The Spring 2025 anime lineup has some anime titles everyone has been eagerly anticipating, along with a few more titles which aren’t major headliners but are still worth a watch. While the likes of Fire Force and My Hero Academia: Vigilantes are sure standouts this season, several anime feature low-risk stakes. To balance out all the action, anime fans need an easygoing, pleasant anime like Aharen-san is Indecipherablei‘s second season to unwind.
Aharen-san is a typical comfort anime, a cozy little watch to remind fans anime can be fun as well as intense and dramatic. Anyone who dives into Aharen-San will realize this anime feels a little familiar. Fans of Komi Can’t Communicate are bound to enjoy what Aharen-San has to offer. They aren’t just high school rom-coms — they are relatable anime for any shy or anxious anime fan and are weirdly subversive in the process.
What Is Aharen-san Is Indecipherable About?
Aharen-san Explores the Power of Love Languages & Ordinary Romance
Aharen-San is Indecipherable is a meandering and pleasant slice-of-life anime set in a typical Japanese high school. There isn’t much of a plot to speak of, but then again, cozy rom-com and slice-of-life anime tend to thrive when they aren’t going anywhere in particular, and the same is true for Aharen-San. Anime like Aharen-San are about the unpredictable little joys of an otherwise predictable daily life for middle-class teens like Reina Aharen and her classmate-turned-boyfriend Raido. Aharen-San, like other slice-of-life anime, has a different mini-plot or fun scenario in each episode.
Aharen-san‘s narrative heart is how the heroine Aharen wants to connect with others, but can’t easily be heard when her voice is always whisper-quiet. Aharen is a wonderful person who is caring and supportive of others, but if no one can hear her, she will end up feeling alone at school, with no one to share her daily life with. She can’t even express herself or get anyone’s attention with her plain facial expressions, making her all but invisible at school. Aharen a bit of a kuudere anime character, and fortunately for her, Raido is the same. When the anime begins, Aharen the whisper-quiet little kuudere will catch a break as a boy her age finally hears her.
Once Aharen and Raido connect as two quiet teens who understand one another, the real adventure will begin. Even if the outwardly stoic Aharen doesn’t often show it, she’s overjoyed to have a real friend to share her daily life with, which is when she will use love languages to express her affection in place of words. It’s easy enough for an anime character to use words of affirmation and affection to establish a relationship, especially a chatty deredere who likes to keep things simple. But as a near-silent kuudere, Aharen will support Raido and amuse viewers as she uses meatball lunches, arcade games, sports, and her wild imagination to express herself as Raido’s loyal friend, then his loving girlfriend. Along for the ride are Aharen’s classmates and her other good friend Oshiro, along with a former friend who happens to be a flamboyant gyuaru.
Aharen-San & Komi Can't Communicate Both Celebrate Quiet Romances
Aharen & Komi Are Relatable to Shy Anime Fans Who Can't Easily Chat Up a Love Interest
The basic plot and premise of Aharen-San is Indecipherable is charming yet ordinary. Anime fans have seen plenty of teen romance anime set in high school, including Komi Can’t Communicate. What makes these two anime series and others like them special is how they have a warm, strong central romance while underselling the entire thing. The romantic bonds between the main characters in both anime are real, yet the characters simply refuse to make bold proclamations about it, with one or two notable exceptions like Raido’s declaration at the end of Aharen-San Season 1. One appealing factor of these anime, and what makes them so cozy and relaxing, is how true love doesn’t need any flashy displays or dramatic or cheesy dialogue to sell the idea. There is a delicate contrast between the strength of the romance and its timid expression in each anime series.
Such an approach may feel underwhelming when compared to high-intensity romance anime like Maid-Sama! and Fruits Basket, but not all romance anime is so high-strung, nor are all romance heroines as verbally expressive and bold like Misaki Ayuzawa and Tohru Honda sometimes are. Some anime fans may see themselves in the strong-willed and assertive Misaki in Maid-Sama!, which makes her an exciting heroine, and other anime fans identify much more with quiet girls like Aharen and Shoko Komi. In fact, Komi is a proper dandere, even more timid and unexpressive than the whisper-quiet Aharen.
Slice-of-life and rom-com anime series are a great way for shy anime fans to feel emotionally fulfilled with human connections, even if those connections are fictional and 2-D, which is why anime fans need quiet heroines like Aharen and Komi to relate to. Lovable anime characters like them help validate any fan who feels like they’re overwhelmed by any social situation, unable to keep up with the chatty social butterflies. It’s not right or wrong to be chatty or shy — they’re just different strokes, and each type must be represented in anime, including Aharen-San is Indecipherable and Komi Can’t Communicate.
By being goodhearted, romantically inclined, brave, and sometimes creative people, Aharen and Komi can help validate and inspire any shy anime fan who watches them. Whether or not a viewer feels inspired to go out there and impress their crush with meatballs or an arcade game like Aharen does, it’s wonderful to see an anime character like Aharen making the most of her quiet life. Aharen does so with style and humor, trading words for her love languages of food, arcade games, and sometimes her whimsical imagination. Komi does something roughly similar with her little projects and her hand-written communication notebook, giving her unique flair even in a school full of off-beat girls like the chunibyo Nakanaka. Sometimes, the best things in daily life are that much sweeter because they are intimate and quiet with a special someone, not because they involve rowdy karaoke parties with the squad.
Aharen-San & Komi Can't Communicate Gently Subvert and Parody High School Romance
Aharen-San & Komi Can't Communicate Are Weird High School Anime in a Cute Way
Another charming and sometimes subtle element connecting Aharen-San is Indecipherable with Komi Can’t Communicate is that the humor doesn’t just make the quiet characters more expressive. The humor in both anime also serves to gently satirize and even vaguely subvert the high school rom-com concept, making them a playful counterpoint to more «normal» rom-com titles like Horimiya and Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun. Neither Aharen-San nor Komi Can’t Communicate is trying to completely deconstruct the genre, since that isn’t the point of these anime series and it would contradict their light tones. Heroines who can’t easily speak and a whimsical tone makes it easy for Aharen-San and Komi Can’t Communicate to explore the rom-com concept through fresh eyes and gently trivialize the familiar tropes along the way.
While Aharen herself does much of the parodying in Aharen-San, Komi tries to be a «normal» rom-com heroine while it’s all her classmates who satirize and parody the genre for her. Komi has no meta-knowledge of this, instead taking her bizarre classmates and their wacky hobbies at face value, then accepting them as friends once the initial shock wears off. Conversely, it’s Aharen herself who drives most of the silliness in Aharen-San is Indecipherable along with Raido, from their spontaneous rapping hobby to Aharen clinging to the walls like a ninja in class or Aharen feeding Raido meatballs with ultra-long chopsticks while maintaining a straight face. Either way, though, both anime series do a fine job of both celebrating and satirizing high school romance by doing anything but chatting it up like Misaki or Kyoko Hori totally would.
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Komi Can't Communicate
TV-14 Comedy Drama Romance Slice of Life
Cast
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Amber Lee Connors
Kyle McCarley
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