If you’re looking to fill that Dunder Mifflin sized hole in your heart with “My Senpai is Annoying,” you might want to look elsewhere. But that doesn’t mean it’s a completely joyless experience.
Cover by ShiromantaStory and Art by Shiromanta
Igarashi Futuba’s new job would be great if her senpai, Takeda Harumi, wasn’t so incredibly annoying! Futuba hates his laugh, she hates how big he is, and she really hates that he treats her like a little kid. Just because Futuba is short and looks young doesn’t make her a kid, and just because she spends so much time with Takeda doesn’t mean she sees him as anything but an annoying senpai… or does she?!
There’s a lot to love about working from home: comfortable clothes, very easy commute, quick access to all your favorite snacks. But there’s also a lot to love about working in an office: a chance to see other people, exploring a different neighborhood, quick access to all your favorite snacks. (Well, with that last one, you have to remember to bring them to work.)
Like many professional folks, I am on the long term work from home assignment (at least through the rest of this year), so I was missing being in an office. That drew me to “My Senpai is Annoying,” described in our Soliciting Multiversity manga column this April as the book designed to “charm audiences of workplace comedies like Aggretsuko and The Office.” Sounds like a nice bit of nostalgia for those pre-2020 days of coffee breaks, happy hours, and strange conversations with people you see 40 hours a week that become your second family.
There were moments of just that in this manga, but there was a lot more of the romance. And that disproportionate balance ended up turning me off from this title.
Now don’t get me wrong, I do love those Pam and Jim moments. But I also loved things like the Office Olympics and weird lunches at Chili’s. That’s what makes a show like The Office such a classic, that relatability of everyday office life. And that’s what is sorely missing here.
Told in vignettes, the premise of this webcomic turned manga is simple: young Igarashi gets her start in the working world with a senpai (superior) Takeda that just seems to push every one of her buttons: he’s tall, he tends to treat her like a child, he doesn’t know how to use a smartphone . . . but yet she starts to find herself drawn to him, and even he to her. For Americans conditioned to think of office romances as taboo, the fact that their attraction not only goes under the radar of most of the company, but is also strongly encouraged, is a bit of a culture shock. The rigid hierarchial nature of their relationship is also one that might give Americans pause as well, but it’s actually more informal than you may think.
There are moments you feel endeared to, and almost sorry for, Igarashi. You know she’s deep down a good person when you see her give her scarf to a woman missing one on a cold day. And you have to feel bad for her always being mistaken for a young child thanks to her youthful appearance. (It’s part of what started off her relationship with Takeda off on the wrong foot – – he mistook her for one of the schoolchildren visiting the office on a career day excursion, not his new colleague.) But her childish outbursts with her friends and coworkers (the same new ones she’s trying to impress) anytime anyone teases her about Takeda or her youthful stature really drive away some of that empathy. Her behavior is at the least, annoying, and at its worst, obnoxious – – and no doubt would have her in HR’s office in seconds flat.
That’s not to say Takeda’s a model employee either: he’s a dense alpha male who clearly got in his position via luck, nepotism, or some combination of both. But again, he has some affection towards his subordinate: bringing her food when she’s home sick, saving her from a mass transit pervert, picking up her work when she falls behind. Clearly there’s some good in both these people, but Shiromanta opts to play up their less endearing traits to really hit home the “opposites attract” angle. Without that endearment, it’s hard to stay engaged and root for them to end up together. I would hope future installments give room for more of those quieter moments of building a relationship without all that shrill opposition from either side. And because no two people are an island, I’d also hope we get to know the supporting players a bit more as well: fellow senpais Sakurai and Kazama, as well as Igarashi’s good friend Kurobe. In this volume, they’re here in service to introducing Takeda and Igarashi, and nothing more.
There’s a sketchbook style to this art that really serves the vignette storytelling well. It’s fluid and loose but still intimate, as if we were glimpsing someone’s diary or blog. Shiromanta does a fine job in exaggerating everyone’s size and shape relative to Igarashi. The other women have softer lines and curvier figures emphasizing that they are women, whereas Igarashi is not just small but flat chested. Takeda has sharp lines and blocky shoulders, dominating each page and panel where he appears. If you watch Netflix’s Umbrella Academy, you’ll certainly think of Luther when you see him. The larger Takeda is, the smaller Igarashi appears alongside of him. But when she gets frustrated, you do know it, with her outbursts literally pushing him out of the way. In spite of this being a romance manga, it doesn’t play up sexuality tropes: women are drawn proportionally and not in full service of the male gaze. There is an inconsistency in coloring throughout: some panels are fully black and white, others have a limited palette, and still others have a variety of tones and shades. It shows the growth and maturity of the artwork, but also serves to distract.
Romance manga fans who want something different or modern will certainly enjoy this, as will those who like a bit of slice of life story alongside that romance. But if the office angle of the story sold you initially, it’s not going to completely fill that Dunder Mifflin sized hole in your heart.
