Senpai ga Uzai Kouhai no Hanashi

tl;dr: A pretty great light hearted rom-com about working adults.

This anime is a very character focused show that’s mainly about Igarashi and her senpai at work, Takeda. Igarashi is downright tiny and she hates being treated like a child so she’s pretty prickly. Despite that, she’s often really childish. Takeda is huge, jolly, and really dense so he often ends up dealing with Igarashi as if she were a kid. As such, the two of them didn’t get along at all at first. However, over time they got very good at working together and got much closer at a personal level as well.

The anime isn’t ... solely about these two however, as it spends quite a bit of time focusing on people they’re friends with. For example, there’s a budding workplace romance going on between two of their coworkers, Sakurai and Kazuma. Igarashi’s best friend Kurobe also shows up quite often and helps push Igarashi along. And then there are a bunch of other characters that just randomly appear for comedic purposes, like the mysterious Mona or Igarashi’s grandpa.

The anime I guess is somewhat romance focused I guess. There does seem to be somewhat of a romance blooming between Igarashi and Takeda. Though, the trajectory the romance seems to be moving in is of two friends that are growing so close that they’ll probably just start going out eventually. As such, it’s not all that romantic yet per se. Still, it’s nice to see the two get closer and Igarashi grow into a more capable individual. They’re both really fun characters that are even more fun when together.

The romance between Sakurai and Kazama is much more of the typical romance. It’s a romance between one of the most popular women in their work group and a guy that’s supposed to be somewhat nerdy, so it plays a bit with the standard associated tropes and such. Still, it flows pretty well and overall I thought it was quite sweet. Moreso than the previously mentioned pair, you’ll probably want these two to just start going out already.

The anime takes place over more than a year, so it only shows you tidbits of what’s going on, with the implication being a lot more of the same is happening in the gaps. With both of those pairings the changes in real time are happening really slowly but in terms of what the anime shows progress seems to happen at a solid enough pace. Overall I was satisfied with where things ended up and the ending overall.

The other focus of the anime is of course comedy. It is a comedy focused on working adults so just because of that a lot of the material it’s working with is pretty different from most anime comedies. Still, overall it felt like it was veering into the more typical anime type comedy pretty often with things like beach episodes and valentines day episodes that played out pretty similarly to what you’d see in a high school rom-com for example. Still, overall the comedy was pretty good and there was a good amount of variety so it came together pretty well.

The art and animation are solid enough. The character designs are pretty solid and memorable too for the setting. The OP was really impressive in terms of the song and visuals. The ED was decent enough in both regards. The soundtrack was not particularly remarkable.

Cute but boring.

Futaba is a cute flat-chested pipsqueak office worker. Who gets angry when people treat her like a little kid. She is bothered by the fact that her girlfriends tend to get attention due to their boobs.
She wants to be seen as a woman by her coworker Takeda who is the complete opposite of Futaba. In that he is big, tall, loud and gentle.

Funny enough the two characters you’d think would be the main characters of a romance slice of life, Kazama and Sakurai, are the side characters.
Sakurai is the “perfect girl” whose sweet and who all the guys want. Kazama is the quiet ... shy guy that the perfect girl likes. As cliché as these characters are their love story is somehow much more interesting than the main characters.

It tries to be an endearing love story but the characters don’t have interesting enough chemistry with each other. So whether they end up together or with someone else makes no difference.
Typically in this genre you must get the viewer absolutely wanting the two main characters to get together. Here thats just not the case. These two main characters don’t actually need to get together. There are no stakes here. Each episode just exists. I can barely remember anything that happens.

Futaba works as a main character.
But Takeda just isnt main character material. He’s main-character’s-loud-friend material. Or main-character’s-dad material.
And he’s way too asexual for a romance slice of life.

This anime is very very very very average.

My sempai is annoying.....You can say that again, so let get down to business.

Story-Mediocre 5: What we basically have here was a combination of Toradora with Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san, Service X Service and Working, but with a sub romance pertaining to Sakurai and Kazama has that added Wotaku in it and we can see that a certain original Creator , named Shiromanta got his inspiration from those said anime.

Art-Good 7: Cu'z there were those quintessential swimsuit services where we see both Kurobe, Natsumi and Sakurai, Touko being hot.

Sound-fair 6: Cu'z I basically have no qualms as to who did who.

Character-Mediocre 5: For the ... Takeda, Harumi X Igarashi, Futaba was more like a Toradora romance, where we have a tsundere/damsel In distress Igarashi in a what can be called as a sempai , kohai relationship of sorts , with a Dere Dere / Knight in Shining armor , Takeda, now as the anime title says Takeda was more like a Takagi from Karakai Jozu No Takagi-san, except here he's a big guy who can protect and treat his girl like a princess, now Igarashi was more like a Niskata from same anime, but here she was more like a tsundere who can do things on her own but defend herself from bad people. Her relationship with her sempai was more like an on and off thing where a one point she hates him for his constant teasing to which she gets treated like a little girl. Now Takeda on the other hand , was just creepy giving that he has lolicon tendency.....Now on to the next romantic couple, Kazama, Souta X Sakurai, Touko, if you'll look at it they're pretty much an extension of Wotaku, to which there is that passive guy to outgoing girl kind of relationship....Of course how can I forget Kurobe, Natsumi whom has that soutacon thing for Sakurai, Yuuto, well it was good but kinda creepy cu'z it can only mean that Kurobe was a Lolicon.

Enjoyment-Decent 4: One part of me likes this , but there was that part of me , to which I hate this thing.

Overall-Decent 4: This was just something that you would either like it or hate it, either way watch it a decide for yourself.....

Season 2......? Maybe or maybe not.