Aggretsuko
"Frustrated with her thankless office job, the 25-year-old red panda copes with her daily struggles by belting out heavy metal karaoke after work."
- IMDB
Season 1
This first season establishes characters, tones, and themes of the whole series so perfectly, you’re immediately attached to many of the characters and you get a clear understanding about what the plot is about from the start. You watch Retsuko as she balances work and life. She’s trying to succeed in work to become someone respected and appreciated. But she struggles with the disappointment of life. She doesn’t have too much of a social life and has lots of hopes and dreams that she realizes may not be fulfilled the way she wants them too. And that’s it. That’s the show. Throw in quirky animation and characters, comedic reactions and interactions, all pulled together with the aesthetic and art style – and you got what is Aggretsuko.
Seasons 2 & 3
These next seasons are more or less just an expansion of Retsuko’s experiences and arc. She meets new characters and faces different challenges and situations that fall in line with the show’s overall themes. This includes her Hannah Montana arc when she joins a band and is the lead screamo waifu and becomes an underground superstar overnight..... yeah that happened. Lol. Honestly the most memorable arc of the show for me. But yeah. Retsuko was able to live a double life – doing what she wants to while also sticking to her day job and finding balance for both.
But now we’re getting into reflections of the harsh reality of celebrities. Like too many people don’t think about the fact that celebrities are also just people. Being in the spotlight and having fame and money and success does not guarantee a perfect life. In fact, being so well known has more consequences than perks. And Aggretsuko’s stalker situation is an example of this.
The Final Season
Honestly, I don’t think we needed a final season. Season 4 felt more like an epilogue or something because many character arcs came full circle and felt concluded by the end of season 3. So just see this season as some extra time with your favorite characters as the show touches on how companies can utterly disrespect and degrade employees who literally dedicated a lifetime to their work.
Okay, some overall thoughts.
Aggretsuko’s most major theme is a reflection of the work force – mainly in Japan, but also other places around the world - the corporate ladder is hard to climb, the younger generation is always seen as lazy good for nothing cry babies while the older generation don’t know how we’re really struggling. This isn’t just through generational trauma, like what we saw with Haida. And it’s not a even a generation specific issue, I mean just watch oOffice Space or something, or even the whole final season. I’m not here to write a speech complaining about the details of unfulfilling and unfair working environments and the exhaustion it might take to put food on the table. But PSA, mental health is a thing and I think we all should karaoke screamo death metal every once in a while.
Tone shift balance was aided with mature story elements mixed with the cute art style and animal characters, like these characters could canonically hang with Hello Kitty but are like dealing with stalkers and depression.
Overall, I found this to be a cute but meaningful little anime. Loved the dubbed voice actors – hi ben diskin. The aesthetic and art style was very Hello Kitty while the story was itself a reflection on life in a not so Hello Kitty way. All the characters were adorable and quirky and represented some sort of aspect of the many themes of the show. There wasn’t really a character I disliked. I definitely recommend it. I enjoyed it from start to finish. It was such a breath of fresh air and I’m glad I experienced it.
My Rating: ★★★★★★★★☆☆