The manga series Komi Can't Communicate features an extensive cast of characters created by Tomohito Oda. The story mostly takes place at the elite Itan Private High School, and follows Shōko Komi, who is suffering from a crippling social anxiety disorder also known as sociophobia on her quest to make 100 friends with the help of her classmate Hitohito Tadano.

The names of the majority of the characters are puns or plays on words, usually related to their most defining character trait. The Japanese spellings are taken from the official fanbook.

Main characters

Komi is a high school girl who suffers from extreme social anxiety, which prevents her from communicating with other people. Komi has long, black hair with a purple tinge, almond-shaped eyes, and described as extremely beautiful. Komi is so shy and nervous that she normally appears expressionless, despite still feeling emotions like anyone else. In most circumstances, her face is usually switched to a simplified style dominated by very large, round eyes. Even when feeling emotions such as being anxious, shocked, or surprised. When Komi is excited, cat ears tend to appear on her head, of which Komi and sometimes others are aware. She tends to motivate herself by pumping both fists. Due to her communication disorder, Komi never had been able to make friends in elementary and middle school. Because of this, she feels lonely when entering high school. Which is what contributed to her dream of befriending 100 people. Due to Komi's beauty and aristocratic-like demeanor, she is very popular among her classmates and quickly garners an adoring, but distanced following. Komi's silence tends to be mistaken as stiff properness, despite her simply being too afraid to talk. Her big-eyed, anxious look is also often mistaken for anger, further deterring other people from becoming close to her. Initially, Komi is completely unable to speak with anyone outside her family. And even among them, she speaks so rarely that her brother dismisses the possibility of having heard her voice. When Komi tries to speak, she either freezes completely or stutters severely. Over the course of the story, she slowly learns to communicate and talk to others. She primarily does so by writing her thoughts on notebooks (a method suggested by Tadano) and becomes her primary form of communication for most interactions. Improving with time, she starts to speak short sentences during her first school year. By her second year, she becomes able to speak for longer periods when emotionally invested, though with slow speech and pauses. By her third year, she can speak more competently with little stuttering, and hold more natural conversations, even amongst a group of people. She becomes less stiff and begins to show more physical emotion and facial expressions, even showing natural smiles. Her social anxiety usually makes her very insecure and overthinking her actions. She is also quite pessimistic about herself, usually believing that any misunderstandings are a result of her own fault. And despite everyone's praises of her, she still tends to consider herself to be boring and uninteresting, and unworthy to be with Tadano. Hitohito Tadano was the first one (outside her family) to recognize her social anxiety, and who became her first ever friend since childhood. Tadano has since helped her find more friends and overcome her social anxiety, with the assistance of Najimi. Komi quickly develops romantic feelings for Tadano, but is for the longest time too shy and worried of her self-value to express her feelings properly. Not having the confidence that, in her eyes, someone as "amazing" as Tadano would want to be with someone as "boring" as her. Upon learning that her friend Manbagi has also developed feelings for Tadano, Komi admits that while she doesn't like that realization, she won't dissuade her from seeking him, since she still values their friendship. Both opting to mutually support each other in their feelings for Tadano, despite Komi knowing the idea of losing Tadano to someone else still hurts her. Only after Tadano confesses his own feelings to her, she becomes able to accept her own desires, and the two become a couple . After which, Komi grows to move past her previous passiveness and assert her affections for Tadano, and desiring affection from him. Over the course of their relationship, Komi becomes more flirtatious, being more playful, and even teasing him. Komi is a very kind and caring person, and tries to help others whenever possible. Despite her anxiety, Komi is a very good student, usually being at the top of her class in tests. She is also good at sports, allowing her to be a serious competitor to the very sportive Chika Netsuno. Though she only barely learns how to ride a bike when Tadano teaches her. Komi likes to read and is a good cook. She is very fond of cats and owns several plush cats and cat dolls. After learning about a cat café in her town, she quickly becomes a regular and befriends the normally very distanced black cat Chocolat. Aside of Tadano, her closest friends are Manbagi, Katō, Sasaki, Ase, and Isagi. Her name Komi, when written in the Japanese order, refers to the Japanese term .

Tadano is a student at the prestigious Itan High School and Komi's seatmate. He has short black hair with a white flower-shaped cowlick. A recurring joke is that Tadano is otherwise completely average: he is of average size (for a Japanese teenager), has an average appearance, has average grades, shows average performance at sports, etc. So much so, that various characters will often exclaim the degree of how completely average and neutral he is. When first enrolling at Itan High, He intended to be completely normal and not stand out, but his plans are foiled when he meets Komi on his first day at school and discovers her communication disorder. As such, he befriends her and promises to help accomplish her dream of having 100 friends, with him being the first. In middle school, Tadano was a chūnibyō: he slicked back his hair, popped up his collar, and tried to act cool. After embarrassing himself by a failed attempt to confess his love to his classmate Kawai, he dropped the persona and decided to become completely normal. In later chapters, Tadano confesses that his real motives for wanting to be normal were for wanting to fit in with everyone else, and avoid being looked down on if he were to challenge himself, fail, or try to be special. Upon enrolling at Itan High, initially, Tadano was quickly ostracized and belittled by most of his first-year classmates, mainly due to the excessive adoration students had for Komi, their jealousy of his increasing closeness with her, and their perception of him being plain and uninteresting as a person. Over time however, he garnered more acceptance and friendship, due to his own friendly nature, and the kindness and understanding he would show others. Some students recognizing his qualities right from the start. During his second year, he quickly became acquainted with the new students, and was fully respected and liked as a fellow classmate. And that same fondness would continue over into his third year. As well as previous classmates who had given him a hard time, started to hold him in higher respect and regard. During the course of the story, students started to acknowledge Tadano's and Komi's bond and became supportive of their relationship. By the time he starts dating Komi, even the same Komi fanatics come to begrudgingly accept Tadano as her boyfriend, but still feel jealousy towards him. Tadano's friendly demeanor initially leads to him being taken advantage of. He was pushed into being the class representative when no one else wanted to , or used by his teachers to take over their menial tasks . On several occasions, he find himself forced to cross-dress. Tadano's closest friends besides Komi and Najimi are Katai, Naruse, and Kometani. Along with his kindness, Tadano has an almost uncanny ability of perceptiveness, being able to accurately guess the true thoughts and feelings behind a person. This perceptiveness is what helped Tadano figure out Komi's true personality and insecurities and establish a friendship with her. Due to this ability he can act as a translator of a kind for Komi and other characters with similar communication disorders, like Katai, Katai's father, or Ogiya, and helps them to express their true feelings and intentions. Despite Tadano's perceptiveness he can still be normally dense at times, for example not recognizing Komi's and Manbagi's attempts to flirt with him. Tadano very quickly develops romantic feelings for Komi, but rejects the idea of her being interested in him for the longest time. Due to feeling inadequate as a person and potential partner. As a result, he does not act on his feelings and prefers to set them out of mind, until Manbagi – who also fell in love with him – makes him acknowledge his hidden love for her. After he confesses to her, the two become a couple and start dating. Over the course of their relationship, Tadano becomes more truthful and open to his desires for Komi. Desiring to move on from his decision of wanting to be normal, in order to be truly worthy for her. Tadano lives with his parents and younger sister Hitomi in a fairly small flat in an apartment block where he and Hitomi share a room together. He is very enthusiastic about old buildings and want to become a teacher after school. Tadano's name is a play on words: means "an ordinary/average person", and means "human" or "compassionate".

First year classmates

Najimi is an old friend of Tadano who happens to be genderfluid. In Middle School, they dressed in a boy's uniform but in High School, they primarily dress as a girl (wearing a skirt but a shirt with a necktie instead of a ribbon). Najimi's unspecified gender leads to comedic situations throughout the series, such as their choice of a dressing room and how to grade their performance in sports. Najimi is socially extremely skilled and everybody's friend. Through their social ability they are able to become friends with anyone in a few minutes. Despite their social skills, Najimi initially did not want to become Komi's friend: they had already met Komi in elementary school and attempted to befriend her, but got scared off by Komi's silence and staring. Only after Komi "saved" them from some unwanted suitor, Najimi warms up to Komi. Especially early on, Najimi is a crucial catalyst for Komi getting more acquainted to social situations by organizing get-togethers and trips during summer vacation, involving her in games, or making Komi order food for them in cafés and sandwich shops. Najimi also instigates situations in which Komi and Tadano get to know each other better, thus furthering their romantic relationship. Najimi is abject to studying, but gets good grades. They often organize pranks or cause mischief in other ways. Najimi has a tendency to have a gambling addiction, and keeps coming up with shady business schemes for the school's cultural festivals. Najimi's full name literally means "childhood friend".

Agari is a fearful girl in Komi's class, who gets nervous when having to speak to others. Najimi picked her as potential friend for Komi due to their similar traits. Agari is initially scared of Komi when she begins following her (as Komi herself was too anxious to speak to Agari), but then gets the idea that Komi is trying to encourage her. Feeling not worthy of Komi's friendship, she agrees to become her dog, revealing her masochist traits. Though, she later comes to acknowledge herself as her genuine friend. Agari is a foodie and shows her confident and knowledgeable side when it comes to food. She also posts restaurant reviews on an internet site. Her aunt owns a food stand. Agari has a voluptuous figure and is somewhat self-conscious of her large breasts.