My Senpai is Annoying – 11 – A Very Good Year

Like the Valentines, cherry blossom viewing, and Christmas festivities, the end-of-year office party at a cozy izakaya is another way to reap vicarious enjoyment of a work culture that doesn’t really currently exist for me, as I work remotely for an out-of-state company. While I still wish the dudes would bother Sakurai less, there’s something just really nice about watching Futaba and her co-workers and boss drinking together and talking about their holiday plans.

Takeda says he’s just going to “veg out” for New Years, Futaba isn’t quite able to summon the courage to ask to hang out. That’s not a problem for Sakurai, who takes Kazama aside and invites him to her and Yuuto’s home for some homemade udon and celebration. It ends up being just the two of them for New Years Eve when Yuuto suddenly remembered he had made plans with a friend for the night.

Whether this was his mentor Natsumi teaching him how to properly isolate a couple, or simple absent-mindedness on his part, Sakurai is so flustered by Kazama’s arrival the udon burns and they have to have instant ramen for dinner. It doesn’t matter to Kazama; he came to see her and is happy he did. When the two laugh at the same joke on the TV, they look and feel like a cozy old married couple.

While Futaba wasn’t able to spend New Years Eve with Takeda (she has a quiet evening with Natsumi, and gets a call from her gramps who is on a very manly fishing trip, she and Natsumi end up encountering Takeda at the shrine, and Natsumi soon makes herself scarce so the pink kimono-wearing Futaba is alone with Takeda. Her prayers for the new year don’t include anything related to getting closer to him, but it happens anyway as they share the same fortune: The one you’re looking for is right next to you.

The fact Kazama still “doesn’t know how she feels” about him truly stretches credulity by the week! After he and Sakurai are assumed to be a couple by a live TV camera crew, and he starts blabbing about having spotted Futaba and Takeda, even going so far as to show the reporter a picture of the two sleeping together, Futaba runs back to the shrine to beat Kazama with her kinchaku.

He wakes up lying in Sakurai’s lap, and when she asks if he was looking at her chest, she’s appreciative when he honestly said that he was. Clearly it’s fine if it’s him. As for the photo a passing little girl took on her toy digital camera of her stealing a kiss while he was still asleep? That’s the very evidence Kazama needs to be sure Sakurai feels the same way about him…only Sakurai is too bashful to let him see it. Oh well…there will be other opportunities.

My Senpai is Annoying – 10 – Buns, Basketball, and Baths

The most inscrutable character in Senpai has to be the eccentric, mischievous Tsukishiro Mona. She’s such a mystery I kinda want a segment that explains her more, though like the alien in Alien (or the Cylons in Battlestar) perhaps the less known, the better. All we know is, she can get away with grabbing a dieting Sakurai without fear of HR reprimand, inadvertently shoving Sakurai chest-first into Kazama, an innocent bystander.

The next segment threw me off a bit because Takeda seemed not to recognize Tsukishiro outside of work. Turns out she loves pork buns, and accepts his challenge in an eating contest at his favorite hole-in-the-wall eatery. It also turns out she’s only ever eaten them cold, so not long after biting into one of those steaming beauties, she resigns. When the two talk about it at work, Futaba is left out and feels a little jealous, but Takeda can read her like a book and offers to take her out for more buns.

Kazama is proving quite the catch for Sakurai as it’s revealed he was once quite the basketballer, and so makes the perfect tutor for her brother Yuuto. She arranges to watch the two practice and even makes a lunch, but doesn’t count on Natsumi, Takeda, and Futaba showing up, resulting in a game of Horse that merely turns into a two-hour-long duel between the two basketball aces of the group: Kazama and Natsumi.

Making it clear that she didn’t get to spend as much time alone with Kazama as she wanted, Sakurai orders an end to the contest. Reading the room, Natsumi departs for the bathhouse with Yuuto (whom she’s taken under her wing as a protégé), Takeda, and a sleeping Futaba. That frees Sakurai and Kazama to have an adorable little private dinner of vending machine hot dogs. Honestly these two could read the phone book together and it would be lovely to behold.

In the meantime, Natsumi remarks on the fact that Futaba hasn’t really grown much since middle school (though isn’t trying to be mean about it), while Yuuto gets some seemingly valuable tips from Takeda on getting bigger (eat a lot, rest a lot), only to learn that Futaba does all the things Takeda recommended to him, and yet remains wee. But as Takeda says quite correctly, she’s fine the way she is!

My Senpai is Annoying – 09 – Once More Unto the Beach

Futaba initially thought she’d be going on a trip to the beach with just Sakurai and her brother Yuuto, but Sakurai also invites Kazama (of course), Takeda, and Natsumi to make things more “fun”…which is to say, more interesting. What results is the two core couples having a blast together, with the added thrill of showing more skin.

As expected, Takeda is a mountain carved out of granite, but it’s to the show’s credit Futaba doesn’t show up in a school one-piece, but a cute polka-dot halter/skirt combo. While towing her really far from the shore, then teaching her to swim, Takeda makes it clear her outer characteristics aren’t as important to him as how hard-working and kind she is on the inside. At the same time, he says she looks cute.

After a day working up an appetite on the beach, the group heads to the inn for a sumptuous feast where Futaba fills Takeda’s oft-empty rice bowl, but shushes him when he talks about Futaba’s cooking. Clearly, he availed himself of her offer to make him Hamburger Steak. Meanwhile, fifth wheel Natsumi keeps herself entertained by watching Futaba and Takeda get along and making sure Yuuto, the only kid there, gets some attention.

That night, after fireworks, Sakurai and Natsumi try to get Futaba to admit that things are “going well” with Takeda, considering how close they are, but Futaba, embarrassed, just wants to sleep. Meanwhile their room is close enough to the guys’ that Kazama can hear them, and between that and Takeda’s snoring, doesn’t get any sleep. That morning, he and Futaba eavesdrop on Takeda and Sakurai talking about them in a way that makes their ears red.

On their last day on the beach, Kazama is too fatigued for more activities, so Sakurai stays with him under the umbrella, then suggests they head to a konbini for drinks. She also picks up an ice cream, and when it reminds Kazama of old times, she offers him a sip, which is really offering him an indirect kiss. He declines, but Sakurai, knowing Kazama well, had a second ice cream just for him.

As the sun gets low, Takeda and Futaba end up tiring themselves out to the point the latter is curled up on the arm of the former, giving their friends an opportunity to document with photos how close they truly are. Those photos probably aren’t 100% okay with the HR department, but then again they aren’t in the workplace. Besides, Sakurai and Kazama don’t mean any harm. They’re happy to see their co-workers happy.

The next morning back at work, Futaba is embarrassed to reveal how tanned she got at the beach, having previously been accustomed to being shaded by her gramps’ umbrella. When Takeda arrives just as tanned, it confirms to the whole office that these two had a lot of fun together on their summer break. That said, with both Takeda and Futaba intent on maintaining that they’re merely “senpai and kohai”, who knows if anything further will come of it than what we’ve got…which really isn’t so bad!