[Guardian Enzo]

A commenter on my blog mentioned that in the manga,

Spoiler for Original "Spice of Life" scene:

Tomoko actually floats the idea of suicide in the "spice of life" scene. I can understand why Shin didn't include that, both for the obvious reason and that the scene is almost beautiful in its sadness even without it and it might have been too much. But it does suggest the depth of the problem.

It occurs to me that the people Tomoko seems most comfortable around are young boys. Tomoki before puberty (she was too, of course), the love hotel boys, the boys playing "Magic" at the candy store. Maybe Tomoko is kind of a little boy herself - she's a bit of a tomboy, anyway. She collected bugs, she played trading card games... Maybe part of the problem is that before she became a teenager it was acceptable for her to be a tomboy and do boyish things, but once she hit her teens that became socially unacceptable, and she became uncomfortable in her own skin.