Komi-san wa, Comyushou desu.
Komi Can't Communicate

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Whenever I try to find out about how I feel about a story, I think to myself "What is the story trying to achieve?". After reading the synopsis and a few of the chapters you might think that the point of this story is to help Komi-san overcome her social anxiety, but I disagree with this outlook.

The place where the story takes place is a high school, and every person that gets into this high school doesn't necessarily make it there because of their grades, but rather because of a special quirk related to their personality. There isn't a single "normal" person in this school, ... except for Tadano, and he probably got in because him being so incredibly average counted as a quirk in the eyes of the school administration. This leads us to the point, the story tries to expose as many people with personality quirks as possible, through the eyes of Komi-san and Tadano-kun, therefore Komi-san's social anxiety is a vehicle for us to meet these different characters, making the chapters exciting since we never know what we'll get next. That is not to say that her problem gets neglected by the author, she gets plenty of character development, but it's definitely secondary compared to the amount of attention the author put into creating dozens upon dozens of characters with different personalities. Literally no one is the same. Even Komi-san's brother who doesn't say a word throughout the series feels fundamentally different to Komi-san.

Thus, in my opinion the author did a great job creating a never ending cast of fun characters, while sprinkling character development for Komi-san and Tadano-kun, as well as some side characters, here and there. Every chapter feels like a Pandora's box, which I believe to be the intention to begin with, so this is a solid 9/10 for me. This might actually be the only manga I've read so far where I didn't find a single chapter boring. The characters are just that quirky, and even when I don't particularly like someone, Komi-san, Tadano-kun, or Najimi are there to interact with them, making me switch focus form the character to the interaction.

Komi-san is the most gorgeous girl in her school ( and possibly in the world) and has perfect grades both academically and in sports. However, she's quiet and aloof and is never seen talking to anyone. Tadano, the commically average boy with average looks and grades notices she's not just a cold beauty, but actually someone who struggles with social anxiety.

The premise is somewhat interesting, but the manga is ultimately just a gag manga with a light and generic high school romance in it. The gags are honestly repetitive and part of the appeal seems to come from Komi being your average ... shy waifu who apparently has no flaws aside from being shy which sorta just works to make her look cutesy and isn't much of a serious plot point most of the time.

To summarize, if you like generic shy waifus who everyone drools over in every goddamn chapter or like the humor you got from reading the first 10 chapters then this might be for you. Just don't go expecting depth.

I will be completely honest and admit that I haven't completed the entire manga. I got up to the point around where you're first introduced to Komi's Mom. Perhaps it does get miraculously better and solves all of my issues with it, though from hearing discussions around it this does not seem to be a case.

The art is fine enough, and I have no honest critique of any of the drawing. The main issue I had with it is that it was completely boring to me and was unable to keep my attention on it, and most of that was due to Komi-san's character, or ... lack thereof.

Komi's character makes very little sense to me, and how the world treats her makes less sense. I don't find it believable at all that a girl nearly mute, even if she's attractive or hot or whatever, would receive no amount of bullying from the rest of the students. At the very least, she would have gotten some lecture or impact by teachers telling her to speak up. She definitely wouldn't be automatically loved by all the students in her class, while giving them nearly all of them the coldest of shoulders

All in all, her struggle seems very artificial and unrealistic. Her life is supposedly perfect, but only has a single issue that she barely improves or grows on, still stuck (from what I've heard of the latest chapters) writing her every thought on different boards or sheets of paper. I would even dare to say, by the lack of growth she has while still being adored, she would classify as some tier or sort of Mary SUEEEEEE, however overused the term can be.

Also, the goal of "getting a hundred friends" just seems to be an artifical way to juice this idea and plot for as long as possible, for perhaps a third or fourth season of an anime. Due to all of this, no matter how much hype surrounds this, no matter how much I am made to feel bad for Komi-san, no matter how much people talk about this series "commenting on real issues" and "mental health", I cannot like this manga. Overall, a 2 or 3/10