Komi or Urabe?
Comparing two works that are in roughly the same genre: Romantic Comedy
No I won’t actually be discussing the ‘best’ character here or anything of the sorts. After having both read Komi Can’t Communicate and Mysterious Girlfriend X, I felt they were going for some similar vibes, but are quiet drastically different in execution. One might simply point out it’s the difference between a ‘seinen’ work and ‘shonen’ work. Even if I take that all for granted, it’s still interesting to look at the differences.
Both manga’s have an anime, which I will also be comparing — insofar I have seen them.
Komi can’t communicate can probably best be summed up as a comedic romance story set in Japanese high school about an ‘average’ guy hooking up with the ‘most popular girl in the school’, Komi, who incidentally, has troubles speaking. Yes. Speaking, communicating, despite what the title says, not so much. For some reason, all characters often just understand what Komi wants, and well. In both cases it’s used for comedic effect. Komi has to fetch a drink at a restaurant? The barkeeper magically knows exactly what she is looking for. Often characters interpret Komi’s tense blank stare as some kind of intense gaze of disproval. Komi — the story — has a lot of characters. And frankly, outside from the ‘childhood friend’ Najimi, none of them stand out. I mean, there is a literal ninja in the class, that’s how hard it goes on the tropes. When the story tries to flesh them out, it’s surrounded by so many jokes that the reader can hardly even remember what should make them a 2D character. Let alone 3D.
The overall aim of the manga seems to showcasing how many different people exist all with their own pitfalls. One might say disabilities… but that is a word hinged on context, implying they are unable to do something. Komi, after all, slowly learns to speak over the course of the story. (well, I would assume so). Rather, uniqueness, diversity or special needs, is the more apt term. The story fails to make this more compelling beyond the first few chapters.
Mysterious Girlfriend X, is a romantic comedy, and at times, a bit of a sexualising one. Also set in a Japanese High school. “average guy gets the mysterious lady”. Except that well, Tsubaki (the guy) gets the ‘girl’ very early on. What are the stakes then? Getting to first base. Like so many romantic works, that is the sole target of the story. MGX has way less characters, with only 4 being essential and then often a 5th ‘antagonist’, AKA rivalling woman. The two couples (of course.) are good friends and often talk about their relationship to the other. This often leads to Tsubaki trying to get Urabe (the mysterious girl) to do some tacky romantic thing. And that’s really the structure of most of the chapters.
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MGX has one more trick up it’s sleeve though, and it’s not the rivals. Urabe and by extension her relation with Tsubaki, is really, really odd. Yes they have romantic feelings for one another. Not in some crazy tsundere or other tropey way. Urabe explicitly rejects any ‘normal’ way of going about romance. Hence, the target of first base. This in conjuction with the crazy dreams Tsubaki has (we as readers see Escheresque cityscapes filled with odd creatures) can give rise to the feeling there is more to it all.
What message does this work seem to have? Well, that there is not strict way of going about romance. More even, it seems to say that the more unique the romance, the better it becomes. Oh and the author straight up has notes in many volumes sharing their vision.
Above all, they wanted to make something weird. “Don’t you think a girl who drools when she falls asleep is cut? Well, this comic is about that sort of girl” (translation errors are a possibility) Yet it presents something of a coherent message and seems in my opinion to be doing something subversive. I actually don’t want to spoil the end, even though I barely recommend reading it…
… and that doesn’t mean I recommend the anime. The Komi anime is even more bogged down by the exaggerated expressions and frames. Something I forgot to mention before, MGX, for all it’s weirdness, never really uses exaggerated facial expressions. Komi (the story) on the other hand, can’t help but display cat ears on Komi every chapter…
Now the MGX anime was an OVA and didn’t even cover half of the story, so it’s really not recommended. It’s oddly faithful though, in style and story, to the point of being a really good adaption? What’s more it adds these cheesy but effective bits of music, to creep the watcher out more than the manga already does.
Concluding, I think MGX is more successful in it’s execution. It’s a work I feel that is at least worth mentioning. Komi, could have been replaced by a myriad of works in this comparison. Yet, I think both of them are pretty bad. MGX has definitive sexualization issues, falls into a few other pitfalls of the genre and generally overstays it’s welcome by a long shot. Were it a fourth of it’s current length, I think I would recommend it. Especially to young people. Challenging romance staples is in my opinion a good thing. It’s a trope of course, but MGX generally pulls it off well.
Komi is… well it’s commendable for trying to do something with ‘diversity’ especially in the stale genre of Shonen. Trying being the keyword, there have been tons of articles on how the story does this poorly. And that’s really all I can say about it.
