Sempai-Kohai/Live-Action TV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Super Sentai:
    • Despite technically being the senior officer in Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger, Tetsu (DekaBreak) fondly refers to Red Ranger Ban as "sempai", mostly because Ban showed him a way to fulfill his duties with passion instead of the hardnosed indifference he was taught.
    • In the various Sentai team-ups, the members of the younger Sentai team tend to defer to the older, sempai team.
  • In Tomica Hero Rescue Force Hikaru commonly refers to Kyosuke, Rei and Juri as this until he found out that the teams Sixth Ranger was Da Chief he reffered to R5 as "Dai-Sempai".
    • Tomica Hero Rescue Fire has a similar example, Tatsuya refers to Hikaru and the rest of Rescue Force as "Sempai". As for the team itself, Tatsuya calls Yuuma his sempai, who is in turn seen as a sempai by Jun.
  • Invoked in Thirty Rock. After the death of his mentor, GE CEO Don Geiss, Jack Doneghy tells Liz Lemon that Geiss used to call him kohai in private, while Jack reciprocated, calling him sempai. Although Jack won't admit it, he is very shaken by Geiss' death (or more accurately, preservation in carbonite), masking it by working himself up at the possibility that he'll inherit something from Geiss. He inherits Argus, Geiss' pet peacock. Long story short, Liz convinces Kenneth--who claims to know how to interpret peafowl calls--to tell Jack that the bird had said, "sempai, kohai." Jack becomes convinced that Geiss' spirit had inhabited Argus, leading him to pour out to the bird. He ends up reconciled to Geiss'...Geiss'...what happened to Geiss.

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