Aggretsuko is a 10-episode long Netflix original series made by Sanrio, the same company that made Hello Kitty. The characters have the same sort of general simplified design as Hello Kitty, with most of the primary female cast being chibi female characters with large heads, big eyes, and a small mouth.
However, unlike everything else Sanrio makes, this is very much a series directed at adults, as the main character of the series, Retsuko the red panda, is a miserable professional accountant, working in a large office building in Japan with a bunch of other anthropomorphic animals - yes, this is very, very furry.
Retsuko is the main character of this slice-of-life series, and it initially seems to be focused on her and her two coworkers, Fenneko the fennec fox and Haida the hyena, in their daily struggles against Ton, a literal chauvinist pig and a general jerk of a boss.
Retsuko is a little ball of misery at the start of the series - a total doormat who never says no, never stands up for herself, works too hard, stays far too late, is easy to push excess work off onto, and generally is a little ball of stress and anxiety that is constantly simmering beneath the surface, her only escape being escaping to the bathroom or a karaoke lounge at the end of the day to screech death metal to express how she really feels about her miserable life - something she is otherwise half-accepting and half in-denial about.
Frankly, it didn't exactly enthrall me at first - while the character designs were cute and the voice dubbing was excellent (I actually greatly preferred the English voices and script to the subbing), Retsuko was not really the most enthralling of characters, and her general misery sort of felt like a preaching to the choir type thing, with everyone being something of a shallow stereotype.
As the series goes on, however, two of the seemingly untouchable higher staff women in the office - Washimi the secretarybird secretary and Gori the gorilla who supervises marketing - end up taking an interest in Retsuko and take her in under their wing (so to speak). We get to see more and more of her coworkers, and come to recognize that they're not as shallow as they seem at first glance, and all have motivations for being the way they are, imperfect as those motivations might be. The result is that, over the course of the ten episodes, we get a better idea of what kind of people they are, as Retsuke gradually learns to take more control over her own life and be less of a pushover.
With ten 15 minute long episodes, the whole series clocks in at about two and a half hours in length, and the episodes all lead into each other - there's a great amount of continuity here, with the whole show being one continuous arc.
This series is very, very Japanese and is pretty anime as well - the first episode in particular parodies the common opening to many animes about young women, with the protagonist introducing themselves... at which point she twists her ankle and unleashes a loud metal scream. The overall pacing and choreography is very much what I'd expect out of a show made in Japan, with a number of scenes having that certain timing and shot aspect that I see a lot in anime. This isn't a bad thing, but it is very much a product of Japan, and a number of aspects of the show are very, very Japanese - which makes sense, as the show is set in a contemporary Japanese city and invokes the feelings of Japanese salarymen (or salarywomen, as the case may be).
This is definitely a show that feels like it is preaching to the choir a bit at first, but as it unfolds, it actually shows the consequences of actions, both positive and negative, as well as Retsuko growing as a person. Haida and Retsuko both learn to grow from their actions when they recognize that problems are of their own making and that solutions have to come from their own hands (though perhaps with the help of those around them at times). It actually helps to show why people behave in the way that they do, while simultaneously not actually excusing the behavior, as well as how to get along better with your coworkers (a vital skill). While early on, it felt sort of like a socially awkward horror movie, with "No, quit sabotaging yourself!" substituting for "No, don't go in there!", but by the end of it, it has presented a decent little arc.
I thought that this show took a remarkable maturity with its approach towards social masks, which is a major theme of the show, both implicitly and explicitly. Lots of shows go with the trite moral of "be yourself", but this show takes a much more complex view of things - that masks are not necessarily a bad thing and can actually make your life better, but at the same time, if you always wear a mask, you'll be miserable, as you can never truly be yourself. Knowing when to wear a mask - and what mask to wear - is important, as well as knowing when to let your mask slip a bit and show a different side of yourself to help you connect with other people.
This series was decent, and I watched it all the way through to the end, but at the same time, I never really loved it - on the whole, I was left feeling lukewarm. It is decent overall, but there's nothing that really stuck out to me. None of the characters were particularly amazing, but none of them were really deep enough for me to really care about them as people, either. I liked all the little touches, and it was fun watching the characters interact and listen to them bouncing off of each other, but in the end, I couldn't say that I had a favorite (or least favorite) character. There aren't any great moments of catharsis, and the show ends on a somewhat subdued (but hopeful) note.
Overall, I think it was worth the two and a half hours of my time I spent watching it, but I'm not sure if it really batted much above average - if you've got Netflix, it might be worth checking out, but if you don't, I don't think that this is the show that will change your mind and make you want it.
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