Komi-san Can’t Communicate (Komi-san wa, Komyushō Desu)
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Comedy, Romance
Studio: OLM
Hello my friends.
Welcome to another entry of my blog.
Right now. I have very good news, and that is I finally recovered from my headache, and now I am back to do a little bit of entry. To be honest, this is an anime that I wanted to do from the beginning, since the moment I saw the key visual and the premise, my interest was full on.
I know that the title says it all, but I will repeat. Behold.
But before I continue, I must continue with the typical question:
Are you guys ok? Feeling healthy?
If the answer is yes, then I am happy.
Now, time to solve the biggest question in the history of humankind…
Has Komi-san or not communism?
According to Google Translate, the original title of the series, Komi-san wa, Komyushō Desu., is translated as Mr. Furumi has communism. Check these stills.
Anyway, let’s go with the anime and the sweet story of Komi-san and Tadano-kun.
PREMISE
Shouko Komi, or Komi-san, is the personification of elegance, she has an impressive beauty, grand posse, unprecedented charm and wonderful aura, which is why, on her first day on the Itan Private High School, she becomes the indisputable queen of the school. Her cool, aloof and calm attitude earns her more points in terms of popularity, but there is a secret beneath her personality.
Komi-san has extreme social anxiety, and cannot truly communicate with any of her classmates.
The only one who notices the truth is the student that sits next to her, Hitohito Tadano, or Tadano-kun, a pretty average student.
They both become friends, and Tadano-kun promises Komi-san to help her made one hundred friends on the school. But what Tadano-kun ignores is that Itan Private High School has the craziest, most unique students of all the city.
Komi-san wa, Komyushō Desu. is written by Tomohito Oda, famous for making another series, called Digicon. Oda has published Komi-san since May, 2016, and has been comprising 23 volumes. One funny fact is that the studio animation, OLM, is the same one that animates…
Also, when I first noticed the whole of Tadano-kun, I thought that the creator of Komi-san was none other than Gosho Aoyama, the genius behind Detective Conan and Magic Kaito.
I am dead serious. Just look at his design, along with the one of Conan Edogawa
Ok. They are not precisely similar, but you might see a bit of influence from Aoyama-sensei on the design of some of the characters of Komi-san, aside from Tadano-kun.
As of November 8, there is no confirmation of how many episodes Komi-san will have, but I honestly, honestly, hope we got 25 or 26 episodes, because I am reading the manga, and the story deserves it. You can check Myanimelist.com to confirm this last fact. Finally, while «hikareinochi», the ending theme, is beautiful, I think the opening, «Cinderella», performed by Cider Girl, is simply of the best songs of the spring of 2021.
Here is a link to the TV version:
And for the full song.
STORY
I want to start saying that Komi-san is definitely a character I can relate to entirely. For one reason, one I think I already mentioned on my previous entries.
I suffered from anxiety, and I still do. Seriously, sometimes on social situations I get very nervous, especially because of my attitude and the body language I will display, and the single thought of that is enough to make my skin crawl, especially in front of… women. And that anxiety, the same one that interferes in your daily life, it does not allow you to enjoy the present, and it fills like a rope all over your body like a python, slowly choking you and taking control of your mind.
Subconsciously telling you to leave, when you really want to stay, but don’t feel in control.
But now, I realised that what Komi-san is suffering is much complicated. Yet, I understand her sadness and loneliness. And I know I am not the only one. And that makes her one of the most relatable characters of the season.
Now, I will be focusing only in the first two episodes, which are the ones I watched so far. And I will try to be as brief as possible.
On the very first moments, we have a good introduction of both Komi-san and Tadano-kun, the episode takes its time, but without going too slow, to introduce both, their reason to go to Itai (having a normal school life for Tadano-kun, and to make friends and socialise for Komi-san); their encounter at class, and how the rest of the students are jealous of Tadano-kun for sitting next to Komi-san.
And while some students are really hilarious…
Tadano-kun is knocked by the students at lunch time. And when he wakes up, he hears Komi-san wishing to communicate. He talks to her, but since Komi-san cannot respond, Tadano-kun suggests her to use the chalkboard, creating one of the most heartwarming scenes in anime of 2021.
Honestly, calling that scene beautiful is an understatement.
Episode one finishes with the promise of Tadano-kun helping Komi-san to make 100 friends.
And episode two, we meet our world childhood friend, Osana Najimi,
From now on, we see our beloved Komi-san trying to overcome her communication problems, facing many daily-life situations .
As a whole, I would say that the first two episodes gave me a very amazing first impression, and they perfectly adapt both the manga and the one-shot, aside from the changes of the latter. And both the rhythm and the pacing are really natural; despite both episodes only have thirty minutes, they narrate their respective stories on a fluid way, from our first encounters with both Komi-san and Tadano-kun, to the moment Komi-san walks along with Najimi.
And we got really hilarious moments of Komi-san, whose anxiety creates very funny moments of misunderstanding and sweet images, like this.
Also, the animation from OLM is better than expected. I would say that it perfectly adapts the style of Tomohito Oda, which I will classify as unique.
And Komi-san, Tadano-kun and Najimi are beautiful together as a trio…
Overall, the story of Komi-san had a powerful start. And now, what about the…
CHARACTERS
From what I saw on the trailer and the first episodes, I can see that we are going to have a lot of colourful characters from Komi-san, after all, I repeat the word that I used for describing them – Unique. However, there is really not too much to say about the rest up to this point.
But, I want to talk about two characters in particular. The first one being Najimi.
Najimi is literally «everyone’s childhood friend», because Najimi had to move from one city to another due to Najimi’s dad’s work, which is why Najimi became friends with practically everyone on the city, also Najimi is quite the opposite from Komi-san, because Najimi is quite an expert in talking to the people, befriending everyone, and Najimi has a really open personality – naughty, supportive, sincere, outspoken, everything you wanna know about Najimi.
Now, you might be wondering. Jaime… Why do you repeat Najimi a lot? Couldn’t be easier if you use pronouns?
Well. That’s the issue, because I do not know Najimi’s gender. And in the manga, sometimes Najimi addresses as a girl, and others as a boy. And that’s the intention of the author. At the beginning I thought Najimi was a trap, but now, this makes this character so much interesting.
Probably a great example of how to write a genderqueer character. I will not use LGBT in these situation, because I don’t know what Najimi’s heart desire, and Tadano-kun calls Najimi pathological dishonest.
Which reminds… Netflix on the Latin American version did something to Najimi very… questionable. But I will talk about this in part 2.
The other character I will talk about, really earned my hatred.
Ren Yamai. The leader of the cool girls, who is a lesbian and has a destructive obsession with Komi-san.
In other words, a mean popular girl who will do anything to get Komi-san for herself, even crime. Trust me. But from the moment I saw this image, I knew she was an awful character, and… It gets worse, especially from episode four.
SPOILERS – EHS SEPPANDIK ROOP TADANO-KUN.
Look, from Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina, I still hate Saya’s obsession with Elaina.
But what Yamai feels and does is so despicable, so toxic, it makes root for a yuri between Saya and Elaina.
Anyone. That is all for now.
CONCLUSION
Komi-san wa, Komyushō Desu. is one of best anime of spring 2021, along with 86: Eighty-six Part II, and despite being available on Netflix, I am happy to find out more. And if you are a fan of the manga, you will definitely enjoy the anime a lot more.
Trust me, it is really awesome.
And now, there is a pending issue.
Has Komi-san communism?
The answer is… I don’t know. She does not tell me.
What she has is a lot fo beautiful pictures.
Anyway… stay tuned for Part II.
Jainituos Presents 