Komi Can't Communicate

Episode 8

Summer break comes to a close for our young adolescents, and it feels as though we are approaching the end of some of the more quiet and laid-back moments our characters will experience for a while. It was nice that the show was able to get away from its high school setting for a few episodes and just focus on Komi experiencing regular, everyday outdoor stuff both by herself or with her newfound friends. It does feel fitting to have a festival act as one of those final summer moments in the middle of the episode; being a good blend of once again showing Komi interacting in a highly-populated public space that I'm sure she wouldn't be caught dead in during episode one while also continuously dropping more hints about the budding romance between her and Tadano. Obviously there are still issues on the actual communication front of her disorder, but these kids have only known each other for maybe a few months at most, and you don't overcome lifelong fears and anxiety in that amount of time no matter how aggressive your newfound friend group might be. Besides, from a narrative standpoint that just makes the moments where she is able to properly speak all the more impactful, and I'm sure Tadano feels the same, since one of the few times we do get to hear her speak was directed towards him!

On the topic of lifelong anxieties, let's talk about the Komi family for a minute because while the first third of this episode didn't feel like it was trying to aggressively communicate anything, it's interesting to get some insight into how her family just goes about doing things. I like how it was a little bit ambiguous if Komi's father and her brother share a similar type of issue with communication or if they just don't talk much in general, but either theory further explains why her family hasn't considered putting their nervous wreck of a daughter in therapy, since this might just seem normal to them (especially since Komi's mom and the rest of the women in the family seem to make up the difference by being the more talkative and outgoing members of the family). Obviously that's a double-edged sword and I don't really see the show having the family come to any type of realization, but I do appreciate the family moments even if that wasn't the show's primary goal. I can only assume we will be moving back to the school setting for these remaining couple of episodes so it will be interesting to see if Komi applies any of the new skills that she's learned to that original setting that gave her so much anxiety. It'll also be interesting to see what other characters get introduced to the rotating support cast. Will we get more characters that just randomly show up for a quick skit or will we have more regular members of Komi's inner circle? I guess we'll just have to wait and see next week!

Rating: Komi Can't Communicate is currently streaming on Netflix.