English Dub Review: My Senpai is Annoying “Each Other’s Stride”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Futaba Igarashi is a sales worker in training, shorter than average and working with a superior who is basically a giant, Harumi Takeda. Takeda is a very kind person, which annoys Igarashi to no end, but she slowly begins to warm up to him as he continues to help her.

OUR TAKE

Funimation seems to be slowly be getting back to their pre-pandemic pacing with the simuldubs, as this one is only a few episodes ahead in terms of subbed release, and its actually on a show that I’ve been seeing float around for some time in manga form. This is based on a series of shorts that I’ve read a few of online and seen plenty more be very prominently shown around social media sites, which tells me that this is a pretty popular series that was a pretty good choice for adaptation. This office romantic comedy is pretty much centered on the burgeoning relationship between Igarashi and Takeda, mainly from Igarashi’s perspective since she’s the tsundere in this dynamic to Takeda’s nice and warm senpai, and so all the major comedy and squishiness between these two is likely going to come from her. Aside from the small developments between this potential couple and a secondary B couple who are mutual friends of these two, there isn’t going to be much of a straightforward story and instead things will just be about the episodic situations that will slowly build up on these relationships. Such would probably be expected for a romantic comedy series based on chapters that are only a few pages long each.

Having enjoyed what I had read of this series so far, an animated adaptation seems like a natural choice, and it already seems to be a pretty big hit in the typical anime circles, so that’s a good sign for me to expect more enjoyment for the remainder of its season. I guess my only real worry or point of contention is that Igarashi is so tiny and child like compared to Takeda. I understand that’s part of the comedy and she is clearly an adult, but having child looking romantic leads standing next to obvious adults is unfortunately pretty common in anime and manga like this and I would be remiss if I didn’t address that upfront. Again, unlikely it’s going to be a big problem for this series in particular, so don’t expect it to come up in these reviews except for comedy, it’s just definitely something that has not been handled as carefully in other stories. Other than that, though, this looks like it will be a fun show to watch, if maybe a bit of chore to find ways to analyze for several months.