Komi Can’t Communi-date! Now that she and Tadano are finally a couple, they can finally go do things. So they do. There’s also a graduation, the school song goes death metal, and Najimi does their good deed. Also pin-ups. Literally.
I like that this series has gotten so swamped with characters that it can just go off on a wildly tangential digression where Komi is merely peripheral to the usual nonsense and still have a reasonably good time.
The case in point is the graduation, which lets outgoing hoodlum, I mean president, Icho have her little moment through the eyes of… somebody… and has Komi pop up, but is mostly an excuse to have the most insane graduation ceremony I’ve seen in a manga.
As a pile of baloney, it’s very fun. However, it also illustrates this series’ massive problem: the massive cast. Bringing back characters we haven’t seen in ages is fine, but until the end of the story I legitimately had no memory of seeing Icho before. And I’m old, but I’m not that old.
Thus, character jokes exist that are clearly meant to be funny, but short of context they don’t cross the finish line to actually being funny. The random jokes are fine, the specific ones are not. These are all one-note characters, it wouldn’t be hard to toss in a couple pages to just remind us who they are.
Don’t get me wrong, I sure remember Ase and Naruse (bless that moron and his White Day gift). And Tsunde, world’s greatest tsundere. I just wish I got excited when whoever the heck arrived back on the scene, which is a sprawling number of possibilities at this point. Can you remember who loves shogi from ten plus volumes ago? Not me (not that old!)!
The vast majority of this volume concerns Tadano and Komi’s first date, which, naturally, everybody gets involved in, one way or another. It’s a pretty blasé date - the two of them both working through the awkward isn’t necessarily gripping - but the tagalongs keep it light and, for all my harumph, I really like Tadano and Komi talking about their perspectives and worries rather than bottling things up. That’s… actually healthy!
Honestly, the sentiment in this volume is probably working better than the comedy for me. Najimi decides to address the long-forgotten premise of Komi making a hundred friends, but that spins out into a very loving tribute to the entire class of weirdos as they change up going into their third year.
There’s also a huge pin-up section that, if nothing else, illustrates how wobbly this series can be. Some of these single pages are absolutely hilarious, while others are just kind of lying there, sputtering out from the off. Points for trying - the series is always up to something, I will happily give it that much.
3 stars - it’s Komi, it’s got a chuckle here and there (Najimi’s pin-up and their leaving for the ramen museum are highlights) and it has that comfy, old-shoe fit that makes it a cozy read, but consistency has never been its strong suit. Also, Yamai is in this volume, so three stars.