No Matter How I Look At It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!
The manga
- Tomoko has a Tiger & Bunny poster in her room.
- In Chapter 1 she plays Duel Love on the DS.
- In chapter 2 Tomoko name-drops Gantz. Later in that chapter she is wearing a t-shirt that appears to feature Socially Awkward Penguin.
- In chapter 2, when the inside of Tomoki's room is shown, a Wayne Rooney jersey can be seen hanging on the wall. On multiple occasions in later chapters, there is also a poster of Andres Iniesta.
- In the chapter where she first hangs out with Yuu, Tomoko decides to play pop'n music and Quiz Magic Academy.
- The anime she inserts herself into in her fantasies in chapter 9 seems to be Fate/Zero, since she imagines herself as an eighth Master with Souji Okita as her Assassin-class Servant.
- Later on in Chapter 9, she imagines the fat kid and herself as Seiji and Shizuku from Whisper of the Heart.
- Chapter 10 has an anime that looks a lot like Haruhi Suzumiya.
- Also she's holding Pocky between her fingers in a Wolverine fashion.
- In Chapter 13 she is briefly seen playing Soul Hackers and fighting one of the bosses.
- In chapter 15 what appears to be a Persona 4: The Animation poster can be seen in her room.
- Chapter 19, she name-drops Battle Royale. She even references the weapon for one of the major characters (a sickle).
- In Chapter 20 she thinks about joining the Light Music Club even though she can't play any instrument. While considering it, she imagines herself on stage in a bunny suit like Haruhi Suzumiya. But even she realizes how stupid the idea is.
- In Chapter 23, she attempts to go Stealth Moko, complete with shadowy aura. It doesn't work.
- Chapter 25 contains a Kuroko's Basketball reference while Tomoko is playing gym.
- In Chapter 26, the Ao Oni can be seen on Tomoko's computer.
- In Chapter 27, she name drops the S.O.S. Brigade and the Neighbors Club while thinking about starting a club.
- In Chapter 28 Tomoko imagines herself becoming "that white kid" from AKIRA.
- In Chapter 31, Tomoko's goal in life is based upon Jormungand. The chapter also shouts out to Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions!.
- Chapter 32: "Untan! Untan!"
- Chapter 32.5: Tomoko can be seen playing Persona 3 and trying to mimic Mitsuru's hairstyle.
- Chapter 34: Tomoko imagines herself as Misaki Mei.
- In chapter 36 Tomoko reads Norwegian Wood and claims that her switching from reading manga to this is a sign of her maturity. She doesn't understand much of it though.
- In chapter 39 Tomoko manages to guess Nemoto's surname because she remembered that "it was Nemo-something".
- In chapter 43, after deciding to look up dick pics on her phone, Tomoko claims that seeing a real penis so suddenly feels like something out of a Yusuke
Yamada novel. - In chapter 48 the books recommended by Tomoko's and Kotomi's school library are Danganronpa Zero, volume 7.5 of My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, as I Expected and Bakemonogatari. Also, Tomoko and Kotomi mention (expies of) Haruki Murakami and Ango Sakaguchi, as well as stand-ins for Murakami's Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore, 1Q84 and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
- In chapter 50 Kotomi is shown reading the 17th volume of Kino's Journey.
- In chapter 56 Tomoko watches My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. This is also a shout-out to Kitta Izumi who played Tomoko in the anime and also dubs the voice of Rainbow Dash in Japan. Later in that chapter, while playing basketball during her P.E. class Tomoko tries (and fails) to pull off Ignite Pass Kai.
- In chapter 57, Kotomi considers cosplaying as Shimakaze from KanColle.
- In chapter 72 Tomoko, realizing that she'll have to interact with Yoshida, Yuri and Ucchi on the first night of the school trip, quotes Vegeta.
- Tomoko's Imagine Spot later in that chapter, where she imagines herself brain-fried from interacting with the three girls, staring at a flickering star and wondering whether it's a comet, is a reference to Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, specifically to the fate of Kamille Bidan in the last episode of that series.
- In chapter 89 the books picked by Kotomi for the recommended section of the school library are again stand-ins for actual books. Later in that chapter Kotomi blissing out while lying in Tomoki's bed looks a lot like Baki Hanma triggering endorphins in Baki the Grappler.
- In chapter 97 Tomoko mentions that she watches "Attack on Kabaneri".
- In one What If? omake Tomoko is shown reading My Little Monster. She then breaks the fourth wall to comment that her life would be much more fun if the author of that manga were also the author of her story.
- Tomoko imitates the sword techniques from Rurouni Kenshin and Shigurui and sends her umbrella flying into a river.
- In chapter 107 Tomoko mentions that she watches Magical Girl Raising Project.
- In an omake set immediately after chapter 107 Tomoko asks Hina Nemoto what her favourite anime is (to mock her taste in the anime). Hina starts giving an honest answer (she doesn't finish the sentence, but it seems to be Girlish Number), but flip-flops when Okada walks up to them and claims to like Your Name.
- In chapter 109 Tomoko recommends a book from the Kino's Journey series to Yuri and mentions the movie My Tomorrow Your Yesterday. Also, when Yoshida asks her to pick a book for her, Tomoko looks for works of Ai Yazawa.
- In Chapter 119, Nemoto has a phone modeled after the titular characters in Gremlins.
- When Tomoko stumbles upon a porn DVD about a high school older sister in black tights, she immediately gives a pair to Tomoki as his Christmas gift. This is a reference to a Tomoki/Tomoko WataMote H doujin made around that time, which heavily made use of Tomoko in pantyhose.
- In chapter 135 Tomoko is shown watching Persona 5: The Animation and playing Persona 4. She also mentions that she watches Magical Girl Site.
- The manga which Tomoko recommends to Yuri at the end of chapter 136 seems to be Goth.
- In chapter 142 Tomoko compares Kotomi (unfavourably, of course) to Hibiki Akui.
- The same chapter has Tomoko and Kii watch Kemono Friends together.
- Tomoko also brings up Aikatsu! when explaining to Kii why she stopped playing card games with kids.
- In chapter 149 Tomoko wants to help Shizuku prepare for a table tennis match by giving her Ping Pong to read. As she can't find it anywhere, she end up bringing The Ping-Pong Club instead.
- One chapter has Tomoko listen to Hypnosis Mic while studying in the library.
- In chapter 164 Tomoko mentions reading Akagi in an attempt to improve her Mahjong skills.
- Chapter 169 has Tomoko ask if one of the girls in an anime she's watching has smelly armpits. The girl in question is fair haired and But Not Too Foreign; Hina replies that all of those traits (armpits included) are more akin to a gag series than a slice of life.
- In Chapter 196, Yuri's suggestion for their class's film project is supposed to be a riff on Dancer in the Dark; Tomoko's character would slowly try making a band, get into debt, and in the final scene she hangs herself in front of a live audience while the credits roll.
- Chapter 198 has Yuu's school festival do parodies of programs Kodoku no Gurume and Wednesday's Downtown. The obscene eyeless face Tomoko makes when she buries her face in Yuu's breasts is a riff on the shotacon artist Motsuaki's pieces, in which overeager and very horny little boys are often depicted with similar faces when they are having sex with/humping their adult partner. Tomoko also explicitly references Onee/Shota erotic works during this.
- In Chapter 201, Tomoko (through Yuri) asks Hina to start studying for her school festival role by playing through the Taimanin eroge series.
- When production is just about to wrap up on the school festival short film, Tomoko cracks that the lewd scene she made Hina do would get a "standing masturbation" from all the guys in the audience, calling it a "Bokki the Rock" (Erection the Rock). It's a title parody of Bocchi the Rock!, whose anime adaptation was airing around the time of that chapter.
- In Chapter 212, Buffalo '66 is discussed.
- When Sex and the City is brought up, Tomoko inwardly remarks that it's a movie that the types of girls who hate or fall asleep during The Dark Knight Rises really enjoy.
- One comic has Tomoko learn that her favorite manga got cancelled because the author got arrested. From the fact that she was reading a magazine imitating Weekly Shonen Jump, it's implied that the manga in question was Actage since its creator was arrested for alleged sexual assault against minors around the time of that chapter's release.
- Tomoko has a pillow frequently shown throughout the series that has Churuya-san's "Nyoro~n :3" face on it. The same pillow also appears in Akari's room in YuruYuri.
- In the first episode of the anime, when Tomoko enters her brother's room, he's reading a volume of Arachnid. Ironically, it is volume 8 instead of volume 7 which featured Geji, an expy of Tomoko.
- Also instead of Wii U, her brother has a PS3 and Pro Evolution Soccer/Winning Eleven. Episode 5 reveals that it's renamed "Winners Eleven".
- One T-shirt of hers has "Spark" written in the Star Wars font.
- The scene where Tomoko searches the Internet for the information on how to make herself prettier parodies Light Yagami's killing spree from the first episode of the Death Note anime (and she begins her search at Gaagle).
- When Tomoko goes to Book On (a parody of Book Off), the manga she picks out is Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku, which also happens to be published in [GanGan] Online and got an anime adaptation in the same season as Wata Mote.
- Tomoko visits WcDonalds and SterTully Coffee during the series.
- WcDonalds may qualify as a twofer, as Lucky Star used a similar Bland-Name Product
- Among the terrible fates Tomoko wishes on her classmates are being attacked by the midget aliens from Gantz and Shimada from Parasyte.
- One of the games Tomoko plays at the beginning of the episode appears to be Kiniro No Corda, looking at that Yunoki CG.
- The start of episode 2 has Tomoko listening to a parody of Yandere Heaven called Yandere Boys' Verbal Abuse. The cover of the CD also imitates the cover of the first volume.
- In episode 3, many of Tomoko's fantasies take place in the world of Animal Crossing.
- When delving into one of her erotic fantasies in episode two, Tomoko finds herself curled and severely wounded inside a crater much like Yamcha's death in one of the early episodes of Dragon Ball Z. The pose is back for episode 5.
- Tomoko has volumes of Akame ga Kill! and Barakamon in her room during episode 2. Later on a copy of Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun pops up.note
- She also has a Diabolik Lovers poster in her room.
- The cover for Tomoko's Yandere Boys CD looks an awful lot like the cover for the first Yandere Heaven CD.
- Tomoko and Yuu are playing a light gun game reminiscent of House of the Dead at the arcade. The answer to the question posed to the other arcade game Tomoko is playing is most likely "Seicross".
- During gym class, Tomoko imagines herself as a Motoko Kusanagi Expy, a la Ghost in the Shell.
- In one of her signature bad moods, Tomoko thinks to herself that she'll play a game on her 3DS and chop down other peoples' peach trees.
- The BL game Tomoko buys in episode 5 is based upon Hadaka Shitsuji, a visual novel in which the "true" endings are achieved through being absolutely cruel to your butlers — often by raping them.
- Tomoko is reading Servant × Service — which just happens to be another Square Enix manga that got an anime adaptation the same season as Wata Mote.
- The closing credits for that episode parody the long-running children's series Manga Nihon Mukashi Banashi.
- Also, before the opening credits of this episode, Tomoko is watching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Apparently the Emotionless Girl just revealed to one character that she is an alien.
- The way Tomoko keeps 3 Pocky between her fingers is reminiscent of Wolverine's claws.
- In one Imagine Spot she sees herself as one of the ESPer children from AKIRA.
- In episode 6, the cover of the game she's playing at the beginning (Planetary Prince Gachi Love 8108%) resembles Uta No Prince Sama (whose first season anime adaptation is called Uta no Prince-sama Maji Love 1000%).
- She's later seen reading a book called The Oranges Of Wrath.
- Tomoko follows the motions for Misato's Beergasm from Evangelion when she happily downs a can of soda.
- In episode 7, Tomoko visits Hera Hera Douga, MyTube, and Yahuq!, and buys a webcam off Konozama.
- Among the anime she watches are Kiki's Delivery Service, Case Closed, and Kiteretsu Daihyakka.
- She's also seen playing Devil Summoner.
- Episode 8's card game is Magic: The Gathering. Tomoko's first draw is a Crypt Ghast; her finisher , which she produces from her sleeve, is "Sudden" Vengeance.
- In Episode 9, when Yuu-chan calls her, the logo on Tomoko's phone is eerily similar to SEELE's logo...
- There's even a big "SOUND ONLY" on the screen.
- "Un-tan! Un-tan!"
- Episode 10: Tomoko mentions how before joining school she dreamt of meeting Kazehaya-kun. In her delusion about the Everyday Club, the girl looks like a brown-haired Rikka, and the club distribution looks very similar to the one of the SOS Brigade.
- Episode 11: Tomoko imagines what it would be like if she joined the light music club. In the first Imagine Spot, she's a Playboy Bunny Haruhi accompanied by what sounds like "God Knows" (the song Haruhi performs for the school festival in the anime adaptation) and in the second a mixture of Azusa's appearance and Yui's musical ability (or lack thereof). In addition, the anime that Yuu and Tomoko are discussing is most likely Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
- In episode 12, after Tomoko secretly records her classmates, she finds out they're not talking about her at all. She then wonders if her classmates deliberately ignore her, and imagines herself as Mei Misaki from Another. Coincidentally, it doubles as an Actor Allusion in the dub.
- Three of her female classmates in PE are doing the "Hare Hare Yukai" dance.
- The cockroach sequence references TerraforMARS, in which humans battle mutated roaches.
- Meanwhile, the "God Knows" sound-alike from episode 11 is playing.
- During Tomoko's Imagine Spot where she pictures herself visiting a Purikura with two friends, the three of them perform the military salute from Attack on Titan.
- Immediately after, the scene wherein Tomoko's high school life note flashes before her eyes accompanied by a distorted overlay and disconcerting train sounds is an homage to a similar scene from The End of Evangelion.
- The OVA episode begins with a parody of the SEELE logo from Neon Genesis Evangelion. It then inverts Gainax Ending by having an Evangelion-esque Breaking the Fourth Wall Mind Screw as the Cold Open.
No Matter How I Look At It, It's You Guys' Fault That My Friend's Not Popular!
- Chapter 1: Tomoko tries to convince Yuu that her nickname is Kuroneko.
- In chapter 14 Kotomi is shown reading ZOO, Yuu reads Wakatta-san no purin and Tomoko reads Barefoot Gen while waiting out the rain in the library.
- The 2020 Christmas special has Tomoko and friends happen upon the wildly popular Kitsume no Onago, but Tomoko admits she doesn't keep up with it anymore now that it's so big. The title itself is a reference to a very famous porn parody of Demon Slayer, Kitsume no Omeko.
