Komi Can't Communicate: Volume 5 manga review

Komi Can't Communicate Graphic Novel Volume 5 cover image

There is a teen girl who cannot communicate with people.  Shoko Komi is the most beautiful person her classmates at Itan Private High School have ever seen, but her crippling social anxiety is so bad that she can barely speak.  Most people think her silence is because of her “cool reserve,” so they keep their distance.  Her communication disorder is keeping her from making friends, but her classmate, the timid wallflower, Hitohito Tadano, promises to help Komi achieve her goal of making 100 friends.

As Komi Can't Communicate, Vol. 5 (Chapters 58 to 72) opens, Komi can't communicate her jealousy.  Tadano has been spending a lot of time with a girl named Nene Onemine, and Komi doesn't know how to deal with her feelings of jealousy.  Will Komi lose her chance at making a new friend, while also losing a dear friend?

Next, it's time for the Itan Private High School “Cultural Festival,” and Komi and Tadano's “Class 1-1” wants to operate a maid cafe.  And everyone wants to see Komi in a maid costume...

[This volume includes bonus four-panel comics.  There is also a bonus manga collaboration, Shoko Komi of Komi Can't Communicate meets Princess Syalis of Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle.]

THE LOWDOWN:  The Komi Can't Communicate manga did not overly impress me upon my first reading.  After reading the second and third volumes, I began to see the series coalesce into a truly funny situation comedy.

Komi Can't Communicate Graphic Novel Volume 5 finds creator Tomohito Oda slowly bringing his title character out of her shell.  Komi does not seem to rely on Tadano as much as she did in the first two volumes, and she has made about seven friends over 72 chapters.  I do think, however, that Oda might want to speed things up a little.  Komi has potential as a character, and John Werry's translation/English adaptation is trying to find it.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:   Readers who enjoy comics from the “Shonen Sunday” line will want to try Komi Can't Communicate.

B+
7 out of 10