Alternative title(s): Senpai ga Uzai Kouhai no Hanashi
Manga Adaptation by Doga Kobo
Streaming on Funimation

Premise

Futaba Igarashi is a tiny woman doing her best to move up the corporate ladder. By her side is her senpai, Takeda, a giant man who can’t help but look after her.

Jel’s verdict: As Disappointing as Water in a Vodka Bottle

My biggest issue with this episode is that it was not particularly funny or endearing, despite trying desperately to be both. It’s not bad, in fact it’s quite well made. It just lacks any unique personality. Every character and every gag feel like recycled parts from other shows. You can see the boob envy jokes coming from miles away. The only the exception is the cool lady who walks around the office with a bottle of vodka. Let’s give that woman her own show, it would probably be more fun.

Of course there’s also the weird power dynamic between the main couple, which only gets weirder when they enter romance territory at the end of the episode. Takeda seems to be Futaba’s supervisor, he treats her like a child, and Futaba herself looks and acts like a child. So injecting the romance angle certainly raises an eyebrow. I could see the series focusing on Futaba proving she is an adult, but it seems more likely they’ll just keep emphasizing her child-like qualities as a joke. All of this adds up to a series that I’m not particularly interested in watching.

What I’m REALLY saying is if you want a romcom with a tiny girl and a huge guy, Doga Kobo has already made Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun and this is my regular reminder they need to do season 2.

Artemis’ verdict: This Conclusion Is Annoying

Given the exceedingly low bar I had for this series, for the most part, I was pleasantly surprised at how… well, maybe not great, but at least tolerable it was. I enjoy a nice, easygoing workplace slice-of-life/comedy show, and these are still relatively few and far between when it comes to anime. I was mostly worried that the episode would be beating the whole “this lady is short, this guy is tall, isn’t that super hilarious?” joke like a dead horse, but really, this was more just about following the main character around and watching her learn the ropes of her new sales job, making mistakes and then doing her best to make up for them, with her genuinely nice supervisor guiding her along the way.

Then the last minute happened and I remembered that this was in fact going to be a romance, and promptly lost all interest. It’s not that I’m averse to romance anime in general, it’s just that I don’t want this particular show to be a romance. I can’t say why exactly the thought bothers me so much, but regardless, I might have actually been somewhat invested in the series had it stuck purely to its slice-of-life premise. As it stands, I doubt I’ll be watching another episode of this.