While I love all anime, the truth of the matter is that I sometimes tire of watching stories about high school kids debating what kind of event they should put on during their upcoming school culture festival or shyly putting love letters in the shoe storage box of their crush to find later. “Why I am watching a school romantic drama about characters who are half my age?” I sometimes ask myself… before realizing that the characters are actually 1/3 my age.
That’s why I’m always happy to see an anime about actual adults doing things that adults do, like working in companies, dealing with interpersonal relationships at work, and sometimes falling in love with their coworkers. And that’s what you’ll find in the super-cute office romance anime Senpai ga Uzai Kouhai no Hanashi, aka My Senpai is Annoying. Let’s learn more about this adorable show!
The Story of Senpai ga Uzai
We all know smol anime girls are the cutest, and the main character of My Senpai is Annoying is Igarashi, a height-challenged employee in her second year at a large Japanese company. She’s got a huge senpai named Takeda who’s twice her height and who laughs with a huge, hearty voice, which annoys Igarashi, especially when he treats her like a kid because she’s short. But on the other hand, he is a great senpai, always looking out for Igarashi and helping her become a full-fledged sales rep for the company.
Then one day Igarashi is having drinks with Takeda-senpai and suggests she might make a good wife for him. This makes her realize two things: that she’s got feelings for her giant cuddly senpai, and that he doesn’t see her as anything more than a kid, and not as an adult woman he might like to date.
There are two romances at work in Senpai ga Uzai. In addition to the main story, there’s an adorable love brewing between Touko Sakura, the sexiest OL at the company, and the good-hearted but shy Sota Kazama. Touko seems like a girl that none of the handsome guys at work can make any progress with romantically, but maybe Sota will be the one to win her heart?
What Can We Learn from My Senpai is Annoying?
I love it when anime can be entertaining, but can also teach us something we might not have known about Japan, which is the case with the Senpai ga Uzai anime.
Being a senpai is a lot of work. While the meme of “senpai, notice me!” has become famous all over the world — through oddly not in Japan, and I’ve had to explain it to my Japanese employees — actually being a senpai means more than automatically getting respect for being a senior in the company or organization. It means being a mentor, showing your kouhai the ropes, and guiding them so they can be successful and perhaps someday take over for you when you move on to new things.
(Oh, and being senpai means picking up the check for your underlings most of the time.)
How to apologize properly. One thing being a member of a Japanese company will teach you to do is apologize when you make a mistake. Screwing something up then apologizing for your error sincerely really teaches us the importance of humility, which is an important trait in Japan.
Things said while inebriated are always forgotten. There are a lot of unwritten social rules in Japan, and one of my favorites is that whatever is said when a person is drunk is immediately forgotten by others who were with you, since it’s sho ga nai (“it can’t be helped”) that people will say things they regret while drinking. Also, if you’ve got a hangover after drinking with your colleagues the next morning, no one will hold it against you. What a civilized country Japan is!
Thanks for reading this post about the adorable Senpai ga Uzai anime. Are you going to watch it? Tell us below, or on Twitter!
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