Waifu Wednesday: Tomo Aizawa (Tomo-chan is a Girl!)
We all love a good tomboy character, so it isn’t a surprise that Tomo-chan is a Girl! has become one of the big hits of this anime season. This story of a young woman who has fallen in love with her best friend would feel somewhat typical if it weren’t for the fact that Tomo Aizawa is anything but typical. Tall, fiercely strong, and completely lovesick, she is the anime heroine we all need right now.
If you’re not sure what all the fuss is about with this show, allow us to clarify things as we celebrate Tomo Aizawa in our weekly Waifu Wednesday feature.
Who is Tomo Aizawa?
Tomo-chan is a Girl! starts at the point where most romance anime finish. She confesses her love to her best friend and overall hunk, Junichiro, as the two walk home along the canal, surrounded by cherry blossom trees. Unfortunately for Tomo Aizawa, her declaration is greeted with a resounding “I love you too, bro,” which sends Tomo’s anxiety into overdrive.
See, Tomo Aizawa’s father runs a successful karate dojo and has trained his daughter to fight since she was a little girl. Now, she’s strong, confident, and one of the most intimidating students at her high school. While she is totally happy with all these things, she now has the sudden realisation that the object of her affection doesn’t see her as a girl at all. Not that he doesn’t know she’s a girl, but rather that he simply hadn’t considered her as a romantic option. It gets a bit more complicated than that as the series plays out, but it never deviates far from that concept.
Why we love her
What ensues is a long series of comedic missteps by Tomo Aizawa and her classmates to get Junichiro to see her as a girl. What is really fun about the show is that at no point does anyone tell Tomo that she should give up the things she likes or even change her personality to win the boy’s heart. Instead, they try to accentuate the parts of her that are more inherently feminine by, for example, not wearing long shorts under her skirt, or even going to more “classic” date spots when the two hang out.
Tomo still kicks a bully’s ass when he causes her friends trouble. She still participates in and excels at combat sports without any judgement from the rest of the cast. The implication is that she is absolutely worthy of love exactly how she is. Considering how often these shows send the message that you should fundamentally change who you are to catch the eye of the one you love, this is a refreshing exploration of young love. Most of the cast looks at Junichiro like he’s an idiot when he can’t see how great Tomo is without changing a thing. Truly, you can’t improve upon perfection.
Why you’ll love her
Tomo Aizawa is a redheaded tomboy with a fang tooth. It would have been incredibly easy to write her as a one-sided character that only exists as a punchline about masculine and feminine behaviours. Instead, the anime does a great job of portraying her as having both and, more importantly, that both are equally important.
An entire chapter is dedicated to her wanting to be more physically affectionate with her female classmates, something that doesn’t have anything to do with her romantic journey, but something which helps to bring her character to life in a wonderful way. Tomo Aizawa might just be the Winter 2023 anime season’s surprise Best Girl.
If you haven’t had a chance to see Tomo-chan is a Girl! then you can watch the entire series on Crunchyroll.
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