Senpai

Senpai (先輩) is a word for someone who joined the same school, workplace, or similar group before you. Etymologically, it means "a person born earlier," and its senses also include someone above you in age, experience, or rank, or in a field such as scholarship or the arts. Its counterpart is kouhai (後輩), which refers to someone who joined later.

The person who joined later uses senpai to refer to or address someone who joined earlier. It typically follows a family or given name, as in "Tanaka-senpai," or stands alone as "Senpai." Even a gap of one school year makes someone a senpai, and a first-year student who has just enrolled calls second-year students senpai. Who counts as a senpai is often decided by the order in which people joined the group, and in many cases someone younger is still called a senpai if they joined earlier.

In anime and manga set in schools, senpai comes up again and again as the word students use for those in a higher year. In some cases the English versions leave it untranslated as senpai, and the word is also known among anime fans in the English-speaking world.

Senpai is a word of Chinese origin that is also found in the Chinese classics, and the Digital Daijisen dictionary notes that it means "a person born earlier." In the Tang dynasty, those who had earned the jinshi degree in the keju, the examinations for selecting government officials, are said to have called one another by this same word, 先輩, out of respect. The account appears in Tang Guoshi Bu, written by Li Zhao of that dynasty.

In Japan, an example appears in Honchō Mudaishi (around 1162 to 1164), a late Heian-period collection of poetry written in Chinese, where the word is used for people deeply versed in poetry. Among the examples cited in the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten dictionary, this one is the oldest.

Senpai and Kouhai at School

In junior high and high school, senpai-kouhai relationships show up especially strongly in club activities. In these clubs, students from different school years gather after school and at other times to take part in an activity together. The basic pattern is said to be that kouhai speak to their senpai in polite language (keigo) and senpai look after their kouhai.

A survey published in 2015 in the academic journal The Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology asked 711 junior high and high school students across Japan about senpai-kouhai relationships in their club activities. In both junior high and high school, first-year students were the most likely to feel the senpai-kouhai relationship. The results also showed that the relationship is more clear-cut in clubs that perform at a high level in competitions or contests, and more clear-cut in sports clubs than in culture clubs.

Senpai at Work and After Graduation

At a workplace, a person who joined the company before you is a senpai, and someone who joined in the same year as you is called a dōki (同期). A senpai can be younger than you, and a kouhai can be older.

Someone who graduated from the same school before you is also a senpai, and the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten includes this sense in its definition, alongside that of someone who enrolled earlier. If you both went to the same school, the one who graduated earlier is the senpai, even if you do not know each other.

Senpai vs. Sensei

Sensei (先生) is a respectful term for people in a teaching position, such as schoolteachers, and for doctors and others. Senpai refers to someone who joined the same group earlier, whether or not that person is in a teaching position. At school, a teacher is a sensei and a student in a year above you is a senpai.

Senpai in School Anime

School anime and manga often show scenes in which a student calls someone in a higher year senpai. Japanese schools are divided by school year, and students in different years meet through club activities, student committees, and the like.

Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro is a series in which Nagatoro, a first-year high school student, keeps teasing an older male student, who is called "Senpai."

The protagonist of Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai is Sakuta Azusagawa, a second-year high school student, and the "Bunny Girl Senpai" of the title refers to Mai Sakurajima, a third-year student at the same high school.

Outside school, My Senpai is Annoying is set at a company and depicts the senpai Harumi Takeda and Futaba Igarashi, who is in her second year there. A relationship like Nagatoro's, in which a kouhai teases a senpai without holding back, is a fictional premise and does not represent the norm in real schools or workplaces.

Senpai in English

In English versions, senpai is sometimes left untranslated in titles as well. Seishun Buta Yarō wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume o Minai is titled Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai in English. Senpai ga Uzai Kouhai no Hanashi has likewise been published as My Senpai is Annoying. English also has the word senior, but in US schools it refers to students in their final year before graduation, and its range differs from that of senpai, which also covers someone one school year above you.

"Notice me, senpai" is a stock phrase in English that expresses the wish to be noticed by someone you admire. It is said to have spread on the blogging service Tumblr around 2012. Several media outlets have also reported that the Oxford English Dictionary added the word senpai in its December 2025 update.

The spelling sempai is also used. In the older Hepburn romanization, the Japanese sound ん (n) is written as m before p. The English title of Tejina Senpai uses this spelling: Magical Sempai. Some karate and kendo dojos outside Japan also use sempai or senpai for people who joined earlier or have more experience.