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EP. REVIEW: Komi Can't Communicate

Also, this plot is completely nonsensical in 2021. She clearly has no problem connecting to people in writing, so making friends in, let's say, the class WhatsApp chat or in a forum about her hobbies shouldn't be that difficult.

Violet Park wrote:

Also, this plot is completely nonsensical in 2021. She clearly has no problem connecting to people in writing, so making friends in, let's say, the class WhatsApp chat or in a forum about her hobbies shouldn't be that difficult.

Your take is very "online friendship". That's really is very 2021. But that is also making people lose real contact. Whats the point on going out with friends if you can talk online. Is like what happens so many times when people going out and what you see is 10 people seating together but only looking at phone screens and don't really talking with anybody. People are becoming more a icon or a picture in a screen and less real humans.

What Komi-san wants is real contact. She wants to be able to speak directly with the person in front of her. A chat or a forum will not bring her the satisfaction and happiness of talking face to face with another human being. There are so many more things that can be transited with looking at another person when speaking. Words, expressions, a look in the eyes. So much is been lost when talking by online means. And that what Komi-san is looking for. Human friendship, contact and be able to talk face to face.

But let's pretend it's not, that it's only friendship if they talk face to face. She can do that with online friends, befriending them online or talking to her classmates in messaging apps can be the first step to actually talking to them IRL. Otherwise, considering she can't talk, what is she supposed to do, do nothing until one day she gets over her anxiety? That hasn't worked for her so far.

And I suppose a show with better writing ... would have been yuri or BL. Or absolutely delightful stuff like HoriMiya, where the obviously in need of counseling male protagonist has a history of self-harm spoiler[and is stuck with a "girlfriend" with a history of bullying who then proceeds to walk all over him, including forcing him to participate in her fetishes]. Yeah, that is precisely the sort of great writing that we need more of.

Also, people with social anxiety or even simply extreme shyness are indeed often paranoid, thinking that the whole world hates them or is laughing at them. They often become misanthropes as a defense mechanism. Indeed, Komi NOT using her issues as an excuse to become a jerk like Watamote's Tomoko, Bottom Tier Character's Tomozaki, Handa-kun's character (whose problems continue well into adulthood!) or Oregairu's Hachiman is actually a refreshing departure.

Unless she is talking to bots, any form of communication where two people exchange words is "real contact". In-person, pen-pals, social media, the chalkboard thing, as long as she forms a connection it's a real friendship.

But let's pretend it's not, that it's only friendship if they talk face to face. She can do that with online friends, befriending them online or talking to her classmates in messaging apps can be the first step to actually talking to them IRL. Otherwise, considering she can't talk, what is she supposed to do, do nothing until one day she gets over her anxiety? That hasn't worked for her so far.

...interacting with some face to face is a vastly different situation then over an app or phone. The sheer physical presence of the other person is a major difference. Body language, wondering how your voice sounds, what you look like, etc. That are a lot of factors involved with actually having a discussion face to face that are not there with apps, emails, etc. Even with face time and skype or other video calls it's still not the same as in person. Pretending that it's all nonsensical is just as ill-informed as acting as if online communication is not real communication. It is real, but it is still on a vastly different level then in person face to face.

Quite true, but goes both ways. Someone with poor writing skills might have anxiety over having to write a formal email (or that artifact of antiquity, the written letter on paper), but not talking in person or over the phone (this may fit a lot of VLoggers). For myself, I deal with people a lot better in person than over the phone (much easier for the person on the other end to blow someone off over the phone than in person).

Wow… just wow… As one of the most charming and lighthearted manga I’ve read in the past few years, I was really not expecting Komi’s anime to become such a heated topic of debate.

^

Wow so many bad takes in a single post.Let's see:

He obviously doesn't wear a hair ormanornament ,it's just a stylistic choice by the character designer,if we were listing all the weird hair in anime we'd be here all day.

People don't flock to Komi which is ironically both a blessing and a curse,they admire her from afar cause either they think they're not good enough for her or are afraid she'll reject them.

What's so weird about her thinking that people don't like her,that's actually one of the most common things people experience when they have low self-esteem,assuming the worse.Even i have fallen to this line thinking and felt like such an idiot later when I realised the truth.

I'm assuming this isn't a critisism on the series, but yes Japan does still use chalkboards ,it's not exclusive to anime.

Florete wrote:

Well, all I could think about was how stupid this first episode was.

Oh wow. Half of your criticisms were eviscerations of the male protagonist, whom you are going after for the crime of merely existing. I see this sort of thing all the time either the criticism is for being an unrealistic power fantasy Gary Stu or for being a boring everyman self-insert. And yes, said criticisms are generally made about the same people. So ... what kind of male protagonists do said critics want? One who never dates a female? Do said critics just want every single work to be yuri and BL?

As for the other stuff ... they still use chalkboards in most American classrooms too.

A good male protagonist would have a real personality and not be a copy of every cardboard cutout from every romcom in the past twenty years. These criticisms are about the same people because they are always the same bland, boring person. I've seen this same male protagonist in dozens of other works. I'm not interested in seeing him again.