Komi Can't Communicate
Socializing is a complex and intricate art involved with deciphering and responding to what is said, body language, and gestures. While it comes naturally to some, handling each situation can take time and energy. The following title may speak volumes if you can relate to the challenges when dealing with other people.
Komi Can’t Communicate, also known as “Komi-san wa, Communication Shougai desu,” is a 12 episode TV Anime series that aired from the 7th of October until the 23rd of December in Fall 2021.
It was produced by TV Tokyo, Dentsu, Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions, Half H.P Studio, Nippon Columbia, and Shueisha and brought to life by Studio OLM. It features Comedy and Slice of Life genres alongside the School theme.
The main staff behind it included Watanabe Ayumu as Director, Watanabe Jun as Sound Director, Kawagoe Kazuki as Director, and Cider Girl on Theme Song Performance. Aimed at the Shounen demographic, the series received a rating of PG-13 for teenagers 13 years or older.
Komi Can’t Communicate is adapted from the source Manga of the same title. It began publication on the 18th of May 2016 and is still ongoing. Rooted within the Comedy genre and the School theme, it is targeted at the Shounen demographic and is serialized in Shounen Sunday.
This is the work of Author and Artist Oda Tomohito. The series has been published in English via Viz Media since the 19th of June 2019 and in German via Tokyopop since the 1st of July 2020. The Anime’s second season has also been announced for April 2022 (Spring 2022) by Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions, which will feature the additional genre of Drama.
The story focuses on the protagonist Hitohito Tadano, who is a very ordinary boy heading into his first day of High School. He has a clear plan: to avoid any trouble while doing his utmost best to blend in with the crowd. Unfortunately, this plan immediately fails when he takes his seat next to the school's madonna, Shouko Komi.
His classmates now view him as someone to eliminate for a chance to sit next to the most beautiful girl in class. Komi is gorgeous and graceful with her long, dark hair, and it comes as no surprise that she is universally adored and highly popular, despite her mysterious and quiet persona.
But underneath it all, unknown to everyone, she suffers from crippling anxiety and a communication disorder that keeps her from wholeheartedly socializing with others.
As fate would have it, the two are left alone in the classroom, and a chain of events leaves Komi with no choice but to interact with Tadano via writing on the blackboard in a one-way conversation.
Tadano thus becomes the first person to realize that she cannot communicate properly and picks up the chalk to write as well. Soon, he discovers that Komi's goal in High School is to make one hundred friends. Casting all aside, Tadano then decides to help her out and becomes her first-ever friend.
Komi Can’t Communicate is a series with Comedy at its core, but it also features some Romance. This school has its fair share of weirdos, creeps, miscreants, stalkers, psychos, and delinquents, who tend to swarm Komi and complicate things. Komi has extreme social anxiety but is very determined to make friends.
Despite her quiet demeanor, most of the characters are drawn to her due to her popularity, making the premise a bit redundant. She is a pretty passive protagonist, especially after earning her second friend. At this point, her clear goal fails to motivate the plot.
On the other hand, the Narrator becomes overly repetitive, blatantly obvious, and unnecessary.
The romance between her and Tadano progresses ever so slowly but is wholesome and unique. Some of the jokes are extremely cliche, underwhelming, overused, incomplete, and stale.
They often employ a bang or crash sound with each joke’s punchline, but they’re too soft, mismatched, or missing. The most significant flaws would be the overly repetitiveness and jokes that aren't funny most of the time.
This anime can be a decent watch for viewers who can get past these two issues. This anime can be a decent watch.
The Characters are primarily stereotypical and cliche archetypes that don’t offer much to the series, except Tadano and Komi themselves, but their interactions under varying situations are entertaining in their own rights.
The students who fawn over Komi become increasingly annoying and weird, with actions that can even be considered harassment. Some of them even harass Tadano for being too close to Komi.
But after all these odd occurrences, everyone gets over it extremely fast and goes back to being “friends.” The show attempts to make stalking look humorous, which isn’t acceptable today. Some of the side characters come off as annoying, who do a lot of yelling but are bearable.
Najimi identifies as a male or female whenever he pleases and remains gender fluid. Despite looking like a girl, his being a guy is the core of all jokes surrounding him. It gets to the point that even violent assaults are played off as jokes. On the other hand, he is manipulative (tricks people with his gender fluidity), exploitative and even sexualized for fanservice.
The Art and Animation of Komi Can’t Communicate are pretty good. The initial episodes and Opening theme visuals look amazing, but this show lacked visual consistency. The character designs are loyal to the source material, look well defined and beautiful.
The Animation falls short, though, as the body motions are incredibly slight, and they hardly seem to move their lips. It might start looking a bit drab towards the middle and end of the season, but the visual quality and great lighting still come through.
Some well-handled areas are the aspect ratios during flashbacks, the numerous clever transitions, and the analog rewind effect portraying multiple awkward conversation attempts.
The show uses a lot of text boxes on the screen (similar to the Manga’s style), even when it's not about Komi communicating with Tadano via writing, which can be a plus or minus depending on the viewer. Watching a version where all these texts are translated for viewers is recommended.
The Sounds and Music of Komi Can’t Communicate are decent. The Voice acting is quite fitting and well delivered. The sound effects are there when they count.
The Opening theme, "Cinderella" by Cider Girl, is exceptionally well done with great visuals. The ending themes "Sympathy" and "Hikare Inochi" by Kitri are both decent.
Komi Can’t Communicate holds appeal in showing you how Komi struggles to communicate and adds in some excellent humor to enhance it. Most of her situations are extremely relatable: how she dreads awkward social interactions and worries about telling others even mildly embarrassing things.
This show will not educate you about such issues or portray any realism. Komi does become better at communicating, but it isn't much of a driving plot point.
The Anime would have been better if Komi herself became the narrator or the protagonist, as she is full of vivid thoughts. If you empathize with her, you will enjoy the watch more.
So yes, if you're a fan of the genres, theme, premise, and can quickly look past the flaws, this would be an entertaining series for you. Don’t try to look at it too seriously or sincerely; just enjoy it from a surface level and try to adapt to its unique sense of humor if you are watching. If not, best steer clear of this one!
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