My Awkward Senpai – Episode 1

What’s it about? Kannawa Azusa is an introverted and capable employee at her company, but she’s secretly extremely shy and doesn’t know how to properly communicate with her colleagues.  When she’s given the task of training her new co-worker, Kamegawa Yuu, she finds herself trying to become a better mentor by reading self-help books. 

I’m always the first to tell the younger crowd that being an adult absolutely sucks.  Not only do you have to worry about paying your bills, rent and/or mortgage, but you have to figure out how to navigate the politics in your work environment.  That can be extremely hard for folks who are introverts and ambiverts because there’s a limit to anyone’s social battery.  Personally, I know there are some days I can come off as someone who looks mean when in reality I’m just tapped out.  That’s why Azusa is such a relatable character—sometimes it’s hard to be self-aware of your own actions.  

While it sucks to be taken out of your comfort zone, Azusa did the right thing by acknowledging that she has to change her behavior at work; that can make or break her professional relationships, which could affect her career in the future.  Beyond Azusa’s awkwardness, though, the rest of the episode is such a snooze fest.  It’s obvious that the show’s main focus is going to be the budding romance between Azusa and Yuu along with building a better working relationship with their colleagues. The animation is decent and what truly stands out are the hair and eye colors of our protagonists.  It helps highlight their expressions, whenever the camera zooms in on their faces.  

Even though Azusa ain’t no Kumo from So I’m a Spider, So What?, I’m glad there’s a personality behind her cold exterior and it helped give the episode what momentum it has.  Unfortunately, since the entire focus was on Azusa, there isn’t much to be said about Yuu, except that he stands up for Azusa in front of their co-workers.  Clearly, he’s a nice guy…I just wish there was more to say about him since we’re supposed to be invested in the show’s eventual love story.  The humor is entirely dependent on Azusa’s internal meltdowns and to be honest, I’m not sure that can carry an entire show.  What made shows like Wotakoi work is that the characters had hobbies outside of their jobs rather than the entire focus being their work lives.  I’m not saying that every show needs to knock it out of the park, but it’d be nice to have stronger staying power aside from the protagonist having a winning personality.  

Azusa can’t carry the whole show on her back so hopefully the rest of the cast start pulling their weight in upcoming episodes.  It’s not exactly the most exciting show to come out this season, but for folks that want more laidback office romance stories then this might scratch that itch.  As for me, I’m off to catch up on my backlog this season.