Read It: Komi Can't Communicate

Komi and Tadano begin their friendship communicating via
chalkboard during lunch.

Over 25(!) years ago, I was a regular reader of manga. "Back in the day," the largest publisher of Japanese mango in America was VIZ Media, and titles consisted of popular works such as Sailor Moon, Dragonball, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Eat Man. Only recently have I begun revisiting the genre, and, surprisingly, what is available here in the United States is much more diverse and still being published by VIZ. 

While digging around Goodreads last week for novels dealing with "adolescent anxiety," Komi Can't Communicate, Volume 1 by Tomohito Oda popped up among the results. I am aware that there are a multitude of manga genres available, and I am also likely not the target audience for this title. I am, however, a high school teacher with many students who write in their journals frequently about a crippling fear of talking with/in front of others. As a result of social anxiety, they feel "weird" or left out. I, too, understand this from my own experience, so the title and brief synopsis provided prompted me to drop the ten bucks to check it out.

   

Komi Can't Communicate, Volume 1 is a serialized collection of 2-4 pages chapters previously published in magazine form. The narrative follows a familiar set-up as our protagonist, Hitohito Tadano, arrives at a new school and becomes immediately enchanted with the most popular girl in the school, Shouko Komi. Despite her popularity (Komi is elected "God" by her class as roles like president are seen by her peers as  being beneath her awesomeness), Tadano discovers that Komi suffers from severe social anxiety, and as a result, can't communicate verbally with anyone. Oda establishes a clever pretense for Tadano's quest to help Komi communicate: a twist much like that in popular manga Blade of the Immortal (which details samurai Manji looks to kill 1,000 evil men to regain his mortality), Tadano pledges to help Komi make 100 friends.

Komi's immense popularity, as well as her friendship with loner Tadano, despite her communication anxiety, is played for laughs throughout, but not in a way that insults our main characters. While her classmates think Komi is just so above it all that she chooses not to interact with others, Tadano's awareness of her problem serves as the starting point for their bond. Due to her popularity, Komi finds herself in numerous situations, which Tadano recognizes as being problematic, and which he quickly tries to assist in relieving her anxiety. The pairs circle of friends increases by one ("only 99 left to go!") when Tadano recognizes classmate Najimi Osana, a self-confessed extrovert and introduces them to Komi. (Though not germane to the story--at least Volume 1-- Osana is a trans character who Tadano knew as a boy in middle school and meets again as a girl in high school.)

The set-up and storytelling is not groundbreaking, but is told with a very careful eye toward Komi's challenges. Komi is depicted as a confident and capable young person who's social anxiety keeps here from enjoying the fruits of her popularity (even though it may be a source of it, too). Given the brevity of each "chapter", the action is intimate; Komi struggles to order coffee for Osana, Tadano worries about Komi's response to being nominated for class president and so on. 

The collection was easy to read, mostly devoid of the weird sexualized imagery thought to be common in manga, though awkwardly suggested on the back cover. The illustrations, also by Oda, are very expressive and small editorial notes throughout help explain that which may not be communicated by the images. (As an aside, the influence of this visual approach style on recent comic book successes such as the both incredible Squirrel Girl series from Marvel Comics seems pretty clear.) The characterization is not terribly deep (this is only the first of 17(!) collections published in Japan, but there is enough here for young people to relate to the primary characters. My local public library system has 38 copies throughout the county available for borrowing (once they are capable of doing so), and I do recommend giving it a try before committing to the 10 chapters available stateside. I would also be curious as to how teens view the series, as they are the likely audience.