The first thing that must be said should be obvious – more Ohtsuka Akio makes any show better.  We’ve heard bits and pieces of him as Futaba’s grandfather, but this was his first extended action of the series.  And while on the whole this week’s premise didn’t grab me as much as its predecessors, there were still some really good moments.  And the interplay between Ohtsuka and Takeuchi Shunsuke (hard to believe he’s only 24 years old) was a lot of fun.

I’ve been scanning through the manga a bit as Senpai ga Uzai progresses, and a continuing trend I see is that the anime is padding out the plot to a considerable degree.  This is a good decision in my view – the series is not literally a gag manga but it does play as a series of semi-related comic vignettes in manga form.  What works in manga doesn’t always work in anime, and Doga Kobo has basically turned the series into a true situation comedy.  Another change for the better is that while the manga focuses almost exclusively on the main couple, the supporting cast gets more run in the anime.  Another smart move, as a true ensemble gives a sitcom far more options to work with.

As we’ve seen before, Ojii-san is something of a tough guy biker with a big soft spot for his granddaughter.  When Sakura-san uses a filter to turn Futaba and Harumi into dolls from the Goten Kazari and takes it on herself to send the photo to him, that’s when the trouble starts.  As it happens it’s also Futaba’s birthday, so she asks to stop at a flower shop one of her sales calls with senpai to “buy herself a present”.  I get the definite sense she’s fishing here, but the tables are turned when Takeda-san informs her that it’s his birthday too (if that’s not kismet I don’t know what is).  He suggests they buy each other flowers as a gift, and the fun starts from there.

For me, the strongest moment in the episode comes when Takeda tells Ojii-san – who’s just arrived on his chopper and whose identity is unknown to Takeda – that “Futaba is not an object.  She doesn’t belong to anybody”.  This is a show that, charming as it is, pushes the envelope at times when it comes to gender roles (indeed, it does so later in the episode, with Futaba’s needing to be “rescued” from some street toughs), so Harumi’s outburst is welcome – even if at times he’s guilty of condescending to Futaba himself.  Ohtsuka is a massively underrated comic actor, and he has a field day with Ojii-san’s panic over his granddaughter possibly having a boyfriend (though he calms down a hair after going to see Your Name to try and understand young romance in the 21st Century).

Senpai ga Uzai has pretty much established itself as the king of coincidences (the birthday thing doesn’t even make one bat an eye), so Ojii-san and Harumi continuously bumping into each other  – fishing in Ichigaya, at the batting center, on community cleanup duty – is par for the course.  Some of these bits works better than others, but Grandpa’s behavior becomes a lot more understandable once Futaba’s backstory comes out.  While there’s no mention of her parents, Ojii-san seems to have raised her on his own – and gave his reluctant blessing to her going off to high school in Tokyo at 15 and living alone.  His overprotectiveness is still annoying (a lot more than Senpai) but at least he let her live her life, and he has good reason to feel protective.

There are some other notable bits here.  Nice comic touch – Harumi pinching his fingers together when he asks where Futaba is.  And he gives her candy for White Day – which, in the complex system of codes attached to the ritual, is the gift that says “I’m interested”.  Of course, he does so in the form of a hard candy for her allergy-irritated throat – as ever keeping his level of awareness a mystery.  Detente is reached with Ojii-san of course – he and Takeda have more in common than either would like to admit – but whether than holds if and when Futaba and Harumi take it to the next level will be interesting to see…