Senpai ga Uzai Kouhai no Hanashi | E3: Lovin’ the supporting cast.

What I enjoyed most about episode three was that the supporting cast seems to be more than just supporting characters and that’s what I love. While Igarashi and Takeda are the main focus of the anime, I love how Sakurai and Kazama still feature quite a bit.

Since Sakurai and Kazama are supporting characters, they don’t get much screen time but when they do, the two make the most of it. Typically with rom-coms anime, I’ve noticed that the supporting cast does not develop as quickly or as well as the main characters, which makes sense because they’re not the main focus of the anime. But that’s where Senpai ga Uzai Kouhai no Hanashi stands out, while we continue to watch Igarashi and Takeda’s relationship grow and develop, we get to see the same thing happen with Sakurai and Kazama and that’s something I like.

Everything about episode three felt incredibly wholesome and I loved it. Episode three takes place around the holiday season, so it’s all about gift-giving and spending time with friends and family. In this case, it was all about being appreciative of your co-workers. So we see Igarashi and Takeda giving each other presents, with Igarashi freaking out as per usual because she likes Takeda. So the obvious took place, Igarashi freaking out and overthinking everything, pondering the ‘What ifs’, not wanting to get Takeda something he didn’t like.

Then we had that moment between Sakurai and Kazama. Where Kazama waited for Sakurai to exit their office building before asking her if she wanted to go out to dinner together. I thought this scene in particular was insanely cute because the way they acted was akin to two teens hanging out with each other, knowing full well that they have feelings for one another. But due to them being shy and not knowing how to properly convey their feelings, they walk around in limbo neither one of them having the guts to confess first. The biggest kicker for me was when Sakurai and Kazama were waiting at a train passing when Sakurai seemingly mustered up the courage to confess her feelings only to have the train rumble by in front of them ruining the moment. When that happened I was sitting in my chair in disbelief. The anime gods know how to play with one’s feelings. I thought “No way did they just do that”, but I did see that coming because whenever you see two characters stopped at a train passing. You immediately know that a confession that was going to happen is not actually going to be happening.

Anyway, I really enjoyed episode three. It was definitely my favourite episode of the series. 8/10.