Ill be trying to make this as spoilerfree as possible. When I first went into BottomTier Character I was expecting it to be a fairly average sliceoflife novel. Im happy to say I could not be further off the mark. What Yaku Yaki has created here is not a just an aboveaverage novel that makes you go Oh this is kinda good but rather one that sticks with you for a LONG time. Within four volumes BottomTier 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 couldve 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 storytelling and character development. Tomozaki the main character is an antisocial 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 hes supposed to he cant 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 hes not an overthetop 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. Im 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 toptier character who shined brightly and Fuuka Kikuchi a person he saw as mystical and fairylike almost dropping into trances while talking to her. Hell it goes even further the characters have so many different colors because thats 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 Aois 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 doesnt 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 sliceoflife series. Her character arc is heartbreaking and painful yet extremely satisfying and memorable. At first you think shes a pretty cool character the everoptimistic class clown but as the story progresses more and more of her personality is revealed and you just cant 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 shes 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 Im damn near ready to cry while typing this paragraph right now. A big part of Bottom Tier Characters 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 thats because I feel one of the greatest things a series can do is make its characters believable downtoearth 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 couldnt 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 highschoolers behave. Its very shrewd and onthenose in rubbing that aspect in your face too the story acknowledges that while theyre all extremely complex characters in the end theyre highschoolers and they dont need an extremely deep or well thought out reason to do something or feel a certain way most of these relationships wont last through college much less adulthood. The romance part of the series conveys this as well theyre highschoolers so you wont really find anything like true love or all that jazz here. Its 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 Im going to remember this series throughout my life.. However after having read seven volumes I can confidently say that Tomozakikun is indeed a novel good enough for me to claim that. This really is a oneofakind series and not something youll find just about anywhere. The characters have already become irreplacable to me every single one of them and I wouldnt 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 cant be bothered to read all that then TLDR BottomTier Character is peak fiction kino hallmark of creativity apex of the medium. Go read it. 10/10