Warning: Spoilers for The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You Episode #3.The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You is Crunchyroll’s new hit romance anime, and it's putting a dark spin on the popular romcom Komi Can’t Communicate. Komi Can’t Communicate stars Komi, a girl who’s shy to the point that she can only communicate by text. Komi still strives to make friends, however, and the series chronicles her efforts to do so while overcoming her communication disorder.

Despite what Komi’s had to go through in life, Komi Can’t Communicate has always been a relatively lighthearted series, but The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You has a much darker take on its premise. Episode #3 introduced Rentaro’s third girlfriend, Shizuka Yoshimoto, and just like Komi, she’s a cute girl who’s so shy that she can only talk to others through text.

Shizuka and Komi follow the same archetype of shy anime girls, but 100 Girlfriends takes that idea far more seriously, and that says a lot about what it’s trying to do with its story.

100 Girlfriends Shows What Would Happen If Komi Can’t Communicate Wasn’t A Comedy

Shizuka Yoshimoto from The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You essentially shows what would happen if Komi Can’t Communicate wasn’t a comedy. Unlike Komi, whose inability to speak never truly stopped people from liking her, Shizuka has been shown to have been bullied in the past because of her communication disorder, with even her own mother physically abusing her because she can’t speak normally. It’s a darker and more realistic depiction of what a character like Komi might have to live through, and it appropriately adds a lot of tragedy to Shizuka’s character.

If there’s anything to take from The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You’s dark take on Komi Can’t Communicate, it’s that there will be more to its story than simple parody. While a big part of 100 Girlfriends’ premise is that each of Rentaro’s girlfriends is an exaggeration of a specific anime trope, Shizuka shows that it won’t always be played for laughs and that sometimes those tropes will be deconstructed to add some realism to the story. That doesn’t mean that Komi Can’t Communicate is bad for keeping things largely lighthearted, but it does do a lot to separate the writing styles of both anime.

100 Girlfriends Episode #3 Shows That There’s More To It Than Just Parody

That style of writing, in turn, adds a lot to 100 Girlfriends’ overall quality. It would have been easy enough to keep things at simple parody like Komi Can’t Communicate often does, but by showing that there will be moments of seriousness and genuine sincerity with Shizuka, people can expect a much more well-rounded series that isn’t afraid to put a pause on jokes for the sake of good character writing. There’s far more to look forward to in The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You than its ridiculous premise, and it will be great to see more of that in the weeks on Crunchyroll.

The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You releases new episodes Sundays on Crunchyroll.