Tejina-Senpai – Episode 12 [END] – Senpai Busts Out

Tejina-senpai works on her stage fright in different ways while practicing magic tricks with the Magic Club in the season finale.

Episode 12 [END]

Hmm.

I’m glad to see Tejina-senpai comes back to Senpai’s main issue for the season’s last episode. Nothing gets resolved, and there doesn’t seem to be any progress made in curing Senpai of her stage fright, but there’s still more jokes to be made. There is some external progress, though. Senpai now has other people in the Magic Club to make suggestions, attempt new strategies, and poke around the boundaries of what makes her so nervous about making a magic trick work. Earlier in the season, Assistant-kun noticed that Tejina-senpai is competent at doing other things in front of people and this week, Saki-chan noticed that Senpai is not jittery about making a balloon animal. Senpai has other issues about holding a bulging sheet of rubber, but doing so with an audience watching is not one of them. Still, this is a gag comedy, so I wasn’t expecting a psychological breakthrough that would damage the entire premise for the show. If Senpai ever gets cured, how will she end up showing us her panties when she botches a magic trick? The rule of the season was not to mess with the formula too much.

I was also glad to see Madara-senpai make a final appearance too. Her scene let me fly my old science-geek flag. I have to remember that her character is supposed to be in high school, but the two bits of science she showed Assistant-kun didn’t explain the whole story of their processes. It’s just a gag comedy anime, and they got most of the science right, but I used to do this stuff for a living, so let me geek out just a little bit.

First up was some actual chemistry from the Chemistry Club. The supercooling process for the bottle of cola just prevents a liquid from forming ice crystals, so while the water temperature may be below freezing, it’s still a liquid. The point of this demonstration is to show an almost instantaneous phase transition. Any disturbance will cause a chain reaction of solidification. It’s a cool to thing to watch happen.

Next up was Madara doing physics instead of chemistry. The tablecloth trick is a staple for any beginning physics course because it gets to show inertia, gravity, frictional forces in balance, and how static friction is stronger than kinetic friction. Madara made a mistake in using that beaker stand with sharp points for its legs. Friction is proportional to pressure, not just force, and since pressure is force divided by area, a pointed leg is going to have lots more friction than a flat book or dinner plate. This trick was always going to fail. Notice that whenever a magician does this trick, it will be with plates and wine glasses, or anything with flat bases, to make it easier to get that tablecloth moving.

Heh.

Chapter 1 – “Growing Senpai”

Double entendres to start us off right! Saki-chan’s hands and mouth are good at making things swell and grow long!

Balloon blowing tutorial. Stretching is key! Big first puff is key! Saki-chan has blowing skills but loses girly points for the nostril puffing. Tejina-senpai holding that green balloon reminds me of the bitter melon from the last episode. Lots of rubbing and squeezing going to happen here!

Ha! Senpai is too scared to twist the balloons because they might pop. She made a lot of eels, though.

This scene keeps getting more and more suggestive. I love it! Yeah, you can’t just stop at making the balloon stand up, Senpai. You need to keep going to the end. “Just stick it between your legs,” says Saki-chan. Stop! I’m dying! And there’s your inspiration for all the futanari doujins.

Senpai can make the balloons because she has no stage fright, but she’s still suffering from fear of the balloon popping. Aw! It popped! Somehow the ears or one set of legs survived. She made cod roe…

Chapter 2 – “Unfailing Senpai”

Ho-ho! Assistant-kun thought Senpai’s great magic idea came from a Nigerian Prince.

Why didn’t Assistant-kun check that locker? He’s smarter than this. Unless he just faked being fooled and enjoyed the quiet. Tejina-senpai’s new method of not failing a magic trick is to do some other magic trick instead. Misdirection is still part of magic, right? But then she failed both of them.

She fell asleep in the locker and the door popped open right when the night watchman was there? She has terrible and great luck at the same time.

Chapter 3 – “Competitive Senpai”

Yay! Madara and Tejina-senpai share a scene. Madara shows off more science “magic” tricks.

Aw. Senpai is so conscientious, although we could argue she was “friends” with Madara first.

Uh, this inertia demonstration is not chemistry anymore.

Aw. Senpai is getting a little jealous of Madara taking away her Assistant-kun. And there’s your NTR doujin material…

Absolute failure! I feel nostalgic for that orange bra Senpai had on when she failed the pouring milk trick. Ha. Madara sees these magic club characters multiplying because she has an electric fan.

Chapter 4 – “Silent Senpai”

Ah. This is like the stage fright training with the Assistant-kun cutout with the big chin.

Successful coin trick! She technically caught it and it didn’t fall to the ground. That coin is gone forever, though. Some nightmare! Lilliputian Senpais tying down Assistant-kun. This is payback for looking at the little Senpai puppet’s panties.

Oh! The pigeons are back. Ah, finally. This is the scene for one of the cards in the end credits.

Haha! She’ll let Assistant-kun sleep a little bit more, but only to build a house of cards on him. Assistant-kun is still hoping for more!

Chapter 5 – “Bunny Senpai”

Eh?! Only Senpai gets to wear that bunny outfit? What about Saki-chan and Madara? Azu, the manga artist, blessed us with his version of Bunny Senpai.

More cupping balls… The cups on that bunny girl costume runneth over. Interesting strategy. Senpai is trying to make herself more nervous to get over her stage fright.

Assistant-kun has already stopped listening and paying attention. Using a pretty girl for misdirection is a tradition of magic, but this is too much, up close, for poor Assistant-kun. His running commentary about soft sandwiching is too much. It’s too much! There’s apparently a magic trick going on, but I’m not seeing it.

“The cups were truly amazing!” Yes, they were! And that’s the end.

Final Thoughts.

Goodbye Tejina-senpai, Saki-senpai, and Madara-senpai!

For an ecchi gag comedy, Tejina-Senpai delivered the key components. They had a pastime that was just niche enough to justify all the explanations in a school club format. They had a try-hard heroine who was clumsy enough and earnest enough for an audience to forgive her occasional self-centered actions. There was the straight-man self-insert character who got to be close to the “action” without ever doing anything drastic to change the relationship dynamics within the small cast. And most important of all, there were sexy girls, in sexy situations, and the main character was the “most” of them all. Even Tejina-senpai’s ample chest was weighed and found to be the most deserving of attention. Sorry, Saki-chan.

There were some disappointments along the way, though. One episode, in particular, had Senpai trying to be actively mean to Assistant-kun, just so she could prop up her fragile ego about doing magic tricks. That seemed a bit out of character since Senpai is supposed to be more oblivious than conniving. Thankfully, that part of her personality was never seen again. There was also a drop in animation quality during the middle third of the season, with a lot more panning shots of detailed fanservice instead of the detailed animation of the ecchi situations during the first three episodes. It wouldn’t have been that noticeable if the producers hadn’t regained their quality in the last episode.

For a personal disappointment, since I pay attention to the opening and closing credits for spoilers, I had hoped to see the sexy girls in maid uniforms, bunny girl outfits, and Senpai with a chainsaw, but those scenes didn’t make it into the season. I was expecting a cultural festival to get all those scenes in for the last episode, but perhaps the Bluray extras will include them.

It’s a given that comedy tastes are subjective, and gag comedies are a subset of that genre, so if you like the usual formula of a setup, gag, then straight-man commentary, you’ll find that here. Those comedy sketches will be mixed in with a lot of luscious girls in inadvertently sensual situations. This is all innocent fanservice with an arched eyebrow for the dirty-minded. I laughed a lot. Tejina-senpai is also a short-form anime, so that structure helped keep its focus on getting in as many suggestive jokes in as possible. There was just a whiff of romance and a deepening relationship between Assistant-kun and Senpai to keep us guessing and hoping, but those few scenes were their own kind of fanservice. Funny, sexy, and not too deep — that describes both Tejina-Senpai the show and the character.