Komi-san wa, Comyushou desu.
Komi Can't Communicate
古見さんは、コミュ症です。
Hitohito Tadano is an ordinary boy who heads into his first day of high school with a clear plan: to avoid trouble and do his best to blend in with others. Unfortunately, he fails right away when he takes the seat beside the school's madonna—Shouko Komi. His peers now recognize him as someone to eliminate for a chance to sit next to the most beautiful girl in class. Gorgeous and graceful with long, dark hair, Komi is universally adored and immensely popular despite her mysterious persona. However, unbeknownst to everyone, she has crippling anxiety and a communication disorder which prevents her from wholeheartedly socializing with her classmates. When left alone in the classroom, a chain of events forces Komi to interact with Tadano through writing on the blackboard, as if in a one-way conversation. Being the first person to realize she cannot communicate properly, Tadano picks up the chalk and begins to write as well. He eventually discovers that Komi's goal is to make one hundred friends during her time in high school. To this end, he decides to lend her a helping hand, thus also becoming her first-ever friend. [Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Hitohito Tadano is an ordinary boy who heads into his first day of high school with a clear plan: to avoid trouble and do his best to blend in with others. Unfortunately, he fails right away when he takes the seat beside the school's madonna—Shouko Komi. His peers now recognize him as someone to eliminate for a chance to sit next to the most beautiful girl in class. Gorgeous and graceful with long, dark hair, Komi is universally adored and immensely popular despite her mysterious persona. However, unbeknownst to everyone, she has crippling anxiety and a communication disorder which prevents her from wholeheartedly socializing with her classmates. When left alone in the classroom, a chain of events forces Komi to interact with Tadano through writing on the blackboard, as if in a one-way conversation. Being the first person to realize she cannot communicate properly, Tadano picks up the chalk and begins to write as well. He eventually discovers that Komi's goal is to make one hundred friends during her time in high school. To this end, he decides to lend her a helping hand, thus also becoming her first-ever friend. [Written by MAL Rewrite]
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SingleH
December 22, 2021
This show has two fundamental problems, and without them, it would be perfect. I read 119 chapters of the manga a few years ago, and I always thought it would be nearly impossible to adapt, because the artwork had a very particular charm to it which I felt would prove too difficult to capture in animation. However, my worries were rendered pointless, because not only is this show nicely animated, but the brilliant directorial decision was made to include the on-screen text gags from the manga, and the chibi faces were adapted with no compromise. In fact, these elements were included so faithfully, it mayactually fault the adaptation as an anime, because most subtitles will be insufficient to translate everything on screen, and the character designs, while very cute, often look weird in motion due to their eccentric dimensions. In my opinion, this anime is the perfect realization of the manga, so by extension, its only problems are problems it also had in manga form. After all, there’s a reason I stopped reading it, even after so many chapters. Komi-san wa, Comyushou desu is the show where the cute standoffish waifu is not only the gimmick, but also the entire storyline, and if this sounds like little more than skin and bones, it is. You know how long-running shounen anime will have tiny bits of romantic tension between the hero and the heroine, but never progresses their relationship for hundreds of episodes because the real focus of the story is action adventure, and the romantic tension is really just there to bait people into drawing doujins and shipping characters? This show is what would happen if you took that annoying background joke used to bait viewers into getting invested in a functionally non-existent relationship and made it the central crux of a narrative. Now look. I’m not made of stone over here. This show is famous for its heartwarming wholesomeness and pure, distilled cuteness, and while I’m not immune to this adorable nature, these are mere cherries on top of a much less appetizing pile of sweets. Problem 1: Not funny. Komi is stunningly beautiful and everyone idolizes her to the point of worship, but she has extreme social anxiety and can’t comfortably speak to anyone. Undeterred, her mission throughout the series is to make one hundred friends, and our protagonist, Tadano, seeks to help her do so. This is all fine and dandy until you realize that in order for the story to actually achieve this goal, it’s going to have to juggle literally one hundred different side characters, so the author seemingly decided the only way to do this in a digestible fashion was to make every new character one-dimensional archetypes. The vast majority of the show is dedicated to setting up these extensive comedy sketches which are never funny and always overstay their welcome, because the characters at their foundation are utterly uninteresting. “You want to be friends? Really?! With me? Why of course I’ll be your dog! Oh! I meant to say friend! Woof, woof! I’ll lick your shoes Komi, just like a friend should! Get it? I look like a shy klutz, but I’m actually a huge masochist! Isn’t that so silly? Well, I hope so, I hope you’re laughing, because this bit is going to last for FIFTY MORE SECONDS!” The show is at its best when it relies on blunt comedy and overplayed absurdity, like when it hard cuts to the yandere girl wearing a demon mask whenever someone interrupts her time with Komi, or like when Komi’s mom jokes about her having a nice chat with her ancestors and the gravestone emotes. That’s comedy. The background gags are oddly funnier than the actual jokes sometimes too. Like, pedestrians on the street will just say ridiculous shit that’s so well timed, and all the starstruck students being sociopathically obsessed with Komi never gets old. There is some down-to-earth jokes, like Agari having no reaction to Komi’s summer uniform because she’s too worried about her flabby triceps showing, but those are few and far between. Problem 2: Repetition. The story about the autistic girl who wants to break out of her shell and make friends has been done more times than I can count, and while this show still comes out feeling genuine with all its little emotions to make everything feel worthwhile, it never truly escapes its initial simplicity or unoriginality. However, neither the simplicity nor the unoriginality is the real issue. The real issue is that those inadequacies are compounded by repetition. This show is so repetitive it hurts. A story I’ve seen a million times? Whatever, that’s fine. A cast of characters I’ve seen a million times? Whatever, that’s fine. Jokes and gags I’ve seen a million times? Whatever, that’s fine. What isn’t fine is repeating the same comedic/dramatic blueprint over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over ad infinitum. I’ve always said what matters is execution, and even the most standard concept can write its way to a masterpiece, but at no point does Komi-san attempt to freshen its formula. Every character arc is the same, every conflict is resolved the same, and even the jokes all hinge on similar punch lines. With that said, though, I think I’ve figured out why this is. Komi-san wa, Comyushou desu was originally a one-shot, not a long-running manga. The material from the one-shot isn’t repeated in the manga, nor is it adapted in the anime, but while the literal context is different, its thematic content is identical to that of the first six chapters (the first episode of the anime). The official manga version cuts it down to its most essential elements and is ultimately much better told, but in both iterations, the story that’s there feels complete. An average boy suddenly has a chance to talk to the most beautiful girl in school, and through her unexpected awkwardness and ineptitude, he learns that everyone has issues no matter their looks and status. It’s a short, touching, satisfying coming-of-age story that feels conclusive. The anime almost seems to acknowledge this finality as well, because while every episode looks fine, episode one is ridiculously over-produced and, at times, has downright movie quality animation with super unique and striking storyboards. It’s like they put the vast majority of their time and effort into episode one, because they knew it’s all that really mattered. And the problem I’m getting at shows its face immediately. In episode two, the character Najimi asks Komi, “Why did you want to be friends with me anyway?” And while the question is brushed off, anyone paying attention should come away with the sneaking suspicion there is no answer to that question. The desire for friends is just a theme. Tadano courted Najimi on her behalf, she has no chemistry with Najimi, her relationship with Najimi is completely one-sided, and this can be said for every friend she makes throughout the series. There is simply no real connection being made with anyone other than Tadano, and it makes the show feel dishonest and superficial when it truly does have the best of intentions. It obviously wasn’t meant to be a long-running story; it was meant to be a one-shot. Needless to say, this problem is exacerbated greatly in the manga which is now over three hundred exhausting chapters long, with no signs of stopping. Thank you for reading.
