My Awkward Senpai follows the daily life of Azusa Kannawa (Lynn), a young woman working in the publicity department of a media company. Contrary to her reputation as a standoffish and intimidating coworker, Kannawa is actually an introvert and her perceived confidence is merely facade to hide her struggle to socialize with others. This issue comes to a head when Kannawa’s boss, Eiji, tasks her with mentoring the department’s recruit, Yū Kamegawa (Shogo Sakata), thereby forcing her to brush up whatever social skills she can muster.
Judging by the title of the anime, I went into the show expecting the story to follow Kamegawa’s perspective. Surprisingly then, the first episode instead directly follows his awkward senpai instead. There’s one major caveat to this decision in that it does give away Kannawa’s big flaw from the get go. While viewer could still infer from the title, it would’ve been fun if they were kept in the dark and thereby shared Kamegawa’s realization that Kannawa is socially awkward. That said, there’s the tradeoff that you get to see the gears turning in Kannawa’s head better and this ends up being the highlight of the premiere. I had some pretty good laughs watching Kannawa internally fret over every perceived mistake she makes and think long and hard on how she can be a good mentor. One particular joke that stood out to me is when Kannawa attempts to converse with Kamegawa and the others some more, only to then read some self-improvement books and realize that she more or less acted the same way that she always does.
As for Kamegawa, I have to admit that he is currently the blander of the two leads. He’s pretty much just the friendly everyman character. He’s likable enough and he works well in opposite to Kannawa but he’s not as charming as his costar and he feels very static as a result. I do however enjoy his big moment at the end of the episode where he comes to Kannawa’s defense after some of their coworkers gossip over how difficult she is to work with, demonstrating a great deal of empathy on his part. It’s also fun seeing Kamegawa inadvertently throw a curveball at Kannawa’s efforts to teach him, such as when the latter thinks he’s eating poorly only to then feel bad when she learn that he’s too poor to do much about that.
Overall, I had fun with My Awkward Senpai‘s premiere. It’s likely just your typical workplace romcom anime but the premise has some charm to it and there appears to be some good laughs to be had here. I look forward to watching some more of the show.
Watch My Awkward Senpai on Crunchyroll
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