ODA Tomohito Name (in native language):小田智仁 Associated Names:オダトモヒト
Tomohito Oda won the grand prize for World Worst One in the 70th Shogakukan New Comic Artist Awards in 2012. Oda’s series Digicon, about a tough high school girl who finds herself in control of an alien with plans for world domination, ran from 2014 to 2015.
Overall, this series is still good, but this volume isn't the best to recommend to a new reader. It's almost a forgettable installment. The first eleven chapters collected here can be described as tropey and uninspired. However, the last three chapters introduces a new friend for Komi, a tsundere grade schooler, which made for an interesting mini arc. It's a story that shows Komi's growth, because the way she got close to Rei was based on her encounters with her first friends. It's a story that's only possible because of what she has experienced so far.
This volume, focused on summer and spending time with current friends (rather than making more), felt like a sweet interlude to the main story. But it's also a reminder why Komi wants friends in the first place; as scared as she is of social interaction, friends (of all their various types and weirdnesses) are worth having and people are not defined by their distinctive and/or embarrassing trait. Fun entry and looking forward to the continuation of this series.
**Thanks to the artist, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
I accidentally skipped this volume and had to double back. The first two-thirds turned out to be fairly skippable with the introduction of a new teacher and a fairly typical manga beach excursion among other summer break activities. But I was glad to have the opening chapters of Komi's young houseguest storyline that I had already read the conclusion of.
Anyhow, not a great volume in the series, but certainly another perfectly good one.
End of exams (Komi does very well, yay!) and then it's a (pretty generic) summer volume (choosing swimsuits! hit the beach!) where we see Komi getting better in her struggle with social anxiety, reaching out to others a bit, talking to them in a way she did not in the earliest volumes. This is not one of the most memorable entries in this series, but we also see a new teacher with social anxiety, and a little kid with it, Rei, whom Komi befriends, underscoring how common this issue is for so many people.
Najimi remains fun, just a likable character, Oda not making a big deal about this character's being trans, which is a good thing, she's just part of the group. Timid Tadano gets a little active and "rescues" Rumiko Manbagi from a bunch of aggressive boys at the beach--our hero!--but is Rumiko suddenly competition for Komi?! (I doubt it). Otherwise, this is mostly just a basic, feel-good comfort read.
This series fills me with endless joy. This volume was great fun, a nod to last year's summer with entirely new stories and character combinations. Rei is a wonderful new character particularly, and the Manbagi/Tadano situation is the perfect amount of drama for this book. We also got more of Komi's young parents here which I politely asked for not long ago, so I'm pleased.
Very cute, very clever, and soul enriching. I prescribe this series to everyone who's not reading it, doctor's orders.
Summer adventures, relationship drama, and a new houseguest for Komi. The socially awkward standoffs and entertaining efforts to connect continue across Vol. 12 of this consistently wonderful series.
okay I love Komi and Manbagi's friendship 💓 Loving all these glimpses into her parents life and her brother so much! So cute that she was very sisterly towards that young girl, Rei
While I enjoyed some aspects of this volume, overall it was kind of meh. I didn't care for Rei's chapters and the opening chapter was kind of boring, too. Something I noticed while reading this volume was that the series tends to bounce between "just okay" or "really awesome" and it's kind of frustrating. I understand that expecting a long running slice-of-life rom-com to be consistently perfect is unfair and I'm aware my feelings are subjective, but it's frustrating to read a really good volume than read a mediocre one back to back.
The biggest problem with the more mediocre volumes is that I feel like there's no reread-ability to them; since this is a slice-of-life series with a relatively simple plot, rereading a volume I didn't like seems pointless. I'd rather just flip through and reread specific chapters than the whole volume, which feels like I wasted money buying it only to reread maybe two chapters. Maybe this is just me, I don't know, but the inconsistent quality (at least to me) really bothers me.
Sorry for the rant. Like I said, this was an okay volume. I'm not sure if how much longer I'll continue with this series, but I'm at least going to read the next volume.
School’s! Out! For! Oh, you know. After some library games and exams, everybody is gearing up for summer. The beach beckons and the word boyfriend is uttered, then Komi’s got a houseguest of pint-sized proportions. And no, not much communication, in case you were worried.
It can’t be coincidence that this is a super strong volume of this series and Yanai is absent except for literally two panels. It also doesn’t hurt that there’s a lot of Rumiko Manbagi here and I might like her more than the leads at this point.
The exam section starts strong with a Najimi game that actually works really well and is incredibly funny (and also one that Najimi has NO chance of winning). It ties into the exam preparations, which also produce some surprising results (ugh, Manbagi is so sweet here).
Once we hit the beach things get even funnier. This whole section is a goldmine, starting with the oddest swimsuit shopping to date, followed by the book quietly pointing out how important Najimi is to everything by removing them from the equation (their reappearance towards the end of the book is great, along with possibly the best LINE joke I’ve ever seen).
Naruse, the resident egomaniac, is a shocking standout in this section. His swimsuit has to be seen to be believed and when he suffers an unexpected accident he ends up in the care of the very sweaty Ase, who still isn’t terribly interesting, but they make an amusing pair.
There’s a whole section involving a group of self-proclaimed players trying to mack on all the women they can find and up until the very end it goes a lot differently and a lot more humorously than it ever should have. The book has a lot of fun de-fanging them and the ending definitely portends for future story developments at the same time.
The last section focuses on a young child who is a friend of the family visiting and it’s one of the weaker sections (along with the very first part, which involves a teacher and is merely okay). The wee one is fairly tsundorable, but even with some cute parts it takes Najimi to truly kick this one into high gear.
Okay, then again, once Najimi IS there this goes to some amazing places. Najimi’s incredibly good with kids and the most insane Pokémon parody I’ve ever seen is brought to bear. It makes no sense but I absolutely loved it - best part of the book hands down (and Tadano knows how to handle a tsundere).
4 stars, easy as pie. This is a really good volume and it uses a lot of the cast to great effect, which is when this series shines the brightest. Definitely a step above the baseline for these instalments.
Komi Can’t Communicate Vol. 12 was another great addition to the series as the characters finish their exams and begin summer break.
With summer break right around the corner, Komi and her friends just need to make it through exams, if they can avoid being thrown out of the library, and they're free for several weeks. As Komi comes up with a summer to-do list, her friends quickly join in and soon they have enough plans to last them months!
Komi Can’t Communicate continues to be one of my favorite manga series that I've read recently. The premise of a girl who can't communicate wanting to make 100 friends is a lot of fun. In this volume Komi makes one additional friend bringing her to thirty-three friends so far. The bulk of the volume is dedicated to her spending time with her existing friends so she's not really focused on making more this time around. It was nice to see a bit of a shift towards her goal in this one as while she wants to hit 100 friends, she also wants to spend time with the ones she already has.
The start of this volume is the group preparing for exams and Najimi gets up to their usual hijinks which I enjoyed. Once exams are over and Komi begins making her to-do list, her friends join in and add to the list which you can see makes Komi really happy. But then once break has started, Komi isn't sure how to go about getting her friends involved to tackle the list. Ultimately Manbagi is the one who gets things started with a trip to the beach. I will say there seemed to be a few hints here that Manbagi may have a crush on Tadano which I didn't love. The end of this volume is where Komi meets Rei, the daughter of one of her mother's friends who comes to stay for a while. Komi is adorable here when she tries to befriend Rei as Rei initially wants nothing to do with her.
Overall Komi Can’t Communicate Vol. 12 was a fun read and I'm looking forward to picking up the next volume soon.
shosuke spotted. Page 140 communication/chapter 168: Hot Milk. Right page, second panel, left hand side, his full body (except feet) are shown from a back view while sitting at the dinner table. shosuke spotted again. Page 166 communication/chapter: Playing with dolls. Right page, second panel, left hand side, the top of his fluffy hair, both legs, left shoulder and left arm while sitting at the dinner table. shosuke spotted once more. Page 176 communication/chapter: WcDonald’s. Right page, panel 5, left hand side, his body from the waist up (minus hands) turned to the left at a 35 degree angle with his face hidden, sitting in his desk chair in his room after being startled. shosuke is adorable. I love shosuke. 5 stars.
It’s always a little bit rough getting back into a series after a long time, but as I read this volume, I was slowly reminded of how cute this series is.
A friend asked me the other day when the MC and the love interest will kiss and I said that she was in for a long ride because this series is suuuuuuper slow burn. But I love the small moments, like in this volume, where you can see the cracks forming to let through that shared interest they have in each other.
Anyway, this was cute and I always love their summer vacations because it helps Komi socialize more and come that much closer to overcoming her social anxiety!
In the begining we get to see how komi wants to spend her summer since she really never spent her summer with a big group of friends, shes a little shy with sharing what she would like to do. Later on her plans get discovered and all her friends would like to do all the things she would like to do and even offer fun ideas, i really love how it ended up. I like how we also see Manbagi experience these things too. We also see how Manbai could end up having feelings for tandano after he helps her by standing up to some weirdos.
Though there are no major events taking place in this volume, it was fun nonetheless.
I always enjoy me some Katai and Naruse (both hilarious on their own way), and we got another of those cute young Komi's parents' episode, so that's a bonus.
I didn't care that much about the little Rei girl in the last part of this issue, but it was still fun to see Komi's interactions with her, and how she's evolved through her interactions with Tadano, Najimi et al when it comes to make friends... or try to, at least.
It's been a while since I've read one of these. I'm not quite sure where my standards should be. But I enjoyed this volume very much. It was quite fun, and near the end, Komi meets a friend that I believe will be a big part of later volumes. I do think this book is worth five stars.
Một tập nhẹ nhàng của series truyện. Các bạn học sinh bắt đầu bước vào kì nghỉ hè, Komi có một buổi đi chơi bãi biển với mọi người. Sau đó, Komi được làm quen với đứa em gái, con một người bạn của mẹ. - Cô giáo mới có những tương tác dễ thương với Najimi và Komi. Bà cố Najimi lươn lẹo kinh :>. - Komi và các bạn cùng ôn thi. Cảnh Manbagi bị tung chưởng và cười phớ lớ với hội bạn ngay sau đó cute hết nấc luôn. À, còn trò đùa "non nerd" của Komi nữa, cho em vái lạy dịch giả mấy lạy. - Komi lên kế hoạch cho kì nghỉ hè và được các bạn sửa và thêm thắt nhiều chỗ. Đọc đến đoạn này vừa hài vừa cảm động. Ông già Tadano đòi đi đập dưa hấu với chả nặn gốm. - Komi bắt đầu bước vào kì nghỉ hè. Có trồng cây, tập thể dục buổi sáng nhưng highlight chắc chắn là đi chơi bãi biển với lũ bạn. Đứa nào cũng ít nói nên bày đặt chơi trò nối chữ xua tan không khí khó xử. Gặp mình mình cũng làm vậy thôi à :)). - Làm quen và chơi với đứa em gái mới quen. Phần này đọc nhẹ nhàng thôi, Komi được thể hiện cũng rất dễ thương và nỗ lực trong việc làm thân với ẻm. Tập này Komi cũng nói hơi nhiều nữa hehe.