Senryu Girl

Senryuu Shoujo is a cute romance, TV short that aired during the 2019 spring season. I have only watched it recently, and before happening across it on Anilist, I had not heard of it once. It's a shame, really, that it didn't reach the popularity that say Horimiya had met. As much as I enjoyed this show, I understand why this may be.

Senryuu Shoujo tells the story of Nanako Yukishiro, who is quite frankly one of the best female leads in the romance genre; maybe even in anime as a whole. Nanako is a 15 year old girl who has a difficult time communicating with other people, including her own family. This is why she is entirely mute, and communicates only through senryu (5-7-5 poetry, like the haiku) using a board she carries with her everywhere she goes. Even still, Nanako is very animated and expressive in her facial features and reactions (plus giggles a lot), sometimes in even a comedically exaggerated fashion.

Nanako was bullied for a time when she was young for this mutism, and as a result she holed herself up at home and refused to leave the house. She didn't want to interact with anybody, and was depressed to such an extent that her father had grown very concerned for her well-being. However, after joining a poetry club in the community comprised of all adults, she meets a boy her own age: Eiji Busujima, also known as the "Demon of West Middle School."

Except Eiji is nothing at all like a demon; actually, the nickname is hilarious to tell you the truth, because Eiji is an airhead who is all dorky and smiles and loves bunnies. There's not much detailed about his father up to the point that I've read in the manga, but he has a very intimidating appearance and smokes a lot, especially so in the eyes. Eiji's eyes and smile make him look scary, so much so that everyone is terrified and makes him the victim of a bad reputation due to rumors. For a time, Eiji befriended gangsters and got into a lot of fist-fights, but he decided to turn over a new leaf and take up poetry, which is how Eiji came to join the poetry club.

To make it long story short, the two connected, and when Eiji meets Nanako's mother, she tells him that he was the one who broke Nanako from her shell. He was the first person Nanako wanted to spend the rest of her life with outside their family, she had told him, and that was when Nanako's personality transformed to being the perky, bubbly, free-spirited girl she is in the present.

What I love about the romance between Eiji and Nanako is just how easy it is. There's no miscommunication, no jealous love rivals; all their friends are rooting for them, and are trying their best to get the two of them together. Nanako is fairly expressive of her feelings for Eiji albeit subtle in a sense, and the two of them do so many couple-like things already such as linking arms and going on dates like it's the most natural thing in the world. They're always joking around together and find each other's quirks most charming, and most importantly, the two of them are constantly stressing to one another how much they adore them just the way they are. When other girls in their grade pressured Nanako into wearing makeup in the manga (which she didn't like), Eiji told her she was beautiful but admitted how he found it more difficult talking to her that way since she doesn't look like the same Nanako he spends all his time with. Their school's poetry club in which they're both apart of tried to come up with a strategy to make Eiji more approachable, but when they asked Nanako for suggestions, she said that Eiji is perfect just the way he is (and made a joking remark about how his eyes roll back into his head when he's lost in thought).

This isn't a story of strangers falling in love, but two best friends who are already mutually exclusive without realizing. Hell, even when a guy tried confessing his feelings to Nanako in the beginning of the manga, Nanako rejects him and says to Eiji that she's relying on him to protect her, and I thought that was really sweet. There's no drama occurring whatsoever, and while I like that in a sense, it gives the plot little substance. Every good story needs a conflict, and that is something vital that this series lacks. Not to mention that every episode is not only 12 minutes long, but every manga chapter are stand-alones that are quite short as well.

While the animation is stunning, the plot lines are original, and the VAs are incredible (ESPECIALLY the dub, which I highly recommend), I think the lack of a sole, driving sustenance and the short duration of episodes over the course of a single 12 episode series, there isn't enough content and development to really take the story home (plus the anime ends on a sort of random note in my opinion; they gave the backstory of how Nanako and Eiji met, which is very important, but it ended the anime so suddenly, not to mention the two of them didn't get together). I also quite dislike the subtle (but frequent) fan service that shows up in just about every episode, especially with Koto and her entire character as a whole (she sort of gives off a "big sister" fetish, and is just super sexual in general). I also think it's quite off-putting that the entire cast other than Eiji are all women, with not a single male character except for unimportant backgrounders.

All in all, I think this story and its characters had so much potential (far more than many romances I've seen / read), but the execution just wasn't the best. But even still, it's a wholesome, funny, and enjoyable watch, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes a drama-free, feel-good series!