Takahashi-san might be a fresh, young high school idol but that’s not important, Takahashi has a secret and it’s a juicy one! Her classmates think that when Takahashi put’s her headphones on it’s to relax and zone out, but little do they know she’s doing it to eavesdrop! She doesn’t listen to everyone however, there’s a particular pair of classmates who have the strangest conversations and Takahashi is absolutely hooked on their absurdity!
Takahashi-san is Listening reminds me a little bit of My Neighbor Seki (Tonari no Seki-kun), in both cases the story is told through a third-party observer and the jokes are always crazier than they first appear. However, while I enjoyed Seki quite a bit and found it relatively easy to follow, I had a really hard time following Takahashi-san. I’ve been a fan of anime and manga for about ten years now and studied some basic Japanese, but I was barely able to pick up on the jokes and references! Seki-kun occasionally needed on-screen notes, but with the story’s visuals it was still easy to laugh along with. Takahashi-san is pure word play and a lot of it is absurd and nonsensical. I wonder if anything was lost in translation, (though the translation itself, like all of Crunchyroll’s translations, is perfectly fine and readable) since at this point I have no idea why there are multiple volumes of this story. If you’re feeling really confident in your knowledge of Japanese culture, language, and humor then give the series a shot, otherwise you’ll be just as baffled as Takahashi.