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A short but sweet manga, that managed to pack a suprising amount of characterization and character development into it's 12 chapters.
I definitely reccomend giving it a read, especially if you enjoy character-based stories.

The main girl has a suprising amount of depth and feels quite realistic, which is something you don't often see with 'quirky female lead' characters; especially in romance series. She has agency outside of her relationship with the main character, and isn't written as though she is 'for' him, but for herself.

The artstyle is so cute--I added it to my list because of the cover art, which is so colourful and dynamic I ... just had to give it a try! Lots of pretty panels, and consistent in the character models and style. I particularly liked how the darker haired characters would sometimes have a lineless gradient style for the back of their hair, it looked so pretty.

Well… this manga started off promising. It starts with a little bait-and-switch where the cute Ayaka is flirting desperately with the cool Hiroko, and we are led to believe it’s one sided on her side, only for the end of the first chapter to reveal the feelings are mutual but Hiroko is holding back.
But then, Hiroko keeps holding back to the point of repeatedly hurting Ayaka… and I ended up being unable to root for their relationship. I do enjoy tropes about insecure love interests, but this manga infuriated me with how frequently Hiroko would hurt Ayaka (by acccident, but in ways she REALLY should ... know would hurt her) and how dense she was for the most part. Personally, the other girl in love with Ayaka is a much better fit, but she isn’t in the title so… no dice!
Overall, this manga starts as a cute story between two OL’s, but the choices with the writing of Hiroko and how far the ‘insecure love interest misunderstanding’ trop is pushed caused me to drop it, it just was too infuriating for me! It also falls into the pitfall of accidentally making the other love interest better suited for the protagonist…

Mixed feelings tag, how I love thee—it’s the perfect summary of my thoughts in this manga!
The start of this manga is extremely enjoyable, and I would give it an 8/10–up until around the time where Komi and Tadano get together. At this point of the manga, I’d actually give it a 6.5 but that isn’t an option, so a 6 it is!

My first issue is with Komi herself. Unfortunately, due to being a character with a strong ‘schtick’ there is a cap on how much development Komi can have as a character. Whilst I do love her, I found myself rooting for the romance between ... Tadano and Manbagi far more as I had a clearer and more emotional journey with Manbagi’s character over Komi’s. I feel like Manbagi is by far the best written character of this manga, with a wonderful character journey and heaps of development culminating in her taking the lead and confessing to Tadano with some wonderful friendship moments with Komi beforehand). It was rather upsetting for her confession to be used as the motivation for Tadano and Komi to get together, and this started the dating arc on a weaker foot for me. Tadano agreeing to date Manbagi until she herself stopped him and pointed out his own feelings was actually very interesting—but I wish there was more time spent on this before he started dating Komi. This issue, however, is something I very much understand not being shared by others as it is dependent on my attachment to Manbagi. To reiterate, I’m not upset my ‘best girl’ didn’t win—Komi’s name is literally the title after all!—it is the way it was handled, and the slight disparity in the amount of character development each girl got.

My second issue is the shift in focus to the side characters. These characters can be fun—I personally find them hit or miss—but I felt the start of the manga focused more on the romance and communication disorder side, and then later shifted to being more comedic. I feel there are also far too many characters, so many of them don’t get enough focus and I have to go back and check who they are when they come up again. Thought—the ones who do get focus beyond their name puns are largely very enjoyable! One particular character I have issue with is with Ren Yamai. The ‘crazy lesbian’ trope is surprisingly common in anime (Miharu, Kuroko, Nina Einstein, etc) and is in my opinion quite a harmful one, as it perpetuates negative stereotypes and paranoia about lesbians. Whilst I am certain this was in no way the authors intent, this character still rubs me the wrong way; and also makes me uncomfortable to watch rather than finding her funny.

Overall, Komi-san is a fairly solid manga, that certainly has a very strong start, and is still a fairly enjoyable read. I can certainly see why the manga is so popular, and there are many recent chapters I loved as much as the start of the manga.

The initial premise, as seen in the title, was very interesting—the wife trying to contain herself and the husband thinking he was doing something wrong. To me, the start of the manga was decently enjoyable and somewhat unique in concept.
However, I feel the manga eventually loses this initial premise—which can work, but was not done gradually and via character development—and it is replaced with the main couple being badass or adorable, and everyone else swooning over them. This style of manga, where the author wants to show us how amazing the protagonists are every turn, is just not my cup of tea; and so ... I stopped reading a while after the turning point from the original status quo. (I’d recommend reading up to ~43? Each chapter is only about 5 pages long so it’s not as arduous as it sounds!) I just found myself mildly annoyed by how amazing the characters are being pushed at me every chapter…
However, I can still see many people enjoying this manga as a simple and cute romcom. I will also highlight that the artwork is very good!

[this review is partially copied over from my old account!]
I love this manga!
It shares an artist with another amazing manga, Ore Monogatari, which is why I decided to read it.
And certainly, the art is amazing. Like Monogatari, it uses really crazy and funny facial expressions but still retains a soft shoujo vibe. I feel it perfectly captures the awkward but sweet and fluffy feelings of a first real romance exceptionally well.
Whilst still using the typical ‘misunderstanding style’ plot found in many romance manga, I feel like it’s still a largely refreshing take on the genre (one twist in particular)
All of the characters are likeable, which ... strengthened the duller parts of the story as I just enjoyed seeing them interact and develop in the series. Towards the end, there is one bafflingly weird choice in story, with an equally strange conclusion—however, it is only a few chapters and does no hamper much!
If manga isn’t your thing, whilst it has no anime (yet…. Fingers are crossed!), it has a wonderful drama adaptation that is most certainly worth your while!
I would definitely give this a read if you like a good romcom, it’s a feel good and fun manga with a lot of heart!

Set in 1984, Hiroshima, ‘Yuunagi’ is a powerful manga packed with emotion—a boy finds a new passion in Ribbon Gymnastics Dancing. However, it is a sport that was (and still is) seen as ‘for girls’; meaning he will face many hardships trying to persue this new passion.
Backdropping this story is a family life where the main characters mother has recently passed away, leaving his father harsher and colder than before; and his sister picking up the pieces. The dynamics between these three characters are very well established and I am excited to see them explored further into the story—already, the sister has surprised me with ... the realistic and heartfelt writing of their relationship.
Another notable character is the Gymnastics Teacher, who wonderfully encourages our protagonist to follow his dreams despite knowing he will face some ridicule for them. I enjoy how she does not sugarcoat her feedback and thoughts, but still is a truly kind and motivating teacher. I see the character writing as the strongest part of the story, and as this is a very character driven tale it works immensely well!
Of course, another highlight is the gorgeous artstyle—you can see from the cover of the MAL page that Kurokawa is masterful at beautifully depicting motion and elegance in their characters.
The delicate artwork and storytelling combine with the raw emotions at play to bring this manga to life in a truly special way—definitely one to read!

It’s somewhat hard to rate an anthology altogether, especially one like this with no interconnectivity between each story.
So, here’s a short review and scoring for each of the three stories!
Kanini & Kanino—a cute fantasy family story. Lovely animation, and adorable characters, but very predictable and hits all the story beats that you would expect. I enjoyed the world and am sad that the short runtime meant we didn’t get to see much of it. Overall, whilst I wouldn’t say it did anything wrong, it wasn’t very impactful in the end. 7/10

Life Ain’t Gonna Lose—as a slice of life fan, I very much enjoyed this one. ... Just focusing on the struggles of a mother and her son who had a severe egg allergy in a world where most things have eggs in them. It sort of made me thing about how difficult that must be, as eggs are something used in a plethora of products; even things you don’t think would have them do. Again, the animation style was gorgeous—more unique than the last story, reminiscent of ‘Up on Poppy hill’ and ‘only yesterday’. 8/10

Invisible—I loved this one! It’s about an invisible man that no one notices; and who is tethered to the ground only by the fire extinguisher he straps to his back to stop himself from floating away into space! This one had my favourite animation style of the three, being shaky and somewhat gloomy to match the characters state of mind. The sound design was also impeccable. 10/10

So overall, I gave it an 8/10 as I feel it was the best balance of the three scores!

Another short animation that made me really want a full series.
Firstly, I really loved the song it’s an MV for.
The characters designs were really nice, especially the main girls ‘magical girl’ forms and the ways the infinity symbol were incorporated into her outfits and hair was really cool and clever! The artstyle and animation were stunningly fluid, and I really enjoyed the fire effects.
The story suffered a little from it being a dialogue free music video, but that’s to be expected. I could still tell what was going on, and it’s a story with the potential to be really powerful if fleshed out into a ... full series.

It seems really inexplicable to give a two-minute advert a 9/10 but here I am!
This is just a two-minute ad, but it manages to pack an impressive amount of expression and personality into it, which is why I gave it such a high score. It really shows the importance of expressions and body language in characters; and highlights how much can be conveyed in short periods of time by a talented team.
It speaks volumes to Shinkai’s skill when he could make me care about and ship two characters within two minutes, using their environments and expressions to very clearly express who they are. I found ... myself really wanting a full film about them!
And of course, the art is gorgeous—it’s by Makoto Shinkai.