I've been an anime fan since I was in middle school - going on over ten years now. I find that I go through phases of my life where I'm more and less interested in it. When I was growing up, I struggled a lot socially. In middle school, I felt a lot like Komi. I had so much trouble speaking in class, even just raising my hand seemed impossible. I didn't have very many friends, and I didn't feel very understood either. In high school I got better at speaking but still struggled to make connections. Throughout that time in my life, anime meant a lot to me; as an escape, as adventures I could imagine myself having rather than having to think about my life that I wasn't satisfied with.
When I went to college I made a lot of friends who I still treasure very much. I found that I didn't need to rely on anime so much anymore - I was having my own adventures. I still watched it, but not with the intensity and frequency that I used to and it was just an interest among many that formed up my larger personhood.
Lately, I've been feeling a lot more connected with my lonely kid self and finding myself coming back to anime with a similar sense of wonder that it used to inspire in me. I've been going through a hard time lately. I moved to a new city last year, made some friends, and one of those friends turned out to be a very harmful person, who hurt me and others and wasn't interested in changing his ways or taking any responsibility. I stopped talking to him, but it's been hard to pick up the pieces of my life and feel like there is still good out there in store for me. I don't have roots here. That person who hurt me was my closest friend in this city.
I put on this anime one night when an ad for it popped up on netflix and I was dyeing my hair and feeling upset - and it was the only thing that kept me from crying.
I know it is full of tropes that have been done over and over. I know it is very very silly, and most of the side characters are very one note. But rooting for Tadano and Komi made me smile, and it made me feel less alone. And that is enough.
