The new anime season continues to unfold, giving us lots of quality series to take in week after week. While there are both good and not-so-good series to sample in the current lineup, one of the best shows is Komi-san wa, Comyushou Desu, aka Komi Can’t Communicate. Let’s look at why the show is so good, and how the “secret sauce” of anime is that its characters are often more relatable to us than in any other kind of media.
Komi Can’t Communicate is Adorable
This is the story of a male anime character who goes by the generic name Tadano Hitohito (roughly translating to “just a normal person”) who starts high school with one goal: to enjoy his new life as a high school student without standing out or making waves. He sees a tall and beautiful girl putting her shoes in her locker next to him and greets her…but the girl stares at him in a terrifying manner before shyly dashing away.
This is Shouko Komi, the “Madonna of the School,” who is tall and beautiful…but due to her extreme social anxiety, called comyushou or “communication disorder” in the anime, she isn’t able to talk with anyone, including making basic greetings. This is bad, because Komi-san’s dream is to conquer her shyness and make 100 friends in high school. In order to get past this hurdle and realize her goal, she’s going to need help…and Tadano-kun is the man for the job.
And so begins the adorable story of how Komi-san slowly overcomes her extreme social anxiety and learns how to communicate…finding love along the way, too.
What Anime Characters Do You Relate To?
While anime often tells stories of generic characters in situations we’d all like to self-insert ourselves into — whether it’s a boy piloting a Gundam or a girl starting a new job only to find she’s got a harem of ridiculously handsome men around her — happily there’s much more to anime, including characters normal people like us can appreciate.
I especially like it when anime creates characters who are similar to us, with the same faults and foibles that we have. Some might have social anxiety or be riddled with self-doubt like Komi-san or Bocchi from Hitori Bocchi no 〇〇 Sekatsu, while others might have built up a cynical shield around their personalities, like Hachiman from Oregairu. Some characters can be so relatable, like Shoya or Naoka from Koe no Katachi, that it can really make us think about times when we might have been unkind to others in the past.
And of course, what could be more relatable than the tension we feel before talking to people we don’t know well.
A New Direction for Netflix Anime?
While I’m always happy to have large companies with big pockets throw money at anime studios so they can make the anime we love a reality, I was concerned when I heard that Komi Can’t Communicate was going to be shown on Netflix. Would this be another case of Netflix shooting itself in the foot by putting the show in the “Netflix Jail” in markets outside of Asia for a season to allow for dubbed tracks to be prepared? This would kill any buzz the series could achieve while fans waited for the show to drop internationally, and likely doom it to only getting one season.
Happily for all involved, Netflix has adopted a new model for this series, delaying each episode by only 1-2 weeks. This is a good compromise between simulcasting the episodes alongside their Japan air date, which is understandably problematic for a major distribution platform that wants dubbed versions to be available to the maximum number of viewers, and delaying the show by an entire season, which has caused harm to the international popularity of some series like Godzilla S.P. or EDENS ZERO. Hopefully, they can do this with all shows going forward.
(Now if only Netflix will realize that fans want to own the anime they love on Blu-ray, and find a way to partner with existing licensors like Sentai or Funimation/Crunchyroll on physical releases. Oh, and much as I dislike the Anime Production Committee system, if they’d partner with figure licensors like Good Smile Company that’s be great.)
Thanks for reading this post on the adorkable school romantic comedy Komi Can’t Communicate. What anime characters do you feel a special connection to? Tell us below, or on Twitter!
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