Komi Can't Communicate is about a high school girl named Shoko Komi, a shy wallflower who is paradoxically worshipped as a goddess by her fellow classmates due to her beauty. She wants to make friends, but she struggles because she can't work up the nerve to speak in public, a problem she has dealt with since childhood. Her classmate Hitohito Tadano reaches out and becomes her first friend, promising to help her break out of her shell and reach her goal of making one hundred friends in school.
Social anxiety is a big part of Komi Can't Communicate, and the show puts a lot of focus on how that affects Komi as she goes through her everyday life. This struggle makes her a relatable character since many people also find themselves dealing with similar problems. It can be easy to mess up while covering such a delicate subject, but Komi Can't Communicate manages to do so lightheartedly without failing to give it the weight that it deserves.
Komi's Social Anxiety
At first, it might seem strange that someone as beautiful and as popular as Komi would be so affected by social anxiety issues. Some might even argue that such a disparity breaks the suspension of disbelief, and doesn't seem like a realistic portrayal of a person who has trouble connecting to others. However, the truth about social anxiety is that anyone can be affected by it. It doesn't matter how popular or how beautiful they are, because it's more about how they see their own self-worth and their confidence in their ability to carry a conversation.
It's true that Komi is beloved by nearly the entire school, but in a way, that only exacerbates the problem. Because her classmates think of Komi as a goddess, they end up putting her on a pedestal, unintentionally isolating her as somebody who is different from them. This makes it hard for Komi to connect with her fellow classmates, and her inability to communicate properly makes it hard for her to clear up such misunderstandings. Even worse, Komi lacks self-confidence, so when people go out of their way to avoid bothering her or choose to admire her from afar, she believes that she is being ignored or disliked. This aspect of her social anxiety is often exaggerated and played for laughs in the anime, but the show still ensures that the audience understands that this is a problem that makes it hard for Komi to make friends.
The Everday Nature Of Anxiety
Komi's social anxiety doesn't just manifest in her inability to speak out loud or make connections with her fellow classmates. It also appears when she is taking care of mundane errands or visiting locations where she'll have to come into contact with strangers, such as when she has to order a coffee at a coffee shop or when she needs to borrow a book from the library. These events are no big deal for most people, but for someone like Komi who has trouble communicating with others, it can be a daunting task.
While these stories may seem like small comedic episodes to break up the larger segments, they are an important look into just how much social anxiety affects Komi's everyday life. In fact, these scenes may be the most relatable part of Komi Can't Communicate's portrayal of social anxiety. Social anxiety is not a symptom that crops up from time to time. It is a persistent issue that troubles everyone to some degree, and some people, like Komi, have a harder time dealing with it. These little segments show just how much more Komi has to deal with because of her anxiety issues.
How Komi Deals With It
Social anxiety cannot be solved in a day, and Komi Can't Communicate doesn't pretend like it can. Komi has to deal with her communication issues every episode, and even in the manga, she still has trouble speaking and connecting with others, even after making friends like Tadano and Najimi. Over time, she has managed to come up with a few workarounds, like writing what she wants to say in a notebook, but the problems that she deals with at the beginning of the series are problems she is still dealing with now.
Still, Komi is making do with her social anxiety the best that she can, and she's doing it with the help of her new friends. While her progress is slow, she is breaking out of her shell little by little, and it's thanks to the help of the people around her who want to support her. Probably the most important lesson of Komi Can't Communicate is that social anxiety takes time to deal with, and it may never go away. However, all it takes is one good friend to make it seem as if those issues are really no big deal at all.