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BOTTOM_TIER
March 26, 2021
The anime "Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki" no doubt caught
my attention for it's snazzy title: it's an interesting
work, despite the fact that it's yet-another high-school
comedy-drama anime.
Our hero is a basic nerdy high-school
loser who's one talent-- unbenknowst to
his fellow students-- is a flair for a
game called "TacFam", at which he's He's dismissive of reality
ranked the best in the country. He as a badly designed game.
agrees to an in-person meeting his main
competitior, the second-ranked player, An element most of us
and is suprised to meet a girl he have seen before:
recognizes from his school, a girl who is
not-at-all nerdy, in fact, she's one of KUSHI_DANKO
the popular kids, a high-school "winner".
She's annoyed at his slovenly appearance, and
accuses him of not taking "life" seriously as These assignments seem
a game, and volunteers to secretly tutor him-- plausible, and quite likely
she begins giving him assignments, small goals effective.
he needs to accomplish to develop a facility
for dealing with real human beings. They're things like "talk to
a random person today and say
An interesting direction eventually emerges-- three things to them".
does our self-professed expert in life
*really* understand the game? His first is to spend a
day wearing a cold mask
She's invariably insincere and manipulative and go around forcing
and she expects him to learn to be the himself to smile to
same-- but there are some moves he balks "train his facial muscles".
at-- much to her annoyance-- typically
because they don't seem "sincere". A more typical high
school winner would
The way *I* would phrase the problem (this isn't be a "natural", and
said anywhere in the story) is that taking life unable to even think
seriously as a game requires you know the goal of of these exercises.
the game, and there's room for debate about that:
this young woman is very strong tactically, but
it's not clear she can win anything that's worth In effect, she's allowing
anything-- convention to dictate her
idea of success, because
And actually, her conviction is that there her actual meta-goal is to
*is* nothing worth playing for, determining *win games*-- being
"what you really want" is an impossibility, competitive isn't an
and people who claim they have are just unfortunate necessity for
seizing on a momentary impulse and letting her, it's what she's about.
themselves be trapped by it. Whatever other people want
for themselves is what
she's going to strive for.
There are some interesting bits where our
hero is trying to return to his "true And that is all-too-plausible,
nature", but finds that just knowing what I think-- she's not the only
that is is not so simple. There are other-directed player out
simple things like straightening up your there, is she? She's just
hair that from one point of view may seem more self-aware about it.
trivial, but from another point of view
might be part of your core personality,
something you need to do to feel like
yourself-- once you've at least
experimented with doing it.
Some of the exercises he indulged In the closing dialog, I think
in are on their way to being the main character has been
incorporated into his identity. side-tracked from what should be
So what's "sincerity" exactly? the core point-- he's taking on
the task of proving to her it's
Do you know what you're "really *possible* to know "what you
like" if you haven't tried to be really want", and that means
something else? he's let himself be put on the
defensive when I think he
should've gone on the attack.
Play the life game seriously,
if you like, but what is the
goal of the game?
And I'd say if you find yourself
engaged with philosophical debate Why choose competing with fools
with the characters of a high as your guiding principle?
school drama anime, I think that's
a sign you've encountered one
that's clearly not bottom-tier.
And by the way:
SPOILERS (but not really)
The male and female leads don't suddenly
decide they're in love with each other.
FIRST_GIRL
This isn't one you can accuse of
wallowing in cliched tropes...
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