Introduction
Komi-san wa komyushou desu, translated as Komi can't communicate, is a manga i came by on youtube, thanks to the second trailer of the anime popping up on my recommendations.
Having always been a fan of the Romance and Slice of life genres, the trailer immediately interested me, and so i decided to give a better look, and so I was pleasantly surprised.
Komi-san is an extremely wholesome manga that mostly doesn't take itself too seriously and can be a source of a good light-hearted laugh, but it can also delve into deeper water, exploring more serious problems that can hit close to home for the average reader. And it does all of this in it's very unique, very down to earth way.
I would like to warn the reader that this review will contain heavy spoilers, and also, it's my first one ever, so tell me where i can fix or better it!
The weak points
The plot is creative and can be (and sometime is) used ingeniously both to a comedic effect and also in a more serious way, but other than that, it's nothing special, i would dare to say that the writing, from that point of view, is mediocre.
It moves slowly, only after circa 200 chapters do you start to see noticeable character development, and only at Chapter 300 are we finally gifted a confession, which is not even the right one(and we'll talk about this in a moment).
This is mostly due to an overly-sized cast, having more than 30 side characters, most of which have little to no actual personality and are only used as jokes once or twice. A good 50/60% of all chapters are filler and don't really contribute to the overarching plot, but i think this actually is not strictly a bad thing, as it does lead to a pretty light reading experience which helped me, an extremely slow reader, finish this manga in less than a week.
The strong points
Komi-san has a beautiful feel about it, untill today i wasn't actually able to put my finger on why i loved it so much, but i now think i understand:
Simply said, it's simple, it's realistic, it's down to earth. The characters which are developed to a deeper level are beautifully written, showing many facets of their personality, small quirks about them are revealed, like kometani chusaku being a smash bros' pro, and him being insecure about his teaching abilities.
Small but entertaining sub-plots and recurring gags are constantly introduced, and after chapter 200 Tomohito Oda challenges himself by introducing deep, three-dimensional characters, that are able to make you burst in tears even after only a few chapters of knowing them.
But what i love the most about this manga is the normality of it all; the main character, Tadano Hitohito, "simply a person", is the perfect summarization of this entire manga. Even though a character might seem to be facing an insurmountable problem, often it's revealed that it can be fixed with just a bit of common sense, a shoulder to cry on, a handkerchief to clean yourself on.
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And even the most important part of the entire manga, ch. 280-315, is treated in the same way:
Spoiler, click to view
the tension is building up, Manbagi, who likes tadano, is going to confess, Tadano doesn't yet fully understand that he likes Komi, and he isn't sure if Manbagi likes him, and when Manbagi does actually confess:
he reacts like this, dispelling any kind of epicness the scene had, because it didn't need to be epic. Even then, when he seems completely calm, we learn that he himself is insecure, not knowing if he's actually deserving of Manbagi's love.
But, nontheless, he accepts Manbagi confession, only to have Komi's face flash in his mind, making him look contradicted for a split second, enough for Manbagi to understand.
Spoiler, click to view
In chapter 302 we finally get the real confession, Tadano goes to see Komi and, after a bit of comic relief, we see this
no special effects, no dramatic pause, no extreme tension, just the facts, how any awkward teenager would say it, and this is enough to fluster both Komi and Tadano, along with making the reader's heart Explode.
Conclusions
Komi-san is a beautiful work, a light, even if long, read, with nicely developed main characters and tons of side ones, that sadly do sometimes weigh down the manga as a whole along with its almost missing plot. If you are looking for a down to earth, not too serious but able to make you feel deep emotions manga, you came to the right place.