Komori-san wa Kotowarenai!

This very short series follows a girl who has a hard time declining requests from others.

This anime is quite underrated due to the fact that is only 2 minutes per episode, and people look at the ecchi and deem it an anime not to be watched. However, this is a highly enjoyable show that can be finished in a mere 30 minutes with a smile on your face.

Story: The story follows a group of 3 friends through their middle school life, while the main character is always helping others since she is too nice to deny anyone. Since the story is only 2 minutes ... long, there's not too much great plot that you can have in that short amount of time, especially since when 20 seconds are dedicated to the credits. However, it does have some story, and I would like to compare the show to Aesop's fables. There is a clear and present theme throughout the show, about the joys of friendship and helping others. The plot is not to be underestimated. 6/10.

Art: The art is decent, it's not top of the line like Gakuen Toshi Asterik for this 2015 season, but it holds well for a 2 minute show budget. 5/10

Sound: I'm not one to normally pay attention to sounds, unless a certain voice actor/actress particular bothers me, but I had no complaints when it came to this show. 7/10

Characters: Each character is slightly unique in their own way, with a few similarities along the way. Obviously there isn't any character development, not really possible in a span of 2 minutes. 7/10

Enjoyment: Initially, I was watching this show cause it looked like it would have some ecchi in it, and I was disappointed that the show wasn't longer. However, I loved the simple theme and how well the characters went with each other, each with a different personality, with your normal girl, then kuudere and slightly tsundere, and wanna be relied on boy. 10/10

I personally really enjoyed this show and I was quite disappointed that it wasn't longer. 9/10 Overall.

Komori-san wa kotowarenai is a slice of life comedy originally written in 2012 by Cool-kyou Shinja. In 2015, three years after the manga began, it was adapted into an anime. The studio behind it was Artland, the same studio behind Mushishi, Gunslinger Girl Il Teatrino & the horrendous Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou. Still, two out of three worthwhile anime isn't a bad precedent. I'm not sure what to expect going into this one, so let's take a look and see how it goes.

Story:

Komori is a fourteen year old girl who can't bring herself to turn down requests for help. As a result, her classmates are ... constantly relying on her. This, naturally, results in slice of life shenanigans. The biggest flaw with the series is just that the japes are pretty standard and predictable. You might laugh at points, but it's probably not going to be hearty laughter. More, a bit of a chuckle. This series may actually benefit from each episode lasting two minutes, simply because they have to fir out the jokes quickly and you don't get a lot of set up for the obvious pay-offs.

Characters:


The characters don't have much to them. Although, in all fairness, you can't really expect deep and compelling characters in a series where the entire twelve episodes take up roughly the same amount of time as one episode of a normal length series. With that said, there are times where Komori's interactions with her friends, Masako & Megumi, work well for comedic purposes and there are times where they don't really garner a reaction. Then we have Kurou, a character who is consistently dull. Any time he shows up, you can safely tune out and not risk missing a funny moment.

Art:

The art in this is pretty simple but it's functional and there's really nothing wrong with it. Even if it does use that hyper moe style I'm not personally fond of.

Sound:

The acting is perfectly competent. It's not stellar and Uchida Aya certainly doesn't get to fully showcase her talents, but it sounds just fine. I'd say the same for the other actors, but I haven't really heard them in anything else. Well, Ozawa Ari had a minor role in One Punch Man, but I don't remember her character at all. The music likewise is competent but nothing special.

Ho-yay:

There are times when Komori's friend, Masako, seems to have a crush on her. But it's difficult to say if that was intentional given the length of the series.

Final Thoughts:

Ultimately, Komori-san wa kotowarenai isn't a bad series. But it's also not a good one. It's a short, standard slice of life comedy. If you're a big fan of the genre, you might want to give it a go. The whole series is only twenty four minutes so it is pretty quick. Otherwise, you won't really miss anything by skipping it. My final rating is a 5/10. The series is average. Next week I'll look at Brain Powerd.

From the Creator of Danna ga Nani wo Itteiru ka Wakaranai Ken or I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying comes Komori-san wa Kotowarenai!

We go from a three minute run time to a two minute run time per episode. Although this change only removes twelve minutes of run time from the season it somehow meant we also lost of all of the character development and growth My Husband had and instead replaced it with repetitive jokes and the sexualization of underage girls.

Story: We have the main character Komori who is always willing to help. Although we don't see any problems from her ... always helping people; this is okay as this is a short series and tries to display the positives of helping people rather than the negatives which again works with this coming off as a comedy.

The story follows Komori as she encounters the daily troubles of school life with her two friends Megumi and Masako.

Thus as a comedy and short series this will result in weaker underdeveloped characters although this may come as a bad thing it makes way for more jokes, but characters should still relevant and understood.

Characters: We have a cast of four characters Komori, Megumi, Masako, and Kurou who gets introduced later.

Megumi: Is a self-conscious girl with regards to her bust size that is somewhat anti-social, but has Komori as a dependable friend to rely upon.

Masako: Comes off as virtually a carbon copy of Megumi as displaying many of the same character traits. She serves to give the story a third female character to make jokes with and serves to make the relationship between Komori and Kurou less awkward had she not existed. As this would have made Megumi seem like a third wheel and mostly would have turned into a background character as the series progressed. She also serves to help keep the comedy on point and try to eliminate the third wheel feeling Megumi would have been experiencing.

Although this character comes off as very shallow after some thought we can see why this character is in the story and what purpose she does to keep the plot moving forward. Although I will not take away points as she serves a purpose I as well can't award points for the redundancy she adds to many scenes.

Kurou: is a young boy who is interested in Komori and is again another anti-social person. He is the most developed character in this series despite not being introduced till midway in the series. Through talking with Komori he is able to become more social by interacting with his classmates and helping them out as well.

Kurou helps symbolize the importance of helping people and how by doing so you are able to connect with people and thus become more social and thus get more out of school and life in general. This is the theme of the show and was interesting how a secondary character was able to display which was rather interesting.

Animation/Sound: I lumped these together as there is little to talk about them in such a short series. Cinematography wise nothing done in this regard. The animation style was very relaxed and simple which is common in short series and some comedy although we see less and less of this now.

The 30 second ending was really unfortunate for this series as it ate up 1/4 of the run time of each episode and thus came off as a way to save on the budget as well many of the scenes featured little to no movement.

The sound was well below average as the soundtrack did not exist for many scenes and was nearly absent in the many that it did take place in.

As sound is far less important in comedy as it does not have to set-up powerful dramatic scenes it is thus weighted far less into the total score to help compensate for its decreased importance in this show and genre.

Enjoyment: I unfortunately did not enjoy one episode I saw of this show. The main reason I first picked up this show was the original creator. The episodes felt flat with repetitive jokes seen in many series such as bust jokes. We also see jokes this short series made repeated in later episodes. Coupled with the continued sexualization of underage girls with jokes, questionable camera angles and swimsuits I found it hard to watch let alone enjoy this series.

Story: 1
Art: 2
Sound: 2*
Characters: 1
Enjoyment: 1
Overall: 1

*Weighted differently please see Sound section for reasoning