi. He's a background character in terms of the actual plot, though.
Erika Konno is the class queen. She can't stand showing weakness or getting looked down on, so she spends great effort on maintaining her position.
Tsugumi Narita is Tomozaki's coworker who attends a different school. She's absurdly apathetic about life and always puts the least possible effort into everything, but she's still my favorite character because I like how shameless she is about it, and of all the life advice in this story, I like hers the most since I think it's the one most easily applicable when dealing with people who are only doing something due to it being mandatory (which is common in my life).
Overall, the cast is mostly likable, but the story does induce a decent amount of cringe (though I think the LN is better than the anime in this regard). As with any good drama, cringe at the beginning is necessary to leave room for characters to grow; but in this story's case, I find a lot of the value comes from the way it teaches a bit of the basics of conversation skills and the dynamics of large groups, which is something that's always handy for a loner.
Also, the afterwords analyze the color illustrations, which I think is sweet because they're not really details you notice unless you spend too much time analyzing them. It gives a good sense as to what the author's like, which I think is the most important thing to do in an afterword. I don't find the illustrations particularly cute, though; it's just nice seeing how the illustrations match the character's personalities.
(I made this way too long...)
Durabele
One of the best stories in its genreContinue on AniListI'll be trying to make this as spoiler-free as possible.
When I first went into Bottom-Tier Character, I was expecting it to be a fairly average slice-of-life novel. I'm happy to say I could not be further off the mark. What Yaku Yaki has created here is not a just an above-average novel that makes you go "Oh, this is kinda good", but rather one that sticks with you for a LONG time. Within four volumes, Bottom-Tier Character jumped from a 7/10 to a 9.5 for me. By volume seven, which was easily its most important volume so far that could've easily made or breaked the entire thing for me, I was ready to give it a 10.
One of the best parts about Tomozaki is how well its first person narration complements its story-telling and character development. Tomozaki, the main character, is an anti-social loser wanting to change himself and try his hand at the 'game of life'. Naturally, he has 0 experience with any form of social interaction in general, and that part of him is brought out in a much deeper way using first person narration. More importantly, the story manages to take advantage of this viewpoint really well. In the beginning volumes, Tomozaki comes off extremely socially awkward like he's supposed to - he can't form replies to sentences easily, he has difficulty starting and taking control of conversations, picking up nonverbal cues, and a bad habit of awkwardly gaping at girls doing their things - all of this paints Tomozaki as an extremely flawed and human character - he's not an over-the-top reclusive hermit, or the typical edgy main character who thinks all social interaction is a waste of time and theres no meaning to staying alive; he just believes that life is a shitty game, and that its not worth giving a shit because he was just born this way - untalented, worthless and a bottom tier character.
I'm sure a lot could relate to this line of thinking, like I once did. This basis for his character right here was the first hook for me when reading this novel.Furthermore, the way he percieves not only life and himself, but others around him is perfectly illustrated with a very wide range of adjectives; he percieves Aoi, his mentor, as the perfect and infalliable heroine, but at the same time, a fellow hardcore gamer who he sees as his rival in video games. Minami Nanami, the class clown, who he always saw as a top-tier character who shined brightly, and Fuuka Kikuchi, a person he saw as mystical and 'fairy-like', almost dropping into trances while talking to her. Hell, it goes even further - the characters have so many different colors because that's how Tomozaki percieves them - Minami is canonically supposed to be black haired, but Tomozaki percieves her as blue. All of this becomes even more satisfying when he starts learning more about them, beyond his narrow conceptions; Aoi's entire personality is a mask upon layers of masks. Minami wants to shine, and feels she is overshadowed by Hinami. Fuuka looks up to Tomozaki, and wants to break out of her shell as a quiet girl. This does two things, firstly, humanize all of these characters, and second, drives home the point that Tomozaki is a human who can make mistakes - his narration is not 100% reliable all of the time. He simply sees the world around him according to his own beliefs and notions - its not the truth, and the world doesn't revolve around his ideology.
Other than Tomozaki, Minami Nanami has to be one of the, or the best written character I have ever seen in a slice-of-life series. Her character arc is heartbreaking and painful, yet extremely satisfying and memorable. At first, you think she's a pretty cool character, the ever-optimistic class clown, but as the story progresses, more and more of her personality is revealed, and you just can't help but get attached to this girl, which makes her "ending" all the more painful and sad - but in a good way. I rarely ever obsess this much over a fictional girl, but she's simply built different. Near the end of volume 7, I felt my heart drop and sting even though I knew what was coming when her arc was concluding - and I'm damn near ready to cry while typing this paragraph right now.
A big part of Bottom Tier Character's strength is how realistic and shrewd it is. All of these characters are colorful and illustrative, but they never go beyond the realm of believability - I say this a lot, and that's because I feel one of the greatest things a series can do is make its characters believable, down-to-earth and human, while simultaneously bringing out their personality and quirks. This novel achieves that perfectly. None of these characters fit into a classic "-dere" type, and neither of them is a person you couldn't find in real life, except MAYBE Hinami. I can actually relate to many things while reading the novel - it feels like the author grew through highschool himself, instead of coming off as an alien who has no idea how high-schoolers behave. Its very shrewd and on-the-nose in rubbing that aspect in your face too - the story acknowledges that while they're all extremely complex characters, in the end, they're highschoolers, and they don't need an extremely deep or well thought out reason to do something or feel a certain way; most of these relationships won't last through college, much less adulthood. The romance part of the series conveys this as well; they're highschoolers, so you won't really find anything like 'true love' or all that jazz here.
It's very rare for me to give a novel a 10/10 rating, and only three other series have recieved it before - to me, a 10/10 is saying like "I'm going to remember this series throughout my life.". However, after having read seven volumes, I can confidently say that Tomozaki-kun is indeed a novel good enough for me to claim that. This really is a one-of-a-kind series, and not something you'll find just about anywhere. The characters have already become irreplacable to me - every single one of them, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading this terrible review, and hopefully I could illustrate what you thought of the series/convince you to read it. If you can't be bothered to read all that, then TL;DR, Bottom-Tier Character is peak fiction, kino, hallmark of creativity, apex of the medium. Go read it.
10/10
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