Senpai ga Uzai Kouhai no Hanashi – 03

「そしてクリスマス」 (Soshite Kurisumasu)
“And Then, It’s Christmas”

It’s October I’m just starting to get into the spooky month and now Senpai ga Uzai Kouhai no Hanashi throws a curveball and decides to shower us with snow and thoughts of a winter wonderland. Futaba is thrown into a little ball of anxiety when she decides it’s time to get a Christmas present for Harumi. She struggles among many options, even sneakily resorting to reading a smutty article about what some clickbait blogger thinks the 5 most superficial options are for gift giving to men. She double-checks no one is in the premise before committing to reading. There are many options she could go for, but at the end of the day, Futaba has to keep it simple because it’s just a friendly exchange of gifts between colleagues nothing more. In the end, she teary-eyed front’s a clerk at this Sears-looking place and asks for help. The nice lady recommends a double-colored striped tie (very professional), very popular among women buying gifts. It looks licensed and something he could have used on a daily basis. The flower one was super cute, and the pandas are just a conversation started, and with Harumi’s chill attitude I bet that could diverge into even more fun topics! Pandas are lazy by nature, and Futaba akins Harumi to more of a bear, which makes him a cuddly predator, I guess!?  Although this also signifies that their relationship is not that deep yet, even though Harumi is starting to see a side of Futaba few people get to see, i.e when she hands over her scarf to a crying kid. Futaba couldn’t find a common ground between them, a more geeky type of gift, for example, would signify they both know only things the other knows about them; if that makes any sense.

A show they both like, or even maybe some music they both listen to and share together, but no such luck and such, they both had to recurse to something simple, and maybe even a little bit shallow. But such is gift-giving to people you don’t know on more than a superficial level. Work relationships tend to deepen over a large gap of time. So it only makes sense.

Honestly, at first, I thought they were doing secret Santa ballots, to see who is going to give to who, but then Harumi pulls out a safe and Touko pulls out Santa, apparently in this office someone has to dress up as Santa and hand out candy, but it’s a small celebration as quickly people get back to work, Christmas in Japan is a mere cosmetic holiday. Nonetheless, Futaba also pulls out a Santa for the second year in a row, this has to be some kind of Guinness world record or just terrible luck

On the other hand, Touko and Souta have a nice little moment where Souta blushes hotly like a red apple, he even covers his face of how embarrassed he is. Touko really likes to tease him in the nicest way possible. It’s honestly endearing how he waits for her at the entrance so they can walk home together, but what was that about when Souta makes a private assembly with his friends. Only for Futaba to completely dismiss them, that face says she is so over this and just walks away not even wanting to know more. Boy being boys or something.

It’s a little weird how we’re still in the middle of fall and a couple of anime already decided to jump ship and go straight into Christmas territory, the sooner you can capitalize on the season the sooner you can start selling seasonal merch, I suppose. I’m a little bit of a grinch, but in the end, always end up gift-giving with my close friends who I always gift give too, it’s like a mutual thing we now have an unspoken bond over, we make lavish gifts full of small details, but it’s only because we’re really close and have known each other for years and years. And it’s always mutual, and because we love each other and other mushy stuff that. I’m too much of a grinch. Christmas has been largely taken over by corporations. They want your money even if it makes you feel bad about it because you’re not a good friend if you don’t buy stuff for the people you love. Honestly give me carbon I deserve nothing.

But yeah – As you can probably tell I ran out of things to say halfway through that last paragraph, but yeah, I enjoyed this episode even if it’s 81(F)° outside. It was fun to get into the Christmas spirit even if it’s a little bit early. So what are we getting the new years episode next week?

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