Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You

Episode 5

Just when I think Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You has turned every stone built into its premise, the anime finds new ways to be fun and surprising. In exploring both Sasaki's overwhelming career and shaking up Tayama/Yamada's persona swapping shenanigans, this fifth episode cuts to the core of this series' heart and humor. As it does so, this episode weaves together its narratives more cohesively than any episode prior, while also using its ambience and relatable characters to make-up for its limited animation.

Beginning ominously with the date “June 15” displayed over a sunny day, the episode opens on Sasaki having a stretch of rough luck. Not only is the AC out in his company's only indoor smoking room, but he also gets drenched by Goto as the manager is hosing down the smoking area at the back of his local supermarket. Though this does turn into a sweet conversation where Goto gets even more of a feel of Sasaki's golden-retriever earnestness, and Tamaya reveals that she's twenty-four to the forty-something-year-old.

A lot of people, myself included, were worried that the age gap between Sasaki and Tamaya/Yamada would be a point of fetishization as Supermarket Smoking went on, and I'm thrilled that this topic was addressed so deftly and cutely. While it's clear that Sasaki does feel some kind of way about getting attention from a woman (or women from his POV) that are younger than him, he doesn't reduce Tamaya/Yamada to her age, and instead appreciates the charm points tied to her personality and values. Especially in an age where loud voices on the internet are quick to conflate “age gap relationship” to “bad and exploitative,” I appreciate a more holistic and thoughtful depiction of this kind of relationship and the joy it can bring the people in it.

This is the only reprieve Sasaki will get for a while, though, as he enters into his busiest stretch of work for the year, made all the worse by his boss traveling abroad and several coworkers being out of office. I don't know if this scanned for folks who don't work in or adjacent to Japanese companies, but a lot of them actually start their fiscal year in July, making the back half of June and the first two weeks of July super hectic and logistically involved. From his personal life and space deteriorating, to work piling up just as he starts to get a handle on it, and even the struggle to wake up to his (growlingly set for a later time) alarm, Supermarket Smoking expertly captures what it's like to be in the shit with this sequence.

As someone coming off of my own busiest professional stretch of the year, I cannot fully express the catharsis I felt watching Sasaki hang out with Tayama and do something as “non-productive” as drawing. Rarely do I find myself wishing that I was a fictional character or in their circumstances, but this moment in Supermarket Smoking summoned that feeling and made me want to live inside of this show for just a moment.

The third act in this episode features Tayama/Yamada approaching Sasaki in her customer service Queen Yamada persona, and the older man quickly shakes off his surprise and unknowingly charms her even more with his respectful and earnest admiration. It might be a little misogynistic of me to even think of it in these terms, but Supermarket Smoking has big “look at the baddie I bagged by being nice” energy, and I love it! As someone who has never been able to relate to other people's frustrations with the concept of dating because I genuinely like talking to and forming a connection with other people, Supermarket Smoking feels like it's tapping into how some of my most meaningful romantic relationships took shape.

None of what Supermarket Smoking is doing in this (or any other) episode will probably hit for people who aren't at least in their late twenties, but if you've been where these characters have been, this anime will quickly find a place to live in your heart.

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Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.