When a season has a couple of highly-placed shows miss the mark – as this one does – it’s awfully nice to have overachievers pick up the slack.  These aren’t the heady days of 2007 or 2012 where you had at least 10-12 quality series seemingly every season – these days the bar is a lot lower than it used to be.  Ousama Ranking and Blue Period are obviously great and the class of the season, but for whatever reason Senpai ga Uzai Kouhai no Hanashi was my sleeper pick, and it’s punched above its weight.  And thank goodness for that, too.

As the OP would have told you, there was one more significant piece on the board that hadn’t been played yet.  It was deployed this week, and that’s Sakurai Yuuto (Horie Yui).  His first appearance seems quite random, as Kazama-san and Futaba stumble across him as he’s lost and cursing his map app for letting him down.  But this is a case of Chekov’s shota if ever there was one – Yuuto-kun winds up as the main thread connecting all the plot points this week, and he seems certain to be a meaningful player going forward.  His first impact is bolstering Futaba’s self-esteem by calling she and Kazama “Onee-san” when (tearfully) thanking them for guiding him to where he’s meeting someone.

That someone will be important, of course. but we won’t find that out for a while.  The main MacGuffin this week is Valentine’s Day, that complicated and emotionally-loaded “X” on the Japanese calendar.  Whether it be schools or offices, the sacred line diving giri and honmei choco means everything.  The jamokes in the office – especially Hijikiata-san – are obsessed with what Touko will decide to do.  One person in the office, of course, has an inside track here – though the others don’t know that yet.  This sadly seems to be a familiar pattern for Sakurai-san, who’s borne the “popular girl” curse since her schooldays.

As for the A-couple. of course Futaba is grinding over what sort of chocolate to give Takeda-san (though it’ll certainly be homemade).  But their relationship does lurch forward a half-step when he invites her (the sumaho gambit already paying dividends) out for ramen when the boss releases him early after sales calls.  We hear his first name for the first time – Harumi – from the ramen shop owner.  He tries to sell Futaba on his Valentine’s special, choco-ramen – which as Harumi says, sounds absolutely disgusting.  But this exchange clues Futaba into the fact that Takeda-san doesn’t much care for sweet things.

Yuuto (it’s always interesting to hear Hochan take on a boy role) re-enters the fray with another chance meeting (reminder: Tokyo has like 20 million people), this time with Takeda.  He rescues the lad from a shakedown by a couple of thugs (reminder: Tokyo has almost no street crime), and gently scolds him that “a man shouldn’t cry over such small things”.  When Futaba-chan (shorter than Yuuto) arrives and they recognize each other, an introduction begins to arouse suspicion in their minds – confirmed when Touko arrives to pick up her little brother.  She also makes sure he doesn’t take up Takeda’s invite to join them on that ramen date…

Finally, Yuuto impacts the story by walking on a ledge so he’s taller than his sister.  A passing Kazama-san sees only their top halves, and naturally jumps to the wrong conclusion (although why he thinks Touko would get with a guy in a school uniform is a fair question).  This actually causes a bit of friction between them when he dejectedly dismisses her Valentine’s gift as obligation chocolate, but once the truth comes out (kudos to Senpai ga Uzai once again for not dragging stuff out but just dealing with it) she’s actually flattered.  Another step forward for them.

Again, a totally charming episode, and Yuuto offers some interesting potential new angles for the series to pursue.  I have to say, this is a pretty sweet office these folks work at, with a sweetheart of a boss – but hey, those do exist (even in Japan).  It’s nice to have a series that’s basically positive in its outlook, with humor that’s not derived from anybody’s humiliation (mostly).  But as for that end card by Tsukushi Akihito (Made in Abyss), it’s not going to dissuade anyone from thinking he has a somewhat twisted side to him…