Manga Review: "Komi-san Wa Komyushou Desu / (Komi Can't Communicate)" (pt. 1)

Manga: "Komi-san wa Komyushou Desu / (Komi Can't Communicate)"
Mangaka: Tomohito Oda
Publisher: Shogakukan
LB Rating: 3/5

(Note: This review covers chapters 1 to 305.)

Komi-san wa Komyushou Desu follows the story of Shouko Komi and her quest to make 100 friends in high school. Komi is popular in Itan Private High School for being beautiful. She has big eyes, long flowing hair, long legs, and spotless skin. She's also a straight A student, with decent athleticism. So what's keeping her from making 100 friends? For one, she has a communication disorder - She finds it extremely difficult to speak. Worse, the students of Itan Private High School have zany and eccentric characters on their own. But, with the help of Hitohito Tadano, her first friend from her class, she believes she can really make 100 friends.

It's surprising how a simple limitation -- the MC can't speak -- can be so interesting. (Image source: komisan.fandom.com)

KKD is an exploration of how different kinds of personalities interact. Tomohito Oda makes this possible by creating a lot of characters who are assigned a specific quirk and communication problem. There's Osana Najimi, whose quirk is that they are friends with literally everybody. Yamai Ren is a crazy-eyed stalker of Komi. When Shibuki Ase is nervous, she sweats buckets. Makoto Katai appears like a delinquent, but is actually a gentle guy. Naruse Shisuto is a narcissistic ass. There are many more characters - in my rough estimate, the manga had introduced more than a hundred characters by chapter 305.

The charm of the manga is the pleasant comedy arising from the interaction of these characters. Like a true slice of life manga, each chapter is normally episodic. It is usually spearheaded by Najimi's suggested activity, be it a recess game, or going on a trip, or studying for exams. It seems to me that Oda would pick a handful of his characters, and place them in the situation Najimi cooked up, and let them interact. I had fun seeing certain chemistries form, like how Ase and Naruse grew to complement each other. 

Here's a snap of some of the characters who are known so far. Since this chapter, plenty more characters were introduced. (Image source: knowyourmeme.com)

There isn't much depth in the story. In keeping everything a light-hearted experience, the chapters usually span for an average of 10 pages. Also, the character designs are playful and cartoon-y. However, they are surprisingly adequately detailed. Oda managed to make the characters distinct from each other, though the one-dimensional personalities probably helped. I am quite fond of how Oda allows his characters to display funny facial expressions reminiscent of Gintama, One Piece and one of my personal favorites, Grand Blue. Oda also uses the speech bubbles for comedic effect, sometimes flooding the entire background with words to convey some exaggerated emotion.

In retrospect, I started reading KKD shortly after I began Berserk in the second half of 2018. There's a huge contrast between these manga. My tastes lean fully with Berserk, with its dark and depressing theme and unbelievably intricate art design. However, I found myself looking forward to KKD as it was a nice resting space from the dreary world of Berserk.

This dialogue in Berserk? Depression. This dialogue in KKD? Comedy. (Image source: aminoapps.com)

Being the pretentious person I am, I didn't let myself find nothing to ponder on with this manga.

What I find interesting is Komi's growth as the plot progresses. I observed in the early parts of the story that there's a formula to each episode. Due to communication problems between Komi and the characters, some sort of conflict arises, which is usually funny. The conflict then resolves itself not by Komi's will but by the people around her assuming what's the best outcome for her. Since Komi can't speak out, people put words into her mouth. It usually benefits Komi, but I soon found the formula problematic. The story is not giving Komi the space for her to overcome her speech problem. It's like the world isn't letting her talk. It wasn't a sustainable plot for character growth.

That changed when Rumiko Manbagi entered the story. Manbagi was initially just another classmate. Her assigned personality is her gyaru style. Manbagi soon outgrew her quirk and developed into a key role in the story: Komi's rival to Tadano. Why Tadano deserves to be an object of their desires is beyond me. He's a plain guy whose only personality is being nice to everyone. And somehow he is able to telepathically understand Komi. But that aside, at this point of the story, Komi has grown fond of Tadano. However, she never had any incentive to convey her feelings, or even realize their existence. That is, until Manbagi came into the picture.

Rumiko Manbagi is the wind that pushed the ship to sail. MVP! (Image source: general-think.tumblr.com)

Komi suddenly stood on a crossroad. Is she going to let the river run its course, as usual? Or is she finally going to exercise her agency by communicating her feelings to Tadano? If she lets things go by as usual, there's a high chance that Manbagi wins Tadano because she is quite aggressive. The dude is plenty fine with having alone moments with Tadano. On the other hand, communicating her feelings to Tadano requires working through complicated feelings and turning them into words, to be delivered utmost genuineness. She can't even say basic sentences! Both options are difficult. And both options force her to grow.

To my surprise, Komi went with the third option: both. She decided to tell Tadano how she feels, while letting Manbagi do her thing. Komi certainly could've made Manbagi back off, but she didn't. I love this decision by Komi because if she wins Tadano, it would feel earned. Tadano actually had to choose. Incidentally, by making that choice, Tadano also had to overcome his own insecurities and learned to love himself too. I realized at this part of the manga, around Chapter 300-302, that I was extremely invested with their growths and excited about their choices. The love triangle arc really had me hooked in a manga that was supposed to be for light reading only.

Spoilers (but not so much because the manga is entitled "Komi-san..." for a reason), but Tadano went for Komi. The manga broke one of the unspoken rules of slice of life romance comedy: don't let the main couple get together up until the very end. In fact, post-Chapter 305, the manga carries on with its episodic comedy and has already started introducing new characters. After all, Komi hasn't finished her quest to make 100 friends.

I nearly shouted while reading Chapter 302. The pages dedicated to show Komi's blushing and acceptance were a great touch. Thank God, the chapter ended hilariously or else my heart would not have been able to handle it. (Image source: bilibili.tv) 

Overall, I am pleasantly amused with this manga. KKD is like a little tasty dessert you eat once a week. It has light-hearted fun, which turned into an engaging romance, and has now reverted to light-hearted fun. I look forward to more developments with Komi's speech problem (though she is certainly more talkative than when the manga started), more Komi x Tadano relationship sketches, and more characters from Oda.

Side note: I made a draft of this review way back in July-August 2021. I got the general frame of what I wanted to say after the conclusion of the Tadano x Komi x Manbagi love triangle. But as usual, I wasn't able to find time. My will to push through with this review was reinvigorated when the Komi-san anime was announced in December 2021. I wanted to get the review done before the anime airs, because I didn't want to be lumped with the bandwagon fans (I am kidding! Kinda...). Yet, I still failed to finish up. Like a dirty spot in my room, this unfinished review bothered me little by little until a few days ago, when I finally decided that I am not accomplishing anything else in my life until I finalize this review. Even at the very end, I decided to scrap my earlier drafts and to start from scratch. In any case, I can't believe it took me nearly a year to finish this review. It turned out worse than I expected but at least it's done.