Characters / Komi Can't Communicate - Main Characters

Komi Can't Communicate Character Index
Main Characters | School Friends | Itan High School | Family Members and Related | Other Characters

Note: For consistency's sake, all names in the headings are in East Asian order, i.e. surname first. It makes it easier to see any Japanese-language puns in them.

WARNING: This page may contain unmarked spoilers. Beware if you are not updated with the manga.

Main characters

Komi Shouko

Komi Shouko

Voiced by: Aoi Koga (Japanese), Amber Lee Connors (English), Estel Tort (Castilian Spanish), Jessica Angeles (Latin American Spanish)

Introduction: Chapters 1 through 7 (Manga)

So... Would you make me... your first friend?

An overwhelmingly beautiful and quiet girl who is the object of admiration for all of the school body at Itan High School. Though she is put on a pedestal, in reality, she's painfully timid and has a severe problem with communicating with others, making her isolated and lonely. She is named class "goddess" by her classmates, an informal position made up by them because they deem the position of class president as too lowly for her, making her a member of the class bureaucracy and thus providing her with interaction with the other members, President Tadano (her very first friend), Vice-President Najimi and Library Committee member Agari. Her dream is to have one hundred friends, a goal that she starts slowly reaching through Tadano and Najimi's help.

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• The Ace: She's good at everything she tries to do, except talking. She's athletic enough to win school competitions and her grades are often some of the best in her year. She's able to pick up skills like snowboarding and ice skating in minutes and is almost immediately able to throw a strike when she goes bowling for the first time. When Tadano teaches Komi how to ride a bicycle and she isn't learning as fast, he starts to suspect that the bike is broken because she would otherwise have figured it out right away. Sure enough, when she rides Tadano's bicycle instead, she gets going immediately.
• Affectionate Nickname: She has a bunch:
  • "Shouko-onee-chan" - by her cousin Akira and her mother's friend's daughter Rei;
  • "Scary-nee-chan"/"Shaa-nee-chan" - by Onemine's younger siblings ("Shaa" due to the fact that their older sister tells them that Komi is shy);
  • "Shokotaso" - by Manbagi's friends;
  • "Sile'Kill-Neechan" - by the neighborhood kids who witnessed her snow fight "execution" of Yamai;
  • "Discommunication Komi" - by the first-year delinquents at school (though this one is not as affectionate and it's mistakenly used to refer to Katai instead of her);
  • "Chocolate Mama" - by the workers at the cat café she frequents, due to her closeness to the boss lady cat Chocolate;
  • "Cocco/Kokko" - by a baby she smiles at so he stops crying.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Komi looks the part, being a tall, much-admired beauty with long dark hair who comes off as cold and quiet. However, she's not aloof, just very nervous.
• Animal Motifs: Komi frequently gets compared to a cat, both because of her long legs and seemingly standoffish personality. Whenever excited, she also has a tendency to sprout cat ears.
• Art Shift: When people who don't know Komi well interact with her, she looks like she does in the folder picture - beautiful but set apart. When people who do know Komi well interact with her, she's drawn with massive, staring eyes and no mouth to symbolize how nervous she is.
• Attractiveness Isolation: Komi is so profoundly beautiful that people are afraid to approach her. This combined with her natural anxiety makes her worry that they avoid her because there's something wrong with her.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: One of the nicest characters in the story. She's also very beautiful.
• Best Friend:
  • Tadano is in equal parts her best, first, and dearest friend. Without him, she'd still be trapped in a bubble that was none of her own making. Due to this, and regardless of any possible romantic development, there is already a precious place in Komi's heart reserved for Tadano alone.
  • Manbagi, Sasaki, and Kato are shown to be her most intimate and precious female friends. Manbagi eventually becomes her very best female friend after they have a mutual Platonic Declaration of Love in Chapter 228.
  • Played with in the case of Najimi, who is alongside Tadano, her most constant companion. However, theirs is an Odd Friendship, as detailed in Najimi's entry of said trope.
• Betty and Veronica: Veronica to Manbagi's Betty. Though it's just because of her mysterious aura, as she isn't by any means standoffish and unapproachable.
• Blessed with Suck: Too much of a good thing is bad, and Komi is not an exception. She's so beautiful that she has no social life whatsoever, as nobody ever interacts with her like she's a normal human being.
• Born Lucky: If luck is a factor in any game she plays, she'll probably win it. She also draws a Great Luck fortune during the New Year lottery.
• Broken Ace: She's very beautiful, very talented, and very lucky, which leads to enormous admiration from her classmates... but she's also a very lonely girl who thinks of herself as creepy. She deeply wants friends but doesn't know how to make them.
• Broken Record: Poor Komi becomes this during the first year without the aid of something to write on, being unable to pronounce anything but the first syllables of a word, such as "Nananana-"^note Possibly trying to say "nante", which means "what", "Mamamama-"^note "Matte", wait, "Tatatata-"^note "Tadano", and more.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: To the point that nobody has ever even realized it was supposed to be a joke. Tadano even mistook it for some sort of code.
• Character Development: It's subtle and painstakingly slow for her, but she slowly grows out of her dependency on using notebooks as a way to communicate.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Downplayed, but Komi has gone through bouts of jealousy towards both Katai and Onemine when she misinterpreted their interactions with Tadano as them having feelings for him.
• Cool Big Sis:
  • Her cousin Akira views her as one, and is quite close to her, often imitating how Komi acts (including sprouting cat ears at times)
  • Rei eventually starts to see her as one, to the point where she starts imitating Komi's mannerisms, and even nearly calls her "Shouko-onee-chan" at one point.
  • She becomes this to the neighbor kids after her categorical triumph at the snow fight.
  • Though it's hilariously subverted when it comes to Shousuke. She'd like to be viewed as one, but her attempts tend to lead to her overly doting on and pestering him. However, it's shown that Shousuke denies her nothing in spite of his grumbling.
• Covert Pervert: While she's certainly not generally lustful, Komi is also not nearly as innocent as many of her admirers assume.
  • In Chapter 143 she blushes and looks away when she catches a glimpse of Tadano's briefs, but then immediately looks back in the next panel. The next page has her sneaking another look.
  • When Tadano dresses as a maid for the culture festival, Komi very much wants to feel his "boobs" and proceeds to grope Tadano with enthusiasm after he gives her permission.
  • In chapter 349 Komi spontaneously starts enthusiastically brushing Tadano's face with her hair, she gives no explanation for her behavior (though it happens in response to Tadano saying he likes every part of her) but is extremely earnest, perhaps aware that Tadano long ago developed a "fetish" for her hair.
  • In chapter 358 she takes some surprisingly provocative photos of herself with the intent to send them to Tadano and get a photo of him in return (though she's too embarrassed to go through with it and ends up just sending one that looks like a normal photo I.D.)
  • Her first real kiss with Tadano awakens her thirsty side, prompting her to take the lead with uncharacteristic assertiveness and pin him down for more.
  • Chapter 427 has her trying (and failing) to covertly deal with going into kissing withdrawal.
• Creepy Loner Girl: Played with. Before she met Tadano, Komi's impression of herself amounted to this. She thinks of herself as weird and gloomy, this being the reason why she thinks people keep away from her and murmur while ogling at her, as she doesn't perceive their awe and admiration of her presence.
• Crush Blush: Whenever the subject of her feelings for Tadano is brought up. She is very tenderly in love with him.
• The Cutie:
  • Almost everything she does is adorable and full of whimsy. This is, notwithstanding that she's already beautiful, which is like the cherry on top of the cake.
    Tadano: (Watching Komi trying to catch goldfish) No matter what Komi-san does, it's so picturesque...
  • During one of her first outings on a bicycle with Tadano and Manbagi, she arrives late because she rides below running speed and even has to get off the bike to make turns. She's like a little kid who has just learned to ride.
• Daddy's Girl: She's her dad's treasure and his pride and joy, having a particularly close relationship due in part to their shared communicative problems and prevalent use of mutual body language. As a matter of fact, he'd be overprotective if he wasn't as bad at communicating as his daughter is.
• Dandere: Komi only regularly opens up to her family, Tadano, and a few close friends. Her inability to do so otherwise plays a big part in her School Idol reputation, as she comes off as aloof to those who don't know better.
• Death Glare: Subverted. This is what her Face of a Thug often gives away to people; in reality, her look expresses nervousness and her Tsurime Eyes only invoke the wrong feeling. Funnily enough, the one-shot pilot often had her accidentally send people off with this exact expression.
  • Played straight, however, in Chapter 25/Episode 4. After learning Yamai kidnapped Tadano and intended to take his place as her best friend, Komi's◊ expression◊ clearly carries a notable degree of Tranquil Fury.
• Dude Magnet: In droves. Almost every boy she meets falls in love with her, but is usually at odds with how to approach her, as Komi can't provide feedback; as such, there are surprisingly few boys (if any at that) who approach her with romantic intentions that she can recognize. She's just too beautiful for them not to make a mess out of themselves.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The one-shot pilot chapter changed the nature of Komi's Social Anxiety, having her range from being The Voiceless to the Motor Mouth at the drop of a hat depending on her nervousness. The pilot also portrayed her as a slight Cloud Cuckoolander.
  • The one-shot also made a Running Gag out of Komi unintentionally sending people who approach her a Death Glare.
• Elective Mute:
  • Komi can speak, but she's too shy and too awkward to do it often. As such, she resorts to Talking with Signs.
  • Following Manbagi's encouragement in Chapter 231, Komi begins talking more often without having to use her notebook, especially for serious conversations.
• Emotionally Tongue-Tied: In chapter 149, Katou and Sasaki ask her about confessing to Tadano and going out with him, and she turns bright red because she's too embarrassed to do it.
• Entertainingly Wrong: She states to Katou and Sasaki that she's glad that Manbagi and Tadano achieved some common ground because, to her impression, they never got along. This implies that she's completely unaware that Manbagi has a crush on Tadano, and her "bickering" with Tadano was due to the fact that their interactions made her flustered and acted like a tsundere towards him.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Everyone admires Komi, guys and girls alike. Yamai in particular really wants to get in her pants.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: Out of all the people she befriended, Yamai is the only one she doesn't really like due to her kidnapping Tadano early on. She merely tolerates her presence since then due to Yamai lessening her Yandere and Jerkass tendencies.
• Extreme Doormat: For starters, she befriended Yamai a day after Yamai kidnapped Tadano. Usually, her initial method of solving a conflict between two characters is telling them just to get along.
• Expy: She has a lot in common with Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh. Both are tall, attractive high school girls with long dark hair and curvaceous builds. Both give off an aura of being aloof, frosty and at times intimidating despite actually being sweet and painfully shy with a fondness for cats. Both are shown to be academically gifted and very athletic, particularly when it comes to running, and develop a mostly one-sided rivalry with a more competitive girl. Finally, both start off the series friendless due to their extremely withdrawn personalities and people not wanting to approach them, before developing a friend group over the course of the series.
• Face of a Thug: A rare female example. Her beauty and aloof behavior invite people's admiration but also intimidate them from becoming closer to her. On the inside, she's just a very shy and sweet girl who wants to make friends.
• Faster Than They Look: Komi's legs are not just for show. She's an excellent runner, fast enough to compete toe-to-toe with Netsuno-senpai, notwithstanding the fact that Netsuno herself is a multidisciplinary athlete and the very best athlete at school overall.
• Favors for the Sexy: Invoked and subverted. Komi's life has not been particularly easier just because she's gorgeous. Before entering high school, she effectively spent her childhood completely friendless and missed out on a multitude of experiences that were readily available to other children. It's shown repeatedly that the classmates that most adulate her and put her on an altar don't get to be close to her regardless of actively trying to curry her favor because she's the first person who doesn't think that she's worthy of said adulation, so it makes her extremely uncomfortable. In fact, the people she's the closest to are those that simply treat her as a normal person.
• Fear of Thunder: A thunderstorm startles her enough to make her knees give out, and her mother (& Tadano by phone) has to comfort her.
• First Love: Manbagi asks Komi about her first love. While she doesn't reveal his name, Komi admits that it's Tadano.
• First-Name Basis:
  • Manbagi starts referring to her as "Shouko-chan" in Chapter 234 after Komi herself started calling her "Rumiko-chan" in Chapter 228, cementing their status as Heterosexual Life-Partners.
  • She tried to invoke this towards Tadano in an early chapter, but immediately dropped it as they were both Twice Shy about it.
• Florence Nightingale Effect: In chapter 99, during winter break when Tadano got sick with a cold, Komi spent the day nursing him after he accidentally dialed her. Then Najimi barged in when she started holding Tadano's hand as he slept.
• Friendless Background: Komi is clearly unhappy over her inability to speak and make friends, and the story's main plot is Tadano helping Komi make 100 friends.
• Girly Run: Komi provides some exceptional examples during the anime, particularly during the credits.
  • But, realistically, Komi also averts this with prejudice during the school sports contest.
• Go Through Me: Stands up in front of Tadano when Yamai intends to kill him for dating Komi. Yes, that is uncharacteristic.
• Happy Place: Whenever she is despairing and cringing over things if she thinks of Tadano, she'll calm down.
• Hates Being Touched: Implied as in chapter 54, the narration stated she was scared because Netsuno was too close to her.
• Height Angst: Dislikes being as tall as she is, to the point of openly panicking at the possibility of passing 170cm (about 5'7"), and is visibly relieved upon being measured at 169cm (roughly half an inch shorter) instead. By her third year of high school she still edges just below 170, at 169.3 cm.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Saw the admiration surrounding her as jeers, which contributed to her social anxiety.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Manbagi, who becomes her most intimate girlfriend.
• Hidden Buxom: She dresses modestly most of the time which constricts her figure. When she's seen in a dress it shows off her curves better, but not until she's in a swimsuit is it fully obvious that she's actually quite busty, arguably second to Agari and Manbagi.
• Hidden Depths:
  • She is a sweeter, kinder, and more accessible person than how she appears at first glance. One of the results of her social isolation is the fact that she is enthusiastically curious about experiencing new stuff.
  • She's also academically intelligent, getting above 90 on all her tests.
  • Komi is very detail-oriented and meticulous and has a tremendous memory of conversations she's had. When Yamai kidnapped Tadano, she later wrote their conversation verbatim.
  • She is surprisingly competitive when it comes to games, sports, interpersonal interactions... and cats. Her competitiveness is a trait she inherited from her grandma and shares with her cousin Akira. In Chapter 212, when she barely loses the interclass relay to Netsuko, she stomps the ground in frustration, Netsuno remarking how surprising it is to see her react like that.
  • As she gains confidence, she begins showing an adorably cocky side to her and a love for "showing off" a bit to people she trusts and wants praise from.
  • It doesn't come up too often, but she has a liking for homophone-based wordplay puns.
  • Once they get to the point where they are confident enough to do it, Komi proves to be quite assertive when it comes to kissing, outright climbing on top of Tadano to pin and kiss him in chapter 412 when he proves too hesitant to kiss her again, her features turning darker to underscore how different she is when amorous. It's outright called her "hidden side" and leaves Tadano shocked that she had such a side.
• Huge Schoolgirl: In her first year of high school she is 168cm (5'6.1") tall; significantly taller than even the average for adult women in Japan, though it causes her Height Angst due to not wanting to be seen as unusual. By her third year she is 169.3cm (5'6.6") and presumably done growing taller.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Komi dreads being called a "goddess" by her classmates, and the adulation she's given causes her nothing but embarrassment. According to herself, it's because this is completely unwarranted due to the fact she herself doesn't recognize the fundamental source of said praises, but she doesn't have the communication skills or the courage to rebuke those. Downplayed as the series goes on, in that while she still considers herself unworthy of the level of praise she gets, she becomes willing to point out her exceptional qualities when necessary (such as when her not being good enough for Tadano is claimed by a rival for him).
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Komi's stated dream is to have 100 friends.
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: Played with. Komi's beauty makes the clothes work and she can rock anything she wears. She'd look gorgeous even dressed as the Michelin Man.
• Improperly Paranoid: Komi has a tendency to agonize over little things and interaction hiccups that normally should not warrant embarrassment or regret, which she thinks will cause people to alienate her, most of which Tadano helps her overcome. She also often thinks that what the reader knows to be people's chitchat surrounding her beauty and demure behavior is actually malicious gossip.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: A somewhat odd example. Komi hasn't had enough significant interactions in her life to be "marred", so all her actions derive from earnestness, curiosity, and wellness for her newly-found friends. For instance, whenever someone she doesn't know interacts with Tadano, rather than getting jealous, she starts worrying about his well-being. She does have her faults, as her silence lends people space to speculate about her, though not always in a good way; she also has the occasional teenage mood when it comes to her parents, and her peers' sociability sometimes brings envy to her. So, while she's not made of angelic feathers and is still a human being, she is a teenage girl who may be purely good, but she needs her personality development, that is.
• The Ingenue: Invoked. Komi is considerably more childish than she appears and approaches new aspects of her life with child-like curiosity; being 15-16 years old, she still enjoys stuff like playing in a children's playground. In practical terms, she is emotionally younger than other people her age, an aspect that was brought upon her due to her isolation. For instance, her affection for Tadano is made more profound and poignant due to her innocent and shy approach. This is touched upon by Isagi, who has the impression that Komi expresses herself like an elementary schooler.
• Irony:
  • For a person who speaks so little, Komi is mentioned to have a beautiful voice in the few instances that she does.
  • Although she looks like an Aloof Dark-Haired Girl, in reality, she's actually a Nervous Wreck. She's an awful lot more of a mess than her appearance suggests.
  • The best mark on her tests was in English, which she was previously shown as having just as much difficulty communicating in as in Japanese.
  • Despite loving cats and having a cat motif, when she visits a cat café, most of them avoid her.
  • For a person that is as beautiful as she is, she holds affection for Tadano, the most plain-faced boy possible. In terms of image, it's a class discrepancy; in terms of feelings, they're meant for each other.
  • Komi, despite having misinterpreted both Katai and Onemine's interactions with Tadano as them having feelings for him, is initially oblivious to Manbagi's crush on him, until Manbagi opened up to her during the school festival.
  • Komi is an astoundingly attractive girl who greatly dreads having people's undue attention because she doesn't know how to handle it. The more she tries to avoid it, the more people flock to her.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: In Chapter 228, she doesn't allow Manbagi to give up on Tadano for her sake, as she argues that she won't be happy if Manbagi has to pay for her happiness. The fact that Komi doesn't let her do so firmly cements Manbagi as her dearest and closest friend.
• Kiddie Kid: While it's not immediately obvious, she's emotionally young for her age in a number of ways, still having a sense of child-like innocence to her and enjoying things like playing on a children's playground.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: She is kind and very fond of cats, especially black ones. Being in a cat café makes her exceedingly happy; she also has a number of cat-related accessories, like plush dolls. Between the first chapter set at the cat café and the second one, she visits it offscreen nineteen times (enough to fill out a frequent-customer punchcard).
• Last-Name Basis: With one or two exceptions, only Komi's family members call her Shouko. Her friends and peers all call her "Komi". A chapter is dedicated to Komi's and Tadano's efforts to curb this and, in spite of their intention to call each other by their first names, they are ultimately unable to do so.
• Leg Focus: Something of a Running Gag that her legs are typically the first feature characters will list off when describing her beauty.
• Living Emotional Crutch: She is one mutually with Tadano. Whereas she relies on Tadano more than he does, Tadano does find solace in Komi's presence. Ironically, even when he is glad to be friends with such a beautiful person, he's even more glad at the fact that when all others ignore him, Komi will always pay undivided attention to him.
• Loving a Shadow: Everyone seems to think she is a cool beauty and a class idol, completely unaware she is actually a nervous wreck who can barely speak to anyone.
• Loved by All: Invoked and played with. All people who meet Komi love her and appreciate her, but it's shown that she has a lingering reputation at school based on wrong assumptions that they make about her; as a matter of fact some of her friends have become so when they have realized that those rumors are not true. It's also shown that the people that resent her have a completely wrong preconception about her.
• Lust Object: How she is seen by many of her schoolmates, at least early on in the series. Simply being near her sends many of them into heavy-breathed blushes, or even outright fainting, and the simple opportunity to look at her again has many happy that summer vacation ended. Played with in that many of them lust for her to such an extreme that it transcends to seeing her as a sacred existence that they can't dare fantasize about, let alone actually seek anything with. Such people tend to interpret Komi in very simple ways that correspond to what they imagine her to be rather than acknowledging the personality traits she actually has.
• Magnetic Hero:
  • She is dear to an awful lot of people due to the status she's given. If they knew the kind of person she is beneath the surface, she'd be even more magnetic than that. Underneath that astounding beauty lies a boundlessly fun-loving, friendly, and sweet girl.
  • Although she aims to have a hundred friends, Komi's closest friends (Tadano, Najimi, Katai, Onemine, Otori, Manbagi, Katou, Sasaki, Ase, and Isagi) have a place of privilege by her side because they are not selfish when it comes to her (except Najimi, but that is played for laughs) and don't treat her like a golden statue. As such, the more people put her on a pedestal, the less they are her friends and are unable to approach her in a significant way. Also, the less showy her friends are, the closer they become.
• Meaningful Name: Komi's full name refers to her communication problems.^note "komyushou" means "communication disorder", a catch-all term for anything that gets in the way of communicating with others, from shyness or stuttering to autism and the like. Her given name, Shouko, can be read as "glass", indicating her emotional fragility.
• The Mentor: Played for laughs. Katai sees her as this to him, striving to be "as good as Komi is at communicating".
• Miko: She serves as a temporary shrine maiden at the temple in her grandma's town during the New Year celebrations, sharing duties with Inaka, who unbeknownst to her is a local.
• Mistaken Identity
  • A diner that Komi visited mistaken her for the prestigious food critique, "RamenCore" and give her excellent food service in hopes of getting a good review while mistreating Komi's friends. Unknown to them, the real "RamenCore" is actually Agari, who is with Komi at the time. Though they do not find out the truth, Agari gave them a good review, fortunately.
  • In her second year, a group of first-years mistakes Komi for a head delinquent who ruled the school with an iron fist and seeks to defeat her in order to take over the school. However, they mistake her for Katai instead.
• Morality Pet: Towards most people that meet her, but mainly towards Yamai, who is forced to behave every time they interact.
• Nervous Wreck: The reason she doesn't speak. She's almost constantly two steps away from a Heroic BSoD.
• Nice Girl: Komi is an angel, and nowhere as aloof as people think she is. She is beautiful both physically and emotionally.
• No Mouth: Her face is drawn without a mouth when it switches to her point of view, which denotes her inability to verbally communicate. This is an example of Art Evolution, because in earlier chapters, her mouth was indeed drawn, but it was diminutive.
• No Social Skills: Komi can't talk directly to other people without extreme stuttering. If she's put in an unusual social situation, she freezes up and her mind becomes blank.
• Not So Stoic: In spite of the image of perfection people have of her, Komi is a regularly fussy teenager around her parents and on family outings, though nowhere as fussy as her brother.
• Obliviously Beautiful: Komi is not aware of how attractive she is, thus further worsening her impression of how people see her, which sometimes makes her dwell in Heroic Self-Deprecation. The fact that she doesn't know further pushes the point that she's effortlessly beautiful and that she is very well put together on a fundamental level. Notably, it's not as if she never hears other people refer to her as attractive, rather she has difficulty believing it.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: Komi has a starkly different image of herself compared to who her schoolmates perceive her to be. While this doesn't add up in her mind, she doesn't quite recognize that her presence provokes people to behave the way they do around her, and while said behavior is most of the time unwarranted and preposterous from them, she is 'that disquietingly beautiful, enough for people to get loopy.
• Odd Friendship:
  • With Katai. Unlike most of her new friends, who strive beyond their preconceptions about Komi to be able to befriend her, Komi and Katai's relationship is based on a complete mutual misunderstanding of the other's intentions. Komi initially thinks that he's a curiously insistent thug who hangs around Tadano to extort him, though later she starts seeing him as a love rival for Tadano's affections, while Katai thinks that Komi is coaching him to overcome his own communication problems.
  • With Najimi, as they are complete antitheses to each other.
• Official Couple: With Tadano, in Chapter 305.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Twice has Komi stood up for Tadano because of Yamai, and twice has this happened without letting her inability to communicate get in her way. In Chapter 25 (episode 4 in the anime), Yamai insists Tadano makes for a lousy friend and intended to kill him so that Yamai could be Komi's friend. Komi's response is to affirm her, through a note, "I will decide my friends myself.", sporting an uncharacteristic, serious face. Later, in Chapter 306, after Tadano tells Yamai he and Komi are dating each other, Yamai tries to kill Tadano with another sharpened weapon before Komi stands up in front of Tadano before Yamai stabs him.
  • In Chapter 228, she berates Manbagi for trying to sacrifice her own affection towards Tadano in order to make her happy, stating in uncharacteristic ire that she won't allow Manbagi to be unhappy on her account. In perspective, Komi talks more in Chapters 226-228 than in the whole rest of the manga.
• Oxymoronic Being: Before high school, Komi led a life of solitude in spite of being an absurdly attractive person. Being beautiful has given her remarkably few benefits because people believed she was an aloof beauty and her solitude took a toll on her capacity to communicate and her self-esteem.
• Peerless Love Interest:
  • To Tadano, who considers her way above his league in terms of beauty and school standing. However, Tadano's pedestal for Komi is nowhere as unreachable as the pedestal their classmates put her on.
  • Ironically, it is Tadano who is this to Komi. Chapter 295 shows how Komi sees Tadano as her only gate towards being liked instead of being a lonely, "boring" girl. While Tadano thinks Komi's affections are just wishful thinking, Komi thinks she doesn't deserve/have the right to like Tadano.
• Perpetual Frowner: Played with. Because of the erroneous Proud Beauty status placed upon her, and due to the fact that her nervous face conveys "anger", Komi can be perceived as threatening and unbending instead of the contrary.
• Poor Communication Kills: As per the title, she lacks the ability to communicate through speech and has to communicate non-verbally or with a notepad. This occasionally leads to some awkward misinterpretations of what she actually means to say.
• Proper Lady: How most of the school body imagines Komi until getting to know her. In reality, Komi is completely normal but comes off as this due to her quiet and reserved nature. Although she doesn't quite get to the point of being considered an Ojou, Komi is both demure and collected.
• Proper Tights with a Skirt: Seemingly the only girl in Itan who has this look, which does nothing to draw attention away from her legs.
• Proud Beauty: Both invoked and subverted. Onlookers think that Komi is this way based on her appearance alone. If anything, Komi is largely unaware of how beautiful she is, further implying that it's almost effortless.
• Punny Name:
  • "Komi" is short for "Komyu" (communication) and refers to "komyushou" (someone with a communication problem or disorder). Her whole family from her paternal grandmother's side follows suit.
  • Possibly unintentional or only apparent in English, but it also sounds somewhat like "Kami", or god. She ends up being elected the class goddess, to her dismay.
• The Quiet One: At ~200 chapters, Komi has spoken only in about a handful of those. Most of her communication outside of her handy notebook comes from simple gestures and body language, and even those are scarce. This further drives the point of how important Tadano is to her as an interpreter, as almost everyone else completely misinterprets her thoughts and actions.
• Respected by the Respected: By Netsuno-senpai, who greatly admires her sportsmanship and competitiveness in athletics.
• School Idol: She's practically worshiped and put on a pedestal by everyone at school due to her beauty, and she even has the informal position of "Class Goddess" in her class. Ironically, Komi herself is incredibly shy, but that only makes her more alluring to most people, which only makes her social anxiety even worse.
• Security Cling: Does a mild one to an unsuspecting Tadano when they are watching a horror movie with their friends.
• Shared Unusual Trait: Most members of Komi's family are strikingly attractive. All in all, they are a very well-put-together bunch. Excluding those who married into it, most of them also have problems with communication, ranging from severe anxiety to simple shyness, to general disinterest.
• Shipper on Deck: For Kato and Katai. She's also one for Shousuke and Hitomi, as she herself and Hitomi hit off very well.
• Shrinking Violet: Komi is terribly shy. The difference is that her allure draws people towards her, increasing her social anxiety the more people there are. She gets better.
• Shrouded in Myth: School rumor has it Komi is the secret underlord ruling the school from the shadows. She has no idea about this.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Invoked and played for laughs. Komi and Tadano sometimes appear so close and so in tune with each other that people sometimes think that they should just marry already. It's even worse, especially when said people know that they're not an item at least until a couple of chapters later.
• Significant Birth Date: Hers is on December 25th, on Christmas Day.
• The Silent Bob: Perfectly capable of speaking (and like the Trope Namer, it's usually significant when she does), but for the most part, she communicates by writing in her notebook, or Tadano will translate for her.
• Single-Target Sexuality: She has eyes for Tadano alone, though very few people are aware of this. It's a good thing, though, as her most fanatical fans would attack Tadano if they knew how partial Komi is towards him (as shown during the second cultural festival arc when Tadano has to disguise himself after each play where Komi says she loves him). By the time they do become a couple this pretty much ceases to be an issue, as their whole class is supportive of the romance and Komi shows she's willing to physically get in the way of anyone who would seek to harm Tadano over it. Even in a group setting, she tends to gravitate towards Tadano out of a sincere desire to be in his company.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: The reason why Komi is attracted to Tadano. Tadano was the only one who bothered to understand her and recognize her problem. He is patient and persistent with her, and although Komi hasn't been able to overcome her disorder, her situation drastically improved thanks to Tadano's efforts. For all these reasons, Tadano is one of the most important people in Komi's life and she wouldn't be able to survive high school without him.
• Situational Sociability:
  • She is able to hold a short conversation with Tadano when they speak over the phone, but still can't handle face-to-face. At the end of their first year of high school, she's able to overcome this.
  • Played with. Komi's life-long isolation from socialization has left her blissfully unaware of just how weird her classmates are, enabling her to establish friendships with them. In some cases, just about any other person would definitely not be the friend of said people.
  • She is relatively comfortable albeit still awkward when she is alone with Tadano.
• Sliding Scale of Beauty: Between Level II (Divine) and Level III (World-Class). When it came to the time to choose class representatives, Komi was chosen as the Class Goddess because "class rep" would be too little a title for her. To elaborate, the possible titles were: "Principal - Chairwoman", "She Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken", "Her Majesty", "Boss", "CEO", "Shogun", "Role Model", "Pinnacle", "Queen", and "Goddess", the latter taking more than half of the class votes.
• Smitten Teenage Girl: Though Komi attains various friends throughout her high school life, it's for Tadano's company alone that she longs for. This happens to be mutual, and it's shown that they start getting equally needy of each other if they're apart for too long.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Komi is a profoundly beautiful girl who is rarely approached by her admirers because they either don't consider themselves worthy, or they lack the courage to do so. It doesn't help that Komi has a bit of a poker face whenever someone talks to her, even when she's frozen and nervous, making people think that their proximity and attempts at conversation make her uncomfortable.
• Spectacular Spinning: The Komi-drill. During the school festival, she gets so excited about all the things around her, that she starts constantly turning...well, around. The spinning effect gets lampshaded by Tadano.
• Sprouting Ears: She has a tendency to sprout cat ears whenever something catches her interest, to illustrate her immense curiosity. Lampshaded in chapter 35, where Komi wonders why she sometimes sprouts cat ears. In chapter 5, it's taken a step further, with her writing quickly on a chalkboard being shown as her hands turning into paws and her scratching the board.
• The Stoic: Not by her choice; she comes across as this due to her communication disorder. She certainly is very emotional, but she's not good at expressing emotions of course.
• Talking with Signs:
  • Komi communicates by writing her responses in her notebook, and it's a Running Gag that she's a very verbose, prolific, and cartoonishly fast writer. At ~300 chapters to date, she must have a library's worth full of notebooks.
  • In Chapter 231, Manbagi encourages her to speak, and Komi from that point onward starts talking more often without needing to use a notebook, especially to close friends.
• Tareme Eyes: Switches between these and Tsurime Eyes constantly, usually depending on whose perspective we're seeing Komi from. When the reader sees Komi through Tadano's and her own perception, her eyes, outside of a few select moments, become round and cartoonishly huge. This emphasizes her shy, mild and curious side.
• Tender Tears:
  • When she says goodbye to Rei, who is leaving with her parents to study in the United States.
  • When she convinces Manbagi to not give up on Tadano, in spite of knowing that Komi likes him too.
• This Is Wrong on So Many Levels!: After helping Tadano escape kidnapping by Yamai, she showed great distress at the possibility that Tadano would be hurt because of his proximity to her. Tadano, in turn, assures her that even so, he would not wish to leave her alone.
• Tranquil Fury: As seen in Chapter 25, Yamai trying to get between her and Tadano to threaten him and become the person closest to Komi made her (uncharacteristically) glare at Yamai a new one.
• Tsurime Eyes: Switches between these and Tareme Eyes constantly, usually depending on whose perspective we're seeing Komi from. When the reader sees Komi outside of Tadano's and her own perception, her eyes are sharp and slender (which are their real shape). This adds to the aloof, unapproachable appearance she gives off to others.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Invoked In-Universe. Because of her perceived aloofness, some people that approach her think that her silence means this and that they are not worthy of her time. It's actually due to her being a Nervous Wreck with a poker face.
• Wham Line: In chapter 223, during the school play. It is one of the few times Komi actually speaks.
  Komi (to Tadano): While I'm with you, I feel as if I could speak joyful words for the rest of my life. I think... I love you.
• What Does She See in Him?: Komi's classmates are at odds with the fact that Tadano is her closest friend and later, boyfriend, Tadano being among the most unremarkable person one can ever meet. First and foremost, Tadano tried, and Tadano helped, this being way more than anyone had ever done for Komi. The people who have actually realized why Komi likes Tadano so much are precisely the ones who have actually bothered to know and befriend Komi instead of mindlessly adulating her.
• When She Smiles: A tiny, shy smile from her can elicit tachycardia.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: She's terrified of cicadas.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: Played with. She fulfills the trope in both appearance and demeanor, though it's not actually intentional from her, and both came from two very different sources. Her looks came from her mother, while her demeanor came from her paternal grandmother. It's shown that her demure behavior is second-nature to her. However, Komi is more of a mess than what the trope suggests, being considerably less collected than she appears to be.
• You Are Not Alone: On the eve of the class trip, Komi is not particularly excited at the prospect, as in previous class trips she was left to her own devices. However, Tadano is quick to offer his companionship, even given the possibility that she decides not to go. This gives her the courage to go, admitting that since she'd be with him, she's looking forward to it.

Tadano Hitohito

Tadano Hitohito

Voiced by: Gakuto Kajiwara (Japanese), Kyle McCarley (English), Albert Trifol Segarra (Castilian Spanish), Alberto Bernal (Latin American Spanish)

Introduction: Chapters 1 through 7 (Manga)

I'm an ordinary high school student. If you want to know just how ordinary, the kind of ordinary that I'd get excited while crossing the road at a red light when there are no cars coming.

An ostensibly average boy, Tadano is the first person who notices that Komi is not aloof and elusive, giving himself a personal goal to help Komi overcome her communication barrier and attain 100 friends. Tadano is the class president of his and Komi's classes, both in their first and second years of high school.

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• Almighty Janitor: As a Ridiculously Average Guy, Tadano has a fair amount of experience in everything he comes across, so if something needs to be done in class, Tadano is given the task because of half having been forced to do it, and a half due to the perception that he is able to do it. Dude's the most reliable person everyone in class may come across. The fact that he can do almost anything to a certain degree is one of the reasons Komi likes him, and the main reason Najimi abuses their mutual friendship.
• Art Shift: His face is normally depicted with simplistic, undefined features, but on very rare occasions (such as a double page spread in chapter 411) he will be drawn with a level of detail comparable to Komi's more detailed moments, which also serve to show him as more conventionally attractive.
• Attractive Bent-Gender:
  • Tadano dresses as a maid during the cultural festival. Apparently, other guys think he doesn't look so bad.
  • Happens again in the second cultural festival when Tadano has to escape from Yamai and her gang. He is so attractive that Katai's heart starts racing.
• Best Friend: As stated in Komi's entry, they are best friends with each other. Komi is dear to him to an equal degree as he is to her because, while everyone takes him for granted, Komi doesn't. Regardless of her beauty or the feelings she produces for him, Tadano treasures her to no end and seeks her well-being as much as he possibly can.
• Butt-Monkey: Tadano being so average tends to make him the butt of the joke frequently. Early in the manga, he's also the recipient of both accidental and intended physical punishment from his classmates. In comparison, Tadano's friends in the second year are closer friends to him than anyone during his first year, the main difference being that the new circle is no longer only tangential to Komi, but now they are just as many friends to Tadano. It also helps that the more aggressive, bitter, and/or indifferent first-year classmates (i.e. Yamai, Yadano, the Normies) ended up in different classes than Komi and Tadano.
• Characterization Marches On: Tadano started off the series as being The Chew Toy, with him getting the undeserved hatred from his classmates being treated as a gag, and his normalness making him transparent. While he still has a tendency to be the butt of the joke the more mean-spirited side of this has been largely phased out in the second year, with his new classmates actually liking and respecting him.
• Chick Magnet:
  • Komi and Manbagi are head over heels in love with Tadano, although he remains in denial at first.
  • Parodied at one point, when Tadano forgets his lunch and he is fed by many girls in his class, much to Komi and Manbagi's dismay.
  • When 'helping' him during the second School Festival arc by dressing him as a girl to evade Yamai's mob, even Former President Ichou seems to find Tadano attractive.
  • Kawai Rami, the girl that he confessed to in middle school, actually liked him back (and still does in the present day), but she rejected him because she genuinely believed his Chuunibyou phase was lame and hoped that he would grow of it so that he would become a more mature person. However, she fully believed that she would be able to come back and begin dating Tadano regardless of how much time passed, which would come back to bite her in the ass since Tadano put in the effort to read people better afterwards, which allowed him to befriend and eventually begin dating Komi (whose beauty is on par with Kawai's).
• Chuunibyou: One during middle school. He considers it his dark history and would like to forget that period of his life.
• Class Representative: Became the class president in passing after everybody voted Komi for Goddess. In the second year, he was postulated by default.
• Comically Missing the Point: Invoked. His classmates are mad at him for being Komi's closest friend, but not because she gave him the "honor" of speaking to him (like they assumed happened), but rather because he is the one that approached her in the first place. They are blissfully unaware of the fact that it's Komi who considers his friendship a true privilege, even more than the other way around.
• Covert Pervert: In Chapter 120, after Yamai runs past with Komi's stockings on her head, Tadano notes, in order, 1) Komi, 2) Her uniform, and 3) Her legs are bare.
  Narrator: He took a good long look.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Downplayed; during middle school, he was a Chuunibyou, and once tried to confess to a girl he liked by writing a huge Love sign with stones. He got rejected due to him being too weird for her taste although this was only a pretext for her real reason (she wanted him to get over his Chunnibyou phase before dating him), thus he ended up trying to be average after that.
• Deadpan Snarker: Increasingly becomes this as time goes on, especially when it comes to Yamai.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Downplayed and played with. Tadano does all he can to be respectful of Komi and sees her as a person first and foremost, avoiding looking at her as the deified Lust Object some of his classmates treat her as, but all the same he often can't ignore how incredibly beautiful she is. Still, his distraction rarely amounts to more than an extended period of stunned silence when seeing her in an outfit he hasn't before or observing her doing something endearing or elegant, or getting engrossed in how incredible even minor physical contact with her makes him feel.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Surprisingly Inverted for Tadano's motivation to get better at reading the mood. In the pilot chapter, he stated he did so because one of his friends had previously made fun of him for starting boring conversations. In the story proper, Tadano actually went through a Chuunibyou phase in middle school and ended up embarrassing himself when he tried to ask out his crush.
• Even the Guys Want Him: While initially, the only characters that showed romantic interest in him were girls, over time he starts building up a decent number of male admirers. At first, this was only really the case for Katai, who expressed fondness for him that stretched a bit farther than just wanting to be friends, but that all changed following his crossdressing incidents. Initially, he got the attention of other guys because he made a really convincingly cute girl, but eventually some of those guys learn that it was Tadano all along. Even then, a decent number of those guys, including the "Normie Trio", still are interested in him despite knowing he's a guy, with his cross-dressing appearance being included as one of the trio's fantasies during Chapter 250, much to his dismay.
• Extreme Doormat: Tadano ends up being made the Class President by the rest of his class, and because of it, he tends to get the short end of the stick with his classmates - and even his teacher - passing off their work to him. Onemine was even concerned that this was what his dynamic was like with Komi, and Tadano had to explain otherwise.
• Fatal Flaw: His read-the-situation ability still has its limits, namely Komi's feelings towards him, and later Manbagi's. It's indicated this is to some degree self-inflicted, he's so convinced that the girls won't/shouldn't be interested in him that he subconsciously blocks any interpretation of their behavior that could lead him in that direction.
  Onemine: It's amazing how perceptive yet dense you can be, Tadano.
• Fetish:
  • Develops one for Komi's hair in his face after riding with her on a water slide.
  • He also is also noted to be "about to awaken something" after being stood on by her when trying to reach a window.
• First Love: He's Komi's, as stated by her, and he's none the wiser.
• The Friend Nobody Likes:
  • Parodied, despite Tadano's pledge to help Komi make 100 friends, he quickly comes to the realization that he's actually friendless as well, beyond his at the time broken off friendship with Najimi. Most of his classmates actually resent him for being the closest to Komi and otherwise completely ignore him for being normal. It's shown that it's not that his classmates don't like him, but rather, their envy towards him supersedes their capacity of noticing Tadano's virtues. This gets better during his second year of high school, however, as the classmates that were resentful of him over Komi (including Yamai and the "Normies") are assigned to different classes.
  • This ultimately gets subverted as time goes on due to Tadano slowly developing his own clique of friends and his second-year classmates viewing him as a good friend. Gets highlighted best in chapter 256 where, when forced by his homeroom teacher to sit in on all the parent-teacher conferences for all of his classmates, they all get touched when Tadano provides legitimate praise to their parents.
  • As for his former classmates in the second year, it's shown that they have begrudgingly accepted that there is no Komi without Tadano at her side, though going by the events of the second cultural festival, they still don't quite like the idea of Tadano getting even closer to her. Especially shown during the events of Chapter 306.
• Has a Type: Going by Komi and Kawai, Tadano has a thing for peerless beauties and sharp eyes.
• The Heart: One of Tadano's main roles in the story (if not the main one) is to serve as a mediator, resolve conflicts, and clear misunderstandings. He is the balance between Komi and the eccentricities of the people they befriend together, which is why Tadano is not a person that Komi can do without.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: His classmates are immediately dismissive of his ability to read the mood, but his ability is closer to outright mind reading.
  • His averageness means he is at least competent and therefore successful at nearly everything he attempts or is required to do.
• Heroic BSoD: When he doesn't receive a single Valentine's Day chocolate from any girl classmates, he's OK with that, but he is especially hurt by the fact that Komi didn't give him one. He is so distraught that when he arrives home, he collapses on the entrance steps. Komi eventually finds the courage to rendezvous with him later in the night and finally gives him his due chocolates, the best of her batch that she chose especially for Tadano.
• Heroic Second Wind: Played for laughs. During the sports event in Chapter 54 (episode 10 in the anime), he's utterly tired from the effort, and everyone cheers on him to no avail, but the moment Komi cheers on him, he basically shifts into "Maximum Overdrive".
• Heroic Self-Deprecation:
  • Invoked to a Dramatic Irony level. Tadano does not think himself worthy of Komi's affections, if any, and considers his possibilities with the beautiful girl negligible to altogether non-existent. He even reminds himself numerous times not to indulge in dreams of Komi that won't become reality. Thing is, he doesn't know that he has a better chance with Komi than any other character by far.
  • When their first year comes to a close, he and Komi discuss her progress in making friends from Najimi onward; tellingly, he doesn't mention himself at all.
  • After he overhears Manbagi confessing to him while asleep, Tadano essentially talks himself out of believing it. Later, when she confesses to him and he says yes, she stops him and makes him admit that he likes Komi, but he thinks that he doesn't have a chance. The fact that he admits this after accepting Manbagi's confession sends him to tears, as he thinks that he was dismissive and insensitive towards her, but Manbagi assures him that this is not the case.
• He Was Right There All Along: At the end of Chapter 43, it's revealed that Tadano was inside the mascot costume the entire time.
• Hidden Depths:
  • While for the most part, he is average, he is extremely good at "reading the situation", to the point that he is nearly telepathic at times aside from being unable to detect that Komi and Manbagi have a thing for him. He's also the only person to notice that Komi got her hair cut. Interestingly, it's implied he had this ability even before high school, as he recognized how isolated Kawai truly was in middle school, and it was only starting in high school he truly honed into it.
  • As well, he's average at almost everything, meaning that he's a Jack of All Trades: He may not be the best at something, but he can still do pretty much anything and show a reasonable amount of skill. For example, he's the one that helps teach his friends how to snowboard, with it being noted by the very skilled Kometani that his understanding of the struggles a normal person has with learning a given skill makes him quite adept at the type of communication needed to effectively teach such people.
• Hypocritical Humor: When Hitomi insinuates Manbagi must have tried something with him while they were sharing a bed because she's a gyaru, he takes offense and claims she's just biased against gyaru. Barely a minute later, he insists to himself that she couldn't have a crush on him because a gyaru would never be interested in someone as plain as him, while the narrator jokes he's just as biased as her.
• I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: This is the basis of his denial of Komi's attraction to him. He thinks she's way out of his league and wouldn't be interested in someone like him. As shown through Komi herself, this is definitely not true. This also begins to apply to Manbagi.
• Idiot Hair: Has a corkscrew that grows on his hair. The colour covers show it as being grey while the rest of his hair is black. Yamai actually lampshades it in Chapter 25, referring to it as his only recognizable feature. His father and mother also have one.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Tadano's only ambition at the start of the story is to have an ordinary high school life without standing out at all, stemming from his embarrassment over having been a Chuunibyou in middle school.
• Insecure Love Interest: Towards Komi. He's typically able to read how she is currently feeling but is consistently oblivious to the idea that she might be attracted to him, passing it off as wishful thinking on his part. It doesn't help that Komi is not very good at conveying it herself.
  • Subverted after Tadano finally confesses to Komi and they agree to a date. Tadano accepts his role as a responsible boyfriend and confidently admits to others that he is in a relationship with Komi. He even gains some confidence and smoothness over time.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Played for laughs. When he's dressed in drag for the School Festival, he gets bashful like a maiden when Komi tries to touch his "boobs".
• In-Series Nickname: In the Latin American dub, Najimi often calls him "Hitomon".
• Irony:
  • Tadano became the person who is closest to Komi, second to none, precisely by not indulging in wishful fantasies about being with her. As such, he achieved the most by trying the least. The irony is further compounded by the real reason his first crush rejected him being not because she didn't like him (on the contrary, she was head over heels for him), but because he was trying so hard to be special to the point of being cringy.
  • He is touted as being girly and possibly gay by his family, as well as ordinary and unremarkable by nearly everyone else, all while behind the scenes he's being coveted by the two most beautiful girls in the story and ends up dating one of them.
  • As shown in a flashback in Chapter 378, despite his opinion otherwise, Tadano was shown to be a markedly cool kid even during his dorky chuuni phase on middle school. This coolness was one of the reasons why Kawaii liked him so much, and why she strove to get rid of his chuuni side.
• It's Personal: He states that he's not surprised that he did not get any Valentine's chocolate from his classmates, but he's particularly saddened at the fact that Komi herself didn't give it to him as a token of friendship after she had given one to everyone else. However, Komi eventually gathers enough courage to give it to him at the dawn of the day.
• Jack of All Trades: Tadano's average-ness extends to him having average skills in activities one would not expect him to know, like obstacle courses or ice skating.
• Karmic Jackpot: Tadano's efforts to help Komi break from her social anxiety and gain friends have indirectly led to Tadano developing his own group of friends in his own right. Not to mention Komi becoming his girlfriend.
• Leg Focus: When Tadano is crossdressing, the camera pans up his legs.
• Living Emotional Crutch: He's Komi's main source of support, and unbeknownst to him, the person who is dearest to her. Komi is trying to stop relying on Tadano all the time, although she enjoys his attention when they are together.
• Love Confession: Tadano confesses his love for Komi in Chapter 302 and reiterates it three chapters later, to which Komi clearly reciprocates.
• Love Epiphany: On Chapters 300-301, Manbagi makes him realize that he is very much in love with Komi, and he finally confesses to her in Chapter 302.
• Love Interest:
  • Towards Komi, though he's unaware of it. One of the aspects of his relationship with Komi is how unwittingly good he is at pushing the right buttons on her, making her increasingly more in love with him. Tadano happens to be the first person Komi fell in love with:
    Komi: (To Manbagi) ...During our entrance ceremony there was someone... I talked with. It was the first time I spoke so much with someone... I was so happy. At the time I thought he was a nice guy. He looks after the people around him, takes care not to hurt them... He is a kind person. He is dependable... he is cool... he also has a cute side... Whenever I'm with him it's always fun... and...
  • Towards Manbagi, who is particularly susceptible to his kindness and praises towards her.
  • Played for Laughs. He's also this towards Katai, who treasures him to no end. It's so poignant that Komi has mixed feelings about his liaison with Tadano.
  • Tadano himself is in love with the "real" Komi, who is silent, awkward and shy, and not with the preternatural and unblemished being his classmates paint her to be. He sees her for who she is and loves her all the same.
• Magnetic Hero: As the series progresses, Tadano gradually becomes charming and more popular in his class. Compare the opening arc with Chapter 256.
• Meaningful Name: Tadano's full name refers to his status as a Ridiculously Average Guy by translating to "Just another guy".^ExplanationIt actually works on two levels: Tadano Hitohito and Tadano-kun. Tadano = "Tada no"("Just a"), Hitohito = "Hito"("Human or person"). Kun is the standard suffix for a boy. As such, you can either read it as "Tada no hito", "Just another guy", or "Tada no kun", "Just another boy". Tada also means "Ordinary, usual, common".
• The Mentor: Unwittingly, to Komi. She harbors a profound admiration for him and aims to both emulate him and seek his approval as much as she can. To Komi, Tadano is the best person she's ever met.
• Mistaken for Gay: Played for laughs. His parents and his sister spend a long time believing that he has a crush on a boy at school (Hitomi belieiving this to be Katai), due in part to Hitohito on the spur of the moment claiming the Valentine's gift he was agonizing over how to respond to was the one he got from a boy (when it was in fact from Komi).
• Nice Guy: Despite Tadano's quirk being his averageness, he's also an insanely kind guy, even towards characters who are constantly antagonistic towards him like Yamai.
• No-Respect Guy: During his first year, despite being The Reliable One, being both the Class Rep and the resident "Komi Whisperer", he's also earned the scorn of the majority of his classmates for being the closest one to Komi. This aspect of his character gets phased out in his second year as his new classmates both respect him as the Class Rep and even ship him with Komi. He also gets a increasingly large number of male friends who admire him, to the point that by the middle of the third year he essentially has a small fan club of his own.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: Although he does consider Komi as the most beautiful person he's ever met, both in appearance and in who she is inside, Tadano opts not to lose himself in illusions regarding his possibilities with Komi to be able to protect his own feelings, and also, to be able to be fair in his treatment of her. Unlike most of Komi's subsequent friends, for Tadano, Komi is first and foremost his friend and one that he cherishes to no end. She just happens to be insanely gorgeous, but that comes second for him. The quandary comes from the fact that he's unaware that Komi does like him and wants to be his girlfriend.
• Not So Above It All:
  • Sometimes, even he gets charmed by Komi's enthusiasm and curiosity when she's doing an activity.
  • While he otherwise doesn't tease Komi, he does join in with Najimi on affectionately calling her "Kokko".
  • Tadano can also be as weird as the other cast members. While keeping it hidden in public, he goes into a Heroic BSoD at home, complete with a Thousand-Yard Stare, when he doesn't even get obligation chocolates on Valentine's Day.
• Oblivious to Love: He is painfully unaware of how much Komi and Manbagi like him and wants to be with him. In Komi's case, it's apparent that he's in denial, as he doesn't consider himself even remotely close to being in her league. Ultimately subverted in chapters 301 through 305.
• Official Couple: With Komi in Chapter 305.
• Only Sane Man: Tadano is basically the straight man of the entire class (bar Onemine, Kato, and Sasaki, as shown later).
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: He is much more blunt and sure of himself when defending the honor of other people, in particular Komi.
• Punny Name: "Tada no hito" means "just a guy".
• The Reliable One: As Onemine revealed, his teacher found him this by sending them heaps of tasks while she was relaxing from her duties, while Najimi (who's the vice president) usually just threw their part onto Tadano.
• Ridiculously Average Guy: Tadano's weirdness is being ridiculously average. His test scores are exactly the class average. The teachers straight up skip his fitness measurement because it would just be the national average anyway. He'd be literally at the dead center of the Gaussian bell.
• Running Gag: Whenever students are being tested, scored, or ranked on anything, expect Tadano to always come out as average. Grades, Physical Exams, even his smile.
• Selective Obliviousness: Tadano's ability to "read the room" ironically falls short when it comes to Komi's, and later Manbagi's, feelings for him. Whenever they acting weird around him, Tadano always ultimately shuts down the obvious answer, because he thinks it's impossible. In Chapter 305 after confessing to Komi two chapters before, he reiterates to Komi that beyond said present doubts, he likes her and wants to be with her.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: With Komi, although neither of them sees it that way. They are so in tune that there are instances when, in each other's absence, they start craving for the company of the other.
• Sliding Scale of Beauty: Initially was considered Average, but eventually he began to be considered "Common Beauty", Some characters notice that he is actually somewhat handsome, but they still don't understand what a "goddess" like Komi sees in him.
• So Proud of You: Komi happens to be one of the very best people Tadano has ever met, so whenever she successfully accomplishes something significant, Tadano is always the first one to recognize it, thus encouraging Komi to push even further.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Tadano is the first person who realized that Komi is just a normal girl, who just happens to be gorgeous. His efforts to make people realize this is what brings true friends to Komi. This is nowhere as easy as it sounds, as people's wrong assumptions about Komi are very strong. Simply put, by putting her on a pedestal, they're unwittingly making her unreachable in their minds.
• Telepathy: His "read the situation" ability borderline becomes this, even going so far as copying Nakanaka's monologue after reading her expression alone, though that can equally be because he used to be a Chuunibyou.
  • When all the friends go to Katai's house for a sleepover, they discover that Katai's father doesn't speak much. Tadano is able to translate his micro-expressions with pinpoint accuracy, causing Katai's father to like him.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: In the introduction of the manga Tadano started off as a Butt-Monkey, being both friendless and ostracized by the rest of his class for being the closest to Komi. Over the course of the series though he slowly developed his own clique of friends and by the second year, his new homeroom class treats him as part of the gang and actually ships him with Komi.
• Translator Buddy: Tadano acts as this for Komi in certain situations, mostly ones involving her running away from a situation she isn't comfortable with. Najimi realizes this during Tadano's kidnapping and later asks him to join Komi's shopping trip due to this.
• What Does She See in Him?: Tadano is way too plain to deserve to be even remotely close to Komi, or at least, that's what their classmates like to think. The thing is, if Komi is put on a pedestal, she's made unreachable by the people who put her there... and Tadano is not among those people.

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