Komi Can't Communicate

Komi Can't Communicate (Japanese: 古見さんは、コミュ症です。, Hepburn: Komi-san wa, Komyushō desu.) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tomohito Oda. It has been serialized in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday since May 2016, with its chapters collected in nineteen tankōbon volumes as of November 2020. The series has been licensed for English-language release in North America by Viz Media, with the first volume being published in June 2019.

Komi Can't Communicate
Cover of the first manga volume featuring Komi and Tadano
古見さんは、コミュ症です。
(Komi-san wa, Komyushō desu.)
Genre
Manga
Written byTomohito Oda
Published byShogakukan
English publisher
ImprintShōnen Sunday Comics
MagazineWeekly Shōnen Sunday
DemographicShōnen
Original runMay 18, 2016 – present
Volumes20

Plot

On her first day attending the elite Itan Private High School, the main setting of the story, Shouko Komi immediately receives an overwhelming surge in popularity due to the unprecedented, stoic beauty and refined elegance her classmates perceive her to possess. However, only Hitohito Tadano, an exceedingly average schoolboy assigned to the seat next to hers, is able to have the opportunity to discover that, behind her bishōjo appearance, Komi has serious issues in communicating with others. Tadano sets out to help Komi on her quest to find 100 friends.[4]

Characters
Shouko Komi (古見 硝子, Komi Shōko)
An absolute beauty to anyone, Shouko Komi in reality suffers from extreme social anxiety and communication problems, making her largely unable to talk to others. However, her attractiveness and stoic appearance (which in itself results from her anxiety) is perceived as refined class, making her highly popular while preventing people from actually getting to know her. Komi's first conversation with Tadano is over a blackboard, and she uses a notebook to convey her feelings through writing. Despite this, she is still capable of verbal conversation over a cell phone. Her dream is to overcome her communication problems and make 100 friends.[4]
Hitohito Tadano (只野 仁人, Tadano Hitohito)
Sitting next to Komi, Hitohito Tadano is, as his name implies, an "average" schoolboy in every possible way. Discovering Komi's communication problems by inadvertently becoming the last students remaining in the classroom, he befriends Komi and, over a blackboard, promises to help Komi to accomplish her dream of having 100 friends, with him being the first. As the story progresses, Tadano gradually uncovers Komi's issues and gets to know more of her personality, while ultimately being in denial of his slowly-progressing romantic feelings between the two of them. His name is a play on words; tada no hito (ただの人) means "an ordinary/average person", and hito (仁) means "human" or "compassionate".[4]
Rumiko Manbagi (万場木 留美子, Manbagi Rumiko)
Rumiko Manbagi is a gyaru who joins Tadano and Komi's class in their second year of high school. She initially presented herself with an excessive amount of make-up, scaring people off and causing her to become increasingly lonely - even suffering ill physical health because of it. Tadano and Komi befriend her and help her overcome her loneliness; from then on, Rumiko considers herself their best friend. She eventually drops the make-up entirely, as well. Similarly to Komi, Rumiko is described as a 'wallflower' by her friends. Her affection towards Tadano also grows to the point where, torn between it and her friendship with Komi, she offers to step aside for Komi's sake; Komi refuses to allow such a course of action, reasoning that she cannot allow her friend to sacrifice her happiness for her own sake.
Najimi Osana (長名 なじみ, Osana Najimi)
A character with an ambiguous gender, Najimi Osana has been friends with Tadano since middle school. Long knowing them as a boy, it is to the latter's surprise that the former now dresses in a girls' uniform, albeit with a boy's tie, as they both advanced to the Itan High School. Najimi's gender is never confirmed, and they are frequently referred to with gendered pronouns, although it is implied that Najimi is genderless. Najimi regularly switches from saying they're a boy or a girl and laughing that anyone ever thought otherwise, though Tadano connects this more with what he describes as pathological dishonesty. They are the "ultimate" childhood friend, as everyone in the school has known them since childhood, due to their family's frequent moving during their childhood. Najimi is depicted as having immense capability in conversing and befriending others as a result of their childhood moving, but was hampered when introduced to Komi by Tadano, as their unsuccessful childhood attempt to befriend Komi left them with psychological trauma. Their name is a play on words; osananajimi (幼馴染) literally means "childhood friend".[4]

Publication

Komi Can't Communicate is written and illustrated by Tomohito Oda. A first one-shot chapter was published in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday on September 16, 2015.[5][6] The manga began its serialization in Weekly Shōnen Sunday on May 18, 2016.[7] Shogakukan has compiled its chapters into individual tankōbon volumes. The first volume was published on September 16, 2016.[8] As of November 18, 2020, nineteen volumes have been published.[9]

In November 2018, during their panel at Anime NYC, Viz Media announced that they have licensed the manga.[10] The first English-language volume was released on June 11, 2019.[11]

The manga has been licensed in Southeast Asia by Shogakukan Asia,[12] in Taiwan by Chingwin Publishing Group,[13] in Indonesia by Elex Media Komputindo,[14] in Germany by Tokyopop,[15] and in Italy by J-Pop.[16]

Volume list
No. Original release date Original ISBN English release date English ISBN
01 September 16, 2016[17]978-4-09-127343-7June 11, 2019[11]978-1-9747-0712-6
02 December 16, 2016[18]978-4-09-127426-7August 13, 2019[19]978-1-9747-0713-3
03 March 17, 2017[20]978-4-09-127509-7October 8, 2019[21]978-1-9747-0714-0
04 June 16, 2017[22]978-4-09-127575-2December 10, 2019[23]978-1-9747-0715-7
05 July 18, 2017[24]978-4-09-127664-3February 11, 2020[25]978-1-9747-0716-4
06 October 18, 2017[26]978-4-09-127856-2April 14, 2020[27]978-1-9747-0717-1
07 December 18, 2017[28]978-4-09-127885-2June 9, 2020[29]978-1-9747-0718-8
08 March 16, 2018[30]978-4-09-128091-6August 11, 2020[31]978-1-9747-0719-5
09 June 18, 2018[32]978-4-09-128254-5October 13, 2020[33]978-1-9747-1740-8
10 September 18, 2018[34]978-4-09-128390-0December 8, 2020[35]978-1-9747-1741-5
11 December 18, 2018[36]978-4-09-128590-4February 09, 2021[37]978-1-9747-1882-5
12 March 18, 2019[38]978-4-09-128802-8April 13, 2021[39]978-1-9747-1884-9
13 June 18, 2019[40]978-4-09-129166-0——
14 August 16, 2019[41]978-4-09-129329-9——
15 November 18, 2019[42]978-4-09-129441-8——
16 February 18, 2020[43]978-4-09-129555-2——
17 May 18, 2020[44]978-4-09-850072-7——
18 September 18, 2020[45]978-4-09-850178-6——
19 November 18, 2020[9]978-4-09-850277-6——
20 February 18, 2021[46]978-4-09-850389-6——

Reception

As of September 2018, the first ten tankōbon volumes had over 2 million copies in circulation.[47]

The series ranked first in a 2020 poll conducted by AnimeJapan of "Most Wanted Anime Adaptation".[48]

In a review of the first volume from Anime News Network, Rebecca Silverman called the series "a nice little story with humor and a distinct lack of cruelty that doesn't break any new barriers but is definitely fun to read." Faye Hopper considered that it is hard to tell if the humor of the series lies in Komi's "seemingly outlandish, absurd behavior" or if it is a "legitimate depiction of anxiety that we laugh at because we relate." Hopper also called the character of Najimi a "transphobic punchline", criticizing the jokes about their gender fluidity, calling them "extremely tasteless" and that they "undermines the book's message by making light of an already marginalized community." Nevertheless, Hopper stated that the series "succeeds in spite of a potentially noxious premise", pointing out that the other characters are "just as dysfunctional as the eponymous Komi, creating a solid base of compassion and doing a good job not casting her as a weird social outlier."[49]

References
  1. "VIZ MEDIA ANNOUNCES NEW PUBLISHING ACQUISITIONS AT ANIME NYC 2018". Viz Media. November 19, 2018. Retrieved December 8, 2018.
  2. サンデー発ラブコメ4作品の新刊フェア開催 「おまえら早く付き合っちゃえよ」CM&PV公開. Oricon (in Japanese). June 18, 2019. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
  3. "Komi Can't Communicate Vol. 1". ComiXology. Archived from the original on April 25, 2020. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
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  5. 週刊少年サンデー：手始めに読み切り5作品　新人・若手の新連載は来月から - MANTANWEB（まんたんウェブ）. MANTANWEB（まんたんウェブ） (in Japanese). September 9, 2015. Archived from the original on June 19, 2018. Retrieved September 1, 2020.
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