Japanese anime isn’t that known in the world for it’s satirical humor shows. There has been a modest amount of satirical anime comedy movies and tv shows about the people’s everyday lives. The western animation is more known for satirical cartoons, like South Park, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Rick and Morty, et cetera. However, a new satirical Japanese anime was released on Netflix, Aggretsuko. I try my best to avoid spoilers while analyzing the characters, but at some cases they can’t be avoided when talking about significant plot points. This would almost be also a recap, because why not? I got inspired of making these kinds of recaps/reviews by AlternateHistoryHub’s alternate history show video, which I can strongly recommend you.
The main character has two sides on the same coin.
Before Aggretsuko got it’s own show on Netflix, it started as tv shorts, like The Simpsons did. They made a hundred shorts, before they got a deal from Netflix. The first season of Aggretsuko Netflix show was released on 20th of April 2018. Aggretsuko has a cute cast of characters, mainly due to the series is created by Sanrio, which is known for Hello Kitty. The cute characters make this show better.
The main character of the show is Retsuko, a twenty-something year old accountant in a trading company. She is constantly overworked, given more and more, heavier and heavier workload by her boss Director Ton. Her boss is literally a pig. Yes, a pig. What a gag. Her boss is misogynistic, fat, ugly and very mean-spirited. Well, Director Ton usually favors Tsunoda, being nice to her, and flexing his golf muscles to her, and doesn’t punish her for if Tsunoda hasn’t finished her work. Ton usually passes Tsunoda’s unfinished work to Retsuko, making her workload even heavier. Tsunoda is the most bright and cheerful employee, and sometimes annoying. She is also the gossip machine who is always interested in some rumors, and spreads them like plague. She likes to lick his boss’ boot in order to give her more free time. She constantly cheers and praises her boss, which leads to her having a better relationship with her boss. She is a social media influencer, who updates her social media regurally. She calls herself the ”Love Police”, who takes relationships very seriously, and criticizes Fenneko, Haida and Retsuko for their ways of navigating romance. Fenneko is the quiet and smarter one, who likes to stalk Tsunoda’s social media feed. Fenneko is so quiet that her laughter is monotone. But when she gets drunk, her laughter becomes normal. Fenneko usually hates Tsunoda for her annoying cheerfulness, and sometimes trash talks her. Haida is the guy who had crush on Retsuko, and tried to flirt on her while he was drunk. Kabae is the hyperactive overweight family mother, who is the other gossip bell like Tsunoda. She is a hippo, who reminds me of a Moomin. The two other side characters of the show are Gori and Washimi, who are the known duo.
The episodes of Aggretsuko describe the daily lives of Japanese office workers and salarymen. The show feels like you are watching a Japanese South Park with cute anthropomorfic characters struggling with real life problems. Retsuko’s former classmate Puko had an idea of having her own foreign goods store, where Retsuko can work at. Retsuko was desperately looking for a partner, and she joined a mixer where she would get a partner. Some partners weren’t good for her, but she found a partner that was just like her. She even looked like her. The romance lasted until the start of the second season, which came the next year, like usually.
The second season was about Retsuko’s relationship with her mother, who acted like Retsuko was still a kid. So relatable. My parents sometimes were like that before, but now they accept the fact that I’m a teenager myself. Retsuko’s mother arranged a marriage meeting with a polar bear called Shirota. Their relationship grew pretty close and warm, but Retsuko didn’t want yet to get married. A new employee joined the company called Anai. Anai seemed nice at first, but he wasn’t that good employee, and he took every single criticism personally. He sent threatening messages to Retsuko and anyone who criticized him. Anai and Retsuko got along when Anai cooked for Retsuko, because Retsuko had bad cooking skills. Retsuko decided to go to a driving school to get a licence to drive. Retsuko also went to a matchmaking event, but it didn’t go well. While Retsuko was in driving school, she met a guy named Tadano, who was literally a donkey. Tadano flew better than he drove, because flying was more easy for him. The relationship between them grew closer and closer.
They broke up off-camera, which led to Retsuko ”getting” a virtual ”boyfriend”. The so-called ”boyfriend” sucked all Retsuko’s savings, which led to Retsuko hitting rock bottom. After Retsuko accidentally hit a car, she had work as an accountant manager for an idol group. Retsuko became the lead vocalist of the band, which bringed the band to a new rise. Retsuko’s co-workers started to get concerned over Retsuko’s behavior. The idol group became a band, and Retsuko taught them to play instruments. Haida was on a awkward situation, when he agreed to teach Retsuko to play guitar, but he invited Inui the same day. Retsuko’s boss Ton learned that Retsuko had a side gig, he lectured her about it. Retsuko got both emotionally and physically attacked by a J-pop stan, which caused her emotional and physical damage. Gori lauched her own version of Tinder app. According to that app, Retsuko and Haida matched 100%. After Haida found out, he tracked Retsuko down, and went to karaoke place where he tried to ask her out. Haida even sang for her, and he sang very badly. Retsuko turned him down, and performed in a music festival with her band.
When the season 4 came, the series took a strange James Bond direction. Of course, a lot of animated comedies use that James Bond spy trope. Since nothing remarkable happens in the first episode, I will save it from spoilers. The CEO Shachou of the company got hospitalized, and Himuro rose to power. Himuro ordered Ton to lay off some employees to save costs, but Ton refused. Retsuko and Fenneko did some drunken shenanigans, when they told some embarrasing information about Ton’s past to Himuro. Yagyu replaced Ton as the director, and Ton decided to resign from the company, and went to work in a grocery store. Retsuko’s and Haida’s relationship started to grow a little warmer. Haida became loyal to Himuro, which lead to Retsuko, Ton, Kabae, Fenneko and Anai to spy on Haida. They did a small spying operation on Haida.
Skipping the most crucial spoilers, in the start of season 5, Haida had hit the rock bottom. Haida was unemployed and living by Retsuko’s wing. He was just playing video games, and drinking soda. Haida didn’t want to get a job, which made Retsuko mad. Haida went to an internet cafe, where he met Shikabane, who was his online friend. Fenneko joined in the game Haida and Shikabane played with her own username. She set up a meeting with them in real life. A suspicious guy asked about Retsuko when he came up to Manaka after the girl band’s show. Retsuko met Haida’s parents, and Haida met Retsuko’s parents. The suspicious guy was from a political party called ”The Party of Rage”. He wanted Retsuko to run for office. This show now went political in the fifth and the final season. I didn’t want to spoil the end, since I will stop the spoilers there.
Aggretsuko is a pretty funny and a cute show. Aggretsuko combined the cute animals with the real life problems people face every day. Aggretsuko did have it’s quirks, but it’s still a fairly good show. Honestly, I liked it. The show would receive a strong four out of five from me. (4/5)
From the eyes of Eltskale 
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