Komi Can’t Communicate is the manga I read as part of the Asian Readathon this month, hosted by Cindy (details on her youtube channel) for its first and fifth prompts. The fifth—and also last—prompt of the readathon this year is to read a book with something—character, setting, story—that you would want in your next life. The first prompt is to read a book by an Asian author. While I could have paired the first prompt with any other book I’m reading for the readathon, I figured it made a nice symmetry to have the same book for the first and last prompts—a bookend, if you will (if you want to know the rest of the books I am reading for this readathon, check out my announcement linked here).
Komi Can’t Communicate follows our protagonist Shoko Komi, a extremely beautiful, elegant, and talented high-school girl with severe social anxiety or communication disorder. This makes it very difficult—near impossible—for her to talk to anyone without trembling viciously. However, as the managa reiterates multiple times, this does not mean she doesn’t want to communicate. Komi earnestly wants to make friends but has no idea how. Her dream is to make 100 friends (how adorable, amirite?).
Enter Hitohito Tadano, a perfectly average guy, ordinary in every way except that he has a heightened sense of empathy and is pretty good at reading people. By shocking manga fate, he and Komi are assigned seats next to each other, and while the entire class is drooling over Komi, they are throwing daggers of jealousy at Tadano. At the end of the first day though, he realises that as stunning Komi is, she might have trouble talking to people. He confronts her about it when they are alone in the classroom, and Komi then explains her situation by writing on the blackboard.
What then follows is the first of many diabetes-inducing adorable (I say this with all the love in the world) scenes where Komi and Tadano spent the rest of the day talking to each other by writing on the blackboard until the entire board is filled with their scribbles. That is when Tadano asks if she has a dream, and Komi responds that her dream is to have 100 friends. So, Tadano offers to be her first friend after which he will help her make more friends. Thus ensues the saga of Komi and how she makes more and more friends, grows to be more confident, and also how she and Tadano develop the cutest, most evilly angsty slowburn romance.
I have previously watched the anime for Komi Can’t Communicate and usually, manga is not something I can voraciously read. I’ve tried reading mangas for some of the animes I love over the years but I can never be consistent with them and finish any. Mainly because physical copies of mangas are cumbersome to buy and store because they have a lot of volumes. On the other hand, each manga panel usually has so much detail (looking at you One Piece) that reading it on screen via an app makes it hard to focus and read in any constructive way. Basically, manga was hard to get into.
But then I read Komi Can’t Communicate. Honestly, when I first picked this for the readathon I expected to read perhaps one or two volumes on an app, but to my surprise I was flying to volumes before long. I think it’s because Komi has a lot of panels with very little dialogue and the plot itself if very slice-of-life so if you miss any details in the panels, it is very forgiving. Once I was more used to reading it, of course, I could easily pay more attention to the panels and I got used to the format. I think it is safe to say that Komi Can’t Communicate has become my gateway drug to manga and I will definitely keep reading more, like One Piece, Bleach, etc.
The first ten volumes of Komi Can’t Communicate cover the arc of the first year of school and include a cultural festival, sports festival, class trip, christmas, valentine’s day and Komi’s birthday among other mundane everyday events. Through it all is the thread of Komi struggling with day-to-day interactions and her friends trying to help her or push her to be more confident. While some things are obviously exaggerated for the sake of drama, the manga as a whole is incredibly wholesome, feel-good and relaxing to read. The art style switches between cutesy and elegant to show Komi’s own duality. For someone who also struggles with social anxiety, this is a very good fantasy to see Komi make friends and for them to not only accept but love her the way she is.
The reason I picked this for the fifth prompt is because while some might say I am already in Komi’s predicament, she has a far better success rate at making friends than I do and I too would like a 100 friends and a wholesome romance in my next life, even if I manage to have it by the end of this one too. Who says I can’t want the things I had in this life in the next one too? And, wholesome romance, friendship, an amazing person like Komi, what’s not to want?
Overall, if you like animes in general, or wholesome, slice-of-life stories with slowburn fluffy romance, Komi Can’t Communicate is perfect for you. Komi Can’t Communicate became a thing I found myself going back to again and again because reading it relaxed me while being entertaining. The stakes are low (but insanely high in the matters of the heart), the vibes are chill and the cast of characters are crazy but lovable.
The Moody Writer 
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