The Fall Anime 2025 Preview Guide – My Awkward Senpai

What is this?

Kannawa-senpai is considered many things, but smooth is definitely not one of them. Then she meets Kamegawa, her new kouhai. He’s cute, a little nerdy, and easy to get along with. Now this awkward senpai must figure out how to handle these new feelings.

My Awkward Senpai is based on the manga series by Makoto Kudo. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Thursdays.

How was the first episode?

Bolts
Rating:

Who is ready for another awkward office romance? I’m not sure why it took me a while to realize that this has become a growing genre lately. While I appreciate the change in pace from the typical high school misunderstanding setup, let’s be honest, this is essentially the same thing with a slightly different coat of paint. I’ll admit, it was initially a bit challenging to get into this episode due to its bland appearance. I wasn’t a fan of the washed-out colors, and everything looks relatively flat. But some fun scenes left a mildly entertaining impact.

Honestly, my favorite thing about the show thus far is the mindset of Azusa Kannawa. She is someone who’s naturally introverted and doesn’t understand the difference between how she wants to appear and how she actually comes across. I did think it was funny that there are times when she thinks she’s being rude, but she comes off as very professional. However, there are also times when Azusa thinks she’s being extroverted, only to come off as being very rude. That can be fun, and I love the scene at the beginning where the music fades out and we slowly get a glimpse of her actual mindset. The little sequence was the most creative thing in the entire episode.

The problem is that the setup is very predictable and, so far, hasn’t offered anything new. We have the new coworker Yuu Kamegawa, who will be able to see through our lead or, at the very least, be a lot more understanding of her communication styles, and a romance will blossom between these two. I need to see more from Yuu to actually buy into the duo’s romantic tension, because at the end of the first episode, it just didn’t really feel earned when he stands up for her. I don’t know what he’s seeing when he says he gets to see a different side of her. Maybe some more episodes from his perspective could help balance things out, but for now, I’ll just put My Awkward Senpai in the ‘OK’ pile.

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