Manga / Senryu Girl

Nanako Yukishiro is a cute, cheerful Ordinary High-School Student with one odd trait: She communicates through senryū (a type of Japanese poem which follows many of the same rules as haiku) instead of speaking.^note Technically she communicates in a combination of senryuu; and zappai, both of which follow the 5-7-5 pattern. (Basically, "haikai.") For whatever the reason, the author chose to apply the term "senryuu" to anything that isn't a haiku following the 5-7-5 pattern. She is also part of the literature club along with Amane Katagiri, the club president, and Eiji Busujima, a former delinquent she's fallen for who wanted to make his own senryuu.

Senryu Girl (川柳少女 Senryū Shōjo, or Senryuu Shoujo) is a Yonkoma manga written and illustrated by Masakuni Igarashi.^note The series isn't strictly divided into 4-page yonkoma; not all of the "ku" (or chapters) are four pages or even in yonkoma format. It was serialized in Weekly Shonen Magazine from October 2016 to April 2020, with its chapters collected into 13 volumes. An anime adaptation ran from April 6, 2019 to July 22, 2019, and is licensed by Sentai Filmworks. The anime is currently available for streaming on Crunchyroll, HiDive, and VRV, and can be viewed here

Compare to Komi Can't Communicate, a manga about a high school girl with a similar communication disorder, and Hitoribocchi no OO Seikatsu, a manga about a middle school girl with similar isolation and anxiety problems.

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Tropes present in this work include:

• 0% Approval Rating: People can't seem to look at Eiji without thinking he might hurt them. This begins to slowly go away when they begin to see how much of a nice guy he really is.
• A-Cup Angst: Tao has a bad case of this. In the anime, when they go buy swimsuits, she takes one look at Nanako's well-endowed chest that she asks a store clerk for a swimsuit with "melon" padding. In the manga, the same scene has Amane notice how well endowed Nanako is when helping her change; after looking at her own breasts, Tao immediately asks the salesclerk if they have any bathing suits with Big-Mac-sized padding.
• Accidental Pervert: Mukai always has something wrong with his pants. When he confidently confessed to Nanako, his fly was wide open, flashing her; during Sports' Day, he made sure not to wear something with a fly, instead his gym shorts and underwear split open, so he mooned the entire gymnasium. He didn't realize it himself either time.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Nanako's father fears the prospect of her becoming a delinquent and imagines her doing so dressing like one and still speaking in senryuu. However the thought of it sounded really funny.
• Adaptation Distillation:
  • The manga is 100+ chapters long while the anime is 12 episodes with only 13 minutes.
  • Some of Nanako's more Cloud Cuckoo Lander tendencies were toned down or removed in order to make her more typically cute. Some of the crazier humor were also removed, like the time Amane somehow ended up in the demon world.
• Adaptational Expansion: The anime will frequently add characters where they originally didn't appear in the manga.
• Adapted Out: Some characters are not in the anime as they would in the manga, such as Nanako's creepy admirer, the Drama and Judo Club members. As well as nearly 50% of the story in order to combine certain events as an episode, and this is well before any of those chapters when Komachi even appears in the manga herself.^note 18 chapters out of 57, whereas 70.5 is an extension to Nanako's meeting with Eiji, and how she's able to see him again.
• Adorably Precocious Child: Episode 6 introduces Eiji's little sister, Hanabi. He says as such in the first episode.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Inverted personality-wise. Nanako has a crush on Eiji, who is a delinquent. However, he is actually nicer than his appearance makes him out to be.
• Alternate Character Reading: When Nanako, Eiji, and Amane meets Tao Hanakai, they get their fortunes read based on various readings. Amane would fall in love with the first guy she meets, and Eiji and Nanako are very incompatible. Then it turns out Tao misspelled their names by using different letters for their actual names (for example, she wrote Eiji's last name, Busujima with "ブス," a derogatory term for an ugly woman). When Tao corrects this, it turns out that Amane won't fall in love with the first guy she meets, and Eiji and Nanako are actually extremely compatible (in the 50th ku, Tao reveals the score to be a perfect 100).
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents:
  • Nanako's father is an overdramatic mess. The first things that comes to mind when Nanako asks her brother about her weight and what to wear is her dad suddenly shocked by it. In episode 6, he manages to come to the conclusion that Nanako is undergoing a rebellious phase. Apparently, he's been doing this sort of thing for years, since Hiro often ends up telling his mother "He's doing it again."
  • Eiji has this opinion about his own parents and opts to claim his house has burnt down and only introduce Nanako to his little sister. Episode 8 showcases his reasons why he thinks of his parents this way, and the 55th ku shows that Eiji's worries are not unfounded, especially his own father.
• Anachronic Order: The anime is out of order compared to the manga, while rearranging its events:
  • Episode 1 uses excerpts from the 1st and 2nd ku in different orders.
  • Koto's first anime appearance is in episode 2, but her actual appearance in the manga is the 7th ku, using the excerpts from the 7th and 11th ku respectively with the latter involving Nanako attempting to lose weight for Eiji.
  • Episode 3 covers the 8th and 9th ku, which involves Nanako's date with Eiji with Koto and Amane spying on them.
  • Kino's first anime appearance is in episode 4, but her manga appearance is in the 16th ku with the 17th ku introducing her by name.
  • Tao is introduced in episode 5, but she appears in the 30th ku. The 31st ku is when the main characters properly meet her.
  • Episode 6 mixes excerpts from the 13th ku (when Nanako meets Hanabi) with the 58th ku (her father assuming she's in her rebellious phase). However, Nanako's side plait hairstyle wasn't introduced until the 61st ku where the main girls were giving her a makeover to help her win over Eiji.
  • Episode 7 uses the plot of the 25th ku and the 37th ku.
  • Episode 8 uses 45th ku as its plot while adding Kino and Koto.
  • Episode 9 combines the 23rd ku and the 47th ku.
• Animal Motifs: Nanako is a cat, and Eiji (for some reason) is a chimpanzee.
• Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder: In the eyes of anyone else, Eiji looks like your usual thuggish delinquent who gets into fights with people, but Nanako sees the opposite of this.
• Armor-Piercing Response: A less brutal version. Nanako asks Eiji if he felt uncomfortable because she feels as if she's only enjoying herself rather than just her and Eiji. Eiji responds to her the same senryuu she told him in chapter 2.
• Art Evolution: The first three volumes has basic character models for the main characters and supporting casts. Volume 4 is where the characters are more expressive, larger eyes, and less egg-like heads.
• Awesome Art: In-Universe, Kino is such a great artist that she can draw highly-detailed portraits of herself, other people, and an Oni. At a later point, she is asked to display her best recent work, and when Kino doesn't move they think she didn't hear, until she shifts the work a little: it was the backdrop.
• Bait-and-Switch: Occurs a few times, most of the incidents are single-panel affairs, but not all of them.
  • In the 19th ku, near the end of the main event of the chapter, Kino is show to have a longing look on her face, and Amane notices this in the 24th ku. When Koto and Amane spies on her, she actually doesn't have a crush on Eiji, but that she sees Nanako as a Cool Big Sis, since she is an only child.
  • When Nanako and Eiji are giving Hanabi a tour of their school, Hanabi says that they look like that, prompting Nanako to think that she means a family of three and blush, Eiji then asks if she's referring to the "alien in custody" photo (she does).
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: In the 119.5 ku, Nanako and the main girls are bathing at a hot springs resort and in 145th ku, Nanako and some of her friends bathing in the hot spring. Both chapters has no visible nipples are drawn.
• Be Yourself: The manga's overall Central Theme. Eiji is the kind of person you wouldn't expect this from, but he thinks trying to change yourself will cause a drift between you and the person you like. It's why Nanako continues to do so after they met.
• Beach Episode: More like pool episode. Episode 8 has the main girls, Eiji, and his little sister go to a water park together. The anime adds n Kino and Koto.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: How Nanako met Eiji and how they hit it off: Nanako was the only one who actually liked Eiji's senryuu and never once panicked when he was around her. Eiji in return tells her if she has trouble speaking out her thoughts, then she should write them with senryuu. That point in Christmas is where it all started.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension:
  • Nanako attempted to pull this off in the 52nd ku, but she's too nice to even think about neglecting Eiji, so she apologized for it immediately.
  • Played straight with Amane in regards to the Judo Club president who willingly used up his spot for the school festival so that the main trio doesn't have to use a spare room next to the bathroom. She promptly kicks him for it.
• Big Eater:
  • Nanako loves to eat. However when Eiji tells her her stomach is getting bigger, she suffers a case of Weight Woe. Even when she's sick, she still eats large quantities of food.
  • Eiji is no slouch in this either. When both him and Komachi decided to hang out, he goes to his usual ramen place and orders his usual bowl, which Komachi finds has two servings with extra toppings. Apparently, if it's meat, he'll eat even more, even if it's very burnt.
• Bland-Name Product: The manga clearly identifies the game system Eiji wanted to win, but Amane wins it, is called the PlayStation. The anime version calls the system "Famistation," which is more or less the portmanteau of Famicom and PlayStation.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: The 114th ku has Kino draw a (working) QR code which links it to Igarashi's Twitter account. The message reads: "There's nothing special to say here."
• The Cameo: Natsuo Fujii and Rui Tachibana appears in the 19th ku's omake from chapter 117 of their series. Only Amane spies on the two and takes pictures of them, to their frustration.
• Can't Hold His Liquor: Koto and Nanako can get drunk with incredible ease. Koto only needs to smell alcohol to get drunk. As for Nanako, she got drunk from some amazake, which mind you, has low alcohol content (so low that liquor laws do not apply to it).
• Cerebus Syndrome: Starting with the 101st ku, the series took a dark turn after Nanako encounters a middle school bully who made fun of her. It doesn't last beyond that arc.
• Character Tic: Two of the series characters thus far have communication quirks involving means other than their voice, but a straight-forward replacing speech with writing approach.
  • Nanako is well-known by others for writing senryuu^note The author uses the term to mean any 5-7-5 work which is not a haiku. rather than speak. The anime does give her a speaking voice, but she only speaks what she writes.
  • Kino is very quiet, and so she often draws her thoughts.
• Christmas Episode: Nanako first met Eiji on a Christmas Day at a senryuu meeting. A Lightless Christmas 4-parter in the manga also takes place on a Christmas Day, but takes a serious turn with the introduction of Akari.
• Cloud Cuckoo Land: All of the characters lack common sense in one way or another and have at least a few character tics to boot, resulting in this. For example, when asked to bring some eggs and an apron for Home-Ec, Eiji brings a rooster and a hazmat suit, meanwhile Nanako, who is in the same group, makes a cooking show of the assignment, all the while using written senryuu to communicate.
  • This also results in all of the characters playing straight-men for each other. So, while Amane often notes the absurdity of Eiji and Nanako's antics, Eiji is typically the first person to point out hers. Then there are the times the rebutting character realizes that they're no better (this is mostly Amane).
• Cool Big Sis:
  • Hanabi sees Nanako this way. Kino herself sees Nanako that way as well, since she herself is an only child.
  • Later on, Nanako meets Amane's sister Madoka, who is very aloof, but finds Nanako cute.
  Madoka: ...I want to protect this girl and kidnap her at the same time.
• Cover Drop: The last chapter reveals that the covers of the first twelve volumes were part of Amane's photoshoot with Nanako. The last omake also ends with the last volume's cover.
• Covers Always Lie: Played with. The covers for the manga certainly◊ don't◊ scream◊ "wacky rom-com hijinks", or "Shōnen Demographic". Albeit romance is the main theme of the manga, it's nowhere near as rose-tinted as the covers would suggest.
• Covert Pervert: Sort of... Amane can only draw nudes, even of fruit! She also has a back fetish. That said, she rejects anything blatantly perverted, like an absurdly exposing bikini.
• Cuteness Proximity: Nearly every character who sees Nanako as this, much to her exasperation.
• Date Peepers: Amane and Koto arrive to the amusement park hiding in plain sight with to peep at Nanako and Eiji spending time together.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The ending theme, 「ORDINARY LOVE」 is sung by Koto's voice actress, Rikako Aida.
• Elephant in the Room: Amane will frequently comment on Nanako's oddity of being able to control her hair. Nanako is even capable of doing a rollercoaster impression, no props or wind required... somehow.
• Evolving Credits: Each ending in the anime will have the current episode's events shown.
• Face of a Thug: Eiji was born with very sharp eyes, among other things, so he often has this. Sometimes it's from sheer oblivousness or from just trying to go about life as usual, and his attempts to be nice to people tends to scare them off. Granted, he was an actual delinquent, but he's not a delinquent anymore and wants to continue to write senryuu. His main problem is that he tends to get too tense around people that he unintentionally gives people a Death Glare, and the fact that other delinquents always picks fights with him. He apparently is often questioned or taken in by the cops due to this as well.
• Festival Episode: the 40th and 41st ku and their corresponding episode 11 in the anime has the main trio going to the fireworks festival.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Eiji has these happening to him twice:
  • Eiji actually met Nanako on Christmas when they went to a senryuu meeting, and she wanted to meet him again. When they actually do meet again, he apparently doesn't remember meeting her. He eventually remembers later on.
  • Eiji remembers a girl he defended in middle school who often goes to the library. That girl turned out to be Komachi.
• From the Mouths of Babes: Hanabi is clearly influenced by her big brother and father, and watching TV dramas to the point of saying little swears.
• The Gadfly: Koto likes to say things that paint Eiji as a pervert. It's hard to tell if she's just teasing or what.
• Homoerotic Subtext: Between Kino and Tao. The two of them are quite fond of each other, and their dedicated chapters often puts them in this context. Even Amane is aware of how close the two are.
• Hidden Buxom: Both Amane and Nanako; neither of their chests are particularly noticeable underneath their school uniforms, but are both revealed to be pretty stacked.
  • In episode 1 (the 2nd ku of the manga), Nanako estimates Amane's three sizes at 85-59-82, and Eiji is stunned at the idea of Amane's chest being that large. Amane's embarrassed reaction hints that Nanako was likely at least close.
  • In Episode 5, a bikini-clad Nanako is shown to have a bust close in size to Koto's.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Koto did like Eiji, but considering Nanako is crushing on him, she considers it's the best for them to be together.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Outside of any special arcs (e.g. volume 9), the manga has "ku" instead of chapters.^note "Ku" (句) is Japanese for a section of text. Additionally, many of them are titled in the form "Character, Subject of Ku" (e.g. "Nanako, Going to School in Winter," "Eiji, Gets Taught").
• Lazy Bum: Eiji's father is a lazy guy, despite being a writer.
• Loved by All: Characters who seen Nanako, including background, will frequently swarm all over her because of how cute she looks.
• Love Triangle: Eiji has two girls who are in love with, Nanako and Komachi. Komachi is aware that Nanako is in love with him.
• Luminescent Blush: Nanako gets them most frequently, but Eiji and a few other characters are not immune.
• Meaningful Echo: In the 104th ku, Eiji reminded Nanako what she told him at the beginning of the series. Cue tears:

"I don't care about
"what others think as long as
"I can be with you."

• Mood Whiplash: The series has plenty enough for Rule of Funny.
  • The 101st ku provides a decidedly non-comedic application. After the usual hijinks with the main cast, Nanako goes off on her own to buy Eiji a present for Christmas, only to encounter her elementary school bully, which gives this sub-arc a serious tone.
• Moment Killer: When Nanako and Eiji were having their moment at an amusement park, she tells him she can't go home yet because her shoe straps broke (she's clearly lying because she wants to spend time with him more). Eiji completely ruins the moment when he points out she doesn't have straps on her shoes. Amane is not amused.
• No Sense of Direction: Nanako gets lost very easily, especially in crowds, and then cannot find her way back, usually getting more lost. Her attempts to ask for directions usually also fail, mostly due to the way she communicates.
• Noodle Incident: The series has quite a few, mostly involving Eiji in some way.
  • In-Universe for Eiji's classmates, who make bizare and different interpretations of Eiji's behaviour. So if Eiji shows up a little battered, they argue about whether he got into a fight or was dealing with yakuza, when he was actually playing with his energetic little sister. In the 4th ku, Eiji thinks that Nanako might be getting a boyfriend: his classmates think he's either doing drugs or one of his gang members died.
  • Eiji shows a picture of him with his father, with a house is up in flames behind them. It isn't explained what had happened, or if it was even their house.
  • Later on Eiji casually mentions that he's broken a bone before, and his rebuttal to Amane's shock that he's taking a serious injury so lightly is that his dad was in worse shape (the image has his father in a full-body cast) — there's no mention of the circumstances at all.
  • In 156 ku, Hiro mentions his father showing more emotion than the time his butt got ravaged by a 5-ton truck.
• Not What It Looks Like:
  • In the 55th ku, when Eiji comes down with a cold, Amane decides to check his temperature only for Nanako arriving to the club room and faint when she thought Amane was kissing Eiji, and promptly faints.
  • In the 71st ku, Amane sees Nanako and Eiji in public, and Eiji gets slapped by her, and then Tao comes along and wraps him with her scarf. Then a flashback shows that the three were merely acting out a scene where Nanako and Eiji were playing as a couple who broke up and Tao is the villain girl. After they finish, cue Amane with a Death Glare, and Tao had to fix their misunderstanding.
  • In the 109th ku, Nanako gets completely drunk at the tail end of chapter with Amane spotting her hugging Eiji while drunk from amazake.
• Oblivious to Love: Eiji is very dense. He doesn't seem to realize that Nanako has a crush on him.
• Painful Rhyme: Eiji knows how senryuu works. He's just bad at execution.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • All Amane needs to hide her identity is wear a pair of sunglasses. In the 26th ku, Eiji and Nanako does the same thing when they notice she's being suspicious.
  • Tao only switches which side of her bangs cover an eye. Eiji thinks that it's completely obvious, but notices that it worked on Nanako.
• Poorly Timed Confession: In the 69th ku, Nanako tells Amane's sister about her feelings towards Eiji. He sees what she wrote, and shocked by it.
• Quarter Hour Short: The anime adaptation's episodes clocks in at 12-13 minutes.
• Sensei-chan: Kura Asako mostly fits the description of the trope. Luckily, no one addresses her by name.
• Separated by a Common Language: Hilariously occurs in the first ku: when Eiji tells a friend of his that he really is going to stop fighting, Eiji says it's because he's been feeling better than ever before and "throwing up" everywhere. One way to refer to the act of composing a senryuu is "throwing up," however, frequent vomiting is also one common sign of drug addiction, which is how his friend understood it.^note This is somewhat Lost in Translation. Eiji uses the term "haku" or "吐く," which actually refers to releasing, emitting, expressing, or expelling. So it can also refer to vomiting, hence the confusion.
• Shipper on Deck: Amane and Koto definitely want Nanako and Eiji together.
• Slice of Life: The entire series is mostly centered on the characters' daily lives.
• Shout-Out: 87th ku of the manga, while rubbing himself, Eiiji tells Hanabi he has the goosebumps of a warrior, in which she promptly draws the Big Dipper constellation on his back.
• Shrinking Violet: The series has no less than four girls who are this. Some have another personality on top of it.
  • Nanako easily has this case. Because when she tries to speak, she has a hard time expressing herself. She expresses herself by writing senryuu. She's also easily embarrassed at the idea of wearing a swimsuit in public, especially if Eiji sees her in one. She was actually bullied in elementary school, making her withdrawn from other people until Eiji came to her life. Unlike the other three, this is justified.
  • The 16th ku, episode 4 in the anime, introduces a girl named Kino Yakobe, who, like Nanako, expresses her feelings through art. Unlike Nanako, who voices her senryuu, Kino doesn't seem to talk vocally, but she is a Motor Mouth in written form. Unlike Nanako, she isn't embarrassed of the idea of wearing a swimsuit in public. If any, she's a rare aggressive version of this.
  • Komachi Akashi is a fake delinquent who first met Eiji in middle school. She first met him when delinquents where bothering her while Eiji comes in and scares them off by breaking his phone. Since then, Komachi developed a crush on him, but her idea to get close is by pretending to be a delinquent, the complete opposite of what kind of girl he likes.
  • While a boisterous Genki Girl, Iori Fujimaru has a surprising moments when the topic of romance and her figures are brought up. Which is shown when Amane notices her feminine charms and Nanako deliberately compliments her aggressively.
• Situational Sociability:
  • Nanako has a hard time speaking to people out loud. Those who insist on a face-to-face conversation will have a hard time getting anything coherent out of her. Those who get to know her will learn she is actually quite sweet, outgoing, and communicates quite well if she can write her thoughts down as senryū. The first episode shows her being called on to answer a question in math class and being incapable of answering vocally but, when given permission to use her senryū, uses a poem to clearly state she actually hasn't understood the last five problems.
  • Kino has a hard time showing her emotions the way she would prefer around others. Her response to this is to communicate with drawings on a sketch pad she carries everywhere, often drawing her expressions and holding the pad in front of her face, including speech bubbles as necessary. She is, in fact, quite the Motor Mouth given the amount of written text she uses when introducing herself to the literature club. Her introductory episode even features a full conversation between Nanako and Kino through senryū and drawings respectively. While the girls' voice actresses normally speak the lines they write in the anime, the scene of their conversation makes a point of showing what their conversation actually sounds like, and it's a completely normal conversation, if silent save for the sound of their laughing, drawing, and writing.
• Stalker without a Crush: The 16th ku, episode 4 in the anime, introduces Kino Yakobe, who is extremely shy and tried to return Eiji's student handbook which he had dropped.
• Sudden Soundtrack Stop: Nanako communicates strictly in written poetry. Kino communicates strictly through drawings. In the anime adaptation, the background music goes silent to convey what observing a conversation between the two of them is like.
  Amane: They seem excited, but...
  Eiji: It's weirdly quiet...^note In the manga, nearly the same exchange occurs, more highlighting the contrast between the girls' excitement and their lack of sound than anything else.
• Speech Impediment: The reason Nanako can't talk properly. She has trouble talking to people around her, and this is why she only communicates through senryu. Unfortunately, her childhood bully thought it was fun to make fun of her for this, and Nanako wasn't on speaking terms with anyone else. Eiji is the reason why she chooses to continue because he believes people should be themselves without changing a thing.
• Technicolor Eyes: Kino has deep red eyes. Tao has dark violet eyes.
• That Came Out Wrong: Eiji does this a few times without realizing that he ended up with an In-Universe case of Accidental Innuendo until someone cues him in.
  • When Eiji first meets Nanako's father and is trying to explain that they are classmates, he abbreviates "classmates" to "C," which also is the Japanese equivalent of "home plate" (i.e. sex). Eiji found out what "C" meant after the fact.
  • When Eiji is trying to teach Nanako how to play billiards using senryuu, but the way he words how to play makes Nanako take it out of context. He realizes that there's something wrong about his phrasing but has no idea what, making it worse instead of better before Nanako stops him.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: Apparently, Nanako hides her tanzaku boards this way. In the 45th ku, Tao notes the oddity of Nanako pulling them out of nowhere while in a bikini.
• What Does She See in Him?: People outside the main characters have this kind of reaction in regards to Nanako and Eiji.
• Will They or Won't They?: The series is centered entirely on the Ship Tease of Nanako and Eiji, but neither have yet to admit their feelings for each other. Nanako clearly likes Eiji, but the boy is Oblivious to Love. But after Nanako's drunk confession, he considers telling her how he feels on his end. He finally confesses in 151 ku and Nanako confesses in 152.
  • In the bonus omake chapter, he takes this a step further by proposing to Nanako.
• Wrong Assumption:
  • A recurring theme for Eiji is that people are really afraid of him due to his facial features and his unintentional death glares and demon-aura smiles. Despite his benign reasons to get close to people, they are scared that he might hurt them. Eiji is aware of the problem, but that hasn't seemed to help him any. His classmates also have him ranked as "Most likely to have connections with the Yakuza, no.1" (none, by the way), "Most likely to have spent more time in prison than out, no.1" (Eiji didn't know where to start on that one), and "Attending the most unlikely club based on one's outer appearance, no.2" (no.1 is Koto; she's in the Modern U.S. Army Combative Club).
  • Nanako's father thinks Nanako is going through a rebellious phase, and the first signs of it is her waking really tired (she's not wearing contacts, and has earplugs). He also misses Nanako leaving the house and assumes Nanako is holed up in her room until Hiro tells him she's already gone to meet her "thug friend," causing him to think that she'll turn into a delinquent.

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