My Awkward Senpai is a workplace anime that often denies its romantic comedy flavorings even when they are so obvious and in the audience's faces. I went into this series blind, so naive me expected a more grounded story about the 9-to-5 grind and the relationships that form between senpai and kohai. That proves foolhardy by the end of the first episode. The story becomes less of a tale of two adults trying to work side by side in the workplace and becomes another iteration of a “girl meets boy” type of story. It's a bit forced, but it's still well told, thanks in no small part to its awkward titular character.

The anime follows Azusa Kannawa, who is a girl-boss at her workplace in every way. She's a manager whose hard work and dedication garner respect from her colleagues. But sometimes it garners intimidation, since Kannawa's over-serious nature reveals her demanding, sometimes confrontational side. Working is all that Kannawa knows how to do, meaning that the ability to socialize properly eludes her; she can arrange an amazing PowerPoint presentation like nobody's business, but she doesn't know how to ask her coworkers out for drinks. The new guy, Yuu Kamegawa, starts working at the office, and suddenly Kannawa is forced to train and spend time with him.

Our two leads try their best to keep their composure, and during the relationship's initial moments, it comes off as professional and friendly. But our leads are of the opposite sex, and since they spend so much time with each other, they develop feelings that not-so-secretly bubble underneath their exteriors. I'll admit, I liked Kannawa more than Kamegawa. Because she's the lead, a smidgen bit more time is devoted to her and her dual personality. All of the ways she is forced into juggling being formal and informal make her all the more adorkable.

The anime is very smart in how it avoids turning Kannawa into either being A) so determined to remain professional that she becomes overburdening to the point of unlikability, or B) such an awkward klutz that she becomes another ditzy anime girl made to rack up the moe points. No, Kannawa remains in control; her inability to socialize properly never translates to an inability to manage herself at her job. She's always a joy to watch, and her relatable awkward nature makes the show for me.

Meanwhile, I liked the man Kamegawa just a bit less. You still want him to fit into his new workplace and maintain a healthy, noncumbersome relationship with Kannawa-senpai, but he is forcing himself to want it way more than the audience does. He does all he can to help Kannawa, staying overtime at work, navigating Kannawa through the pouring rain, and on one occasion, he assists Kannawa in arranging a meeting with her mother. Kamegawa's the perfect kohai and romantic interest, maybe perhaps a bit too perfect. While he does well to mesh with Kannawa's personality, he's there for utility rather than personality. The nature of this show requires Kamegawa to be the ultra-supportive man at all times; to bring this point home, there's a point where he turns to Kannawa and says, “I may be your junior, but I'm also a man.”

This is a workplace anime that makes work more of the setting than the premise. Kannawa and Kamegawa still do their office work together and find time to go on after-work drinking sessions with their coworkers. However, this aspect dips in and out to focus more on the romance side of the story, which seems a little too eager to make its presence known here. I mean, did these two really need to hit the beach together by the fourth episode? The weird thing is that the show does this while somehow undermining the romance narrative, insisting that Kannawa and Kamegawa remain “just friends” for the majority of the anime, despite their dialogue and actions indicating anything but. Having not read the source material yet, I'm not sure if these vibes are just as emphasized in the manga. Yet there's that part of me that wishes the anime would focus on the relationship Kamegawa and Kannawa have together as kohai and senpai before deciding to make things more overtly romantic than they needed to be at the start.

Still, I have to admit that the romance works. Our two leads are likable enough, and both take their work seriously in their own unique ways. Their nerdiness gives them plenty in common; it's revealed early on that Kannawa is a huge gamer, while Kamegawa loves building plastic models and Gunpla. Their relationships are convincingly deepened, even as the narrative tries to convince us that they are “just friends” right until the end, when the two go on a Christmas date to go beyond being more than friends. Side note, but it's a plus that My Awkward Senpai's final episode aired a week before Christmas. I watched it after the holidays had already ended, and I'm sure the vibes would have been immaculate had I seen it in time.

The soundtrack is nice. In theory, it's no different than a lot of the music you'd get out of a series like this. It takes on the same relaxing, at times quirky, other times intimate, tone that you hear in a lot of other rom-com and slice of life. As such, it's filled with the usual synths, pianos, xylophones, and violins that sound very elevator music-y. That being said, I like the twinkly timbre that the instruments have while sounding out their notes. They don't do enough to make the pieces or scenes they occupy pop out at you, but it's enough to add some spark and a few dollops of dreaminess here and there.

The art style is cute without being gaudy, and the direction is consistent without being over- or under-imaginative. No plot thread or bit within My Awkward Senpai's twelve episodes will surprise long-time rom-com watchers, but it remains a breezy, enjoyable spin on the usual “will they or won't they?”. Even when the result is an obvious yes.