English Dub Season Review: Komi Can’t Communicate Season One

Overview (Spoilers Below):

When Hitohito Tadano shows up on his first day of high school, he’s ready to hunker down and blend in with the crowd in order to survive. But when he meets Shouko Komi that all changes. She’s basically the idol of everyone in school, but she was never able to communicate her feelings until Tadano steps in to help her.

With a goal of making 100 friends before the end of high school, Komi embarks on a mission to meet people. The only problem is that everyone in school is kind of a weirdo. But that won’t stop Tadano and Komi from befriending all of their fellow students, from gender-nonconforming childhood friends to aggressive ninja bros, and answering the question: can Komi start communicating?

Our Take:

Based on a manga that’s been running since 2016, Komi Can’t Communicate was one of the more talked about anime when Netflix originally released the series in subtitles last fall. Now it’s got a dub out too, and it’s time to give it a watch. So was it worth the hype that built up around it last year?

First thing’s first: Komi might be in the title of the show, but this is Hitohito Tadano’s show for sure. He’s the timid guy who runs into Komi on the first day of school and winds up falling for her and her silent schtick. He was apparently kind of an edgey boi in junior high, but now that he’s a full-fledged high schooler he is determined to stay off the radar. Of course, that falls by the wayside halfway through the first episode, and after that it’s basically an episodic series where he tries to get Komi to befriend a new schoolmate every ep.

It purports to be a comedy of sorts, but unfortunately your mileage may vary when it comes to how many laughs you’ll get out of it. For me, seeing everyone do over the top anime reactions while Komi stares at them and occasionally stutters out a word isn’t very fun or entertaining. I feel like the show’s style of humor is geared to appeal to those who are teens themselves, and maybe for that audience these sorts of situations will hit home in the humor department.

Visually, the show looks pretty unique. Its animation is actually one of the main selling points of the show as far as I can see. The studio did a good job recreating the look of the original manga in animated form, and even though I don’t actually care for the character designs, it’s clear that some care was put into crafting them here.

The dub itself is serviceable enough, but isn’t anything special. Netflix dubs are usually pretty good, but I’d say this one is on the below average side of the company’s dubs. Kyle McCarley is our main guy and he does a fine job, but his performance isn’t especially memorable and never really fully inhabited the character. Amber Lee Connors might voice the title character, but she only gets a handful of lines in the entire season, so it’s hard to judge her performance. Amber May is alright as the narrator, but I question the need for the narrator entirely in the first place.

Overall, this is definitely a bit of a mixed bag for me. I really enjoy some parts of the show, like some of the awareness it tries to bring to social anxiety issues and the difficulties that more introverted teenagers can have with communication. Seeing a wacky group of weirdos coming together was nice, too. But the rest of it wasn’t really my cup of tea, from the cringe-y humor to the bland and stereotypical characters. Still, it seems like enough people enjoyed it that there’s already a season 2 in the works, so hopefully next season will see the show communicating with me a little more effectively.