A lesson in love and life from Sanrio's latest (and arguably best) character

I started watching Aggretsuko, an ONA (original net animation) available on Netflix earlier this week and to my pleasant surprise, I managed to finish the series in one sitting. I appreciate Sanrio’s refreshing, modern twist in creating their new character and surrounding brand. This brand was tailored for the millennials and the current times, and while her design conforms to the “kawaii” (cute) aesthetic, the show isn’t overwhelmingly so.

The series follows, Retsuko, a red panda, who’s fed up at her workplace after being constantly belittled by her supervisor, Director Ton. During the five years she’s worked at the company, Retsuko has developed a responsible and “good girl” reputation – someone who completes all the assigned work, always tries to meet expectations, and can never say no. This has resulted in the familiar pattern of co-workers taking advantage by shoving their excess work onto her.

Retsuko is completely aware of what her co-workers are doing but remains the mild-mannered employee in order to keep her job - a job that she hates.

While attempting to live up to the ideal reputation that’s been thrust upon her, it’s clear to see that it saps away at her happiness, something that can be relatable to many.

Despite the rather depressing summary, Aggretsuko isn’t a heavy show, it's cute and comedic. However, it’s beneath the cutesy trappings of its visuals that the message lies. The series tackles and provides criticism on a number of topics that come with growing up and entering the adult world.

Aggretsuko focuses mainly on the hardships of navigating the corporate world as a young woman. She strives to be professional while dealing with sexism, gossiping co-workers, issues with her self-esteem, and the recurring assertion that her generation is lazy. Fortunately, Retsuko doesn’t keep all her frustration in and the one outlet for her stress, her preferred coping mechanism is late-night karaoke to death metal.

Retsuko becomes frustrated and desperate. She reaches the conclusion that in order to live a cushy life, she must marry a man that can support her, allowing her to become a housewife. She decides that in order to nab herself a boyfriend she has to be desirable, so she gets in shape by joining a yoga class. This is where she meets what later becomes her support network – the crane Washimi and the aptly named Gori, two older women with senior positions at her company.

They are a contrast to Retsuko’s character and have developed a strong front in the workplace. They’re independent, voice their opinions and are essential in giving Retsuko much needed advice and rightly telling her that jumping on the marriage bandwagon for that reason is a terrible idea. The two characters worked their way up the corporate ladder, and their strategy of hiding their emotions and weakness is what has gotten them so far.

Aggretsuko does a good job at providing a range of female personalities and how each one has found a way to assimilate in the office. Retsuko’s younger colleague, doe-eyed Tsunoda is resented by her co-workers for sucking up to the boss, but for her, buttering him up is one of the ways she can get ahead and navigate the corporate scene as a woman.

While the show offers criticism on office culture, sexism and microaggressions, my favourite aspect is how it approaches the topic of love and the pitfalls of romance. Retsuko is an inexperienced 25-year-old when it comes to love and in the latter half of the season, Retsuko meets Resasuke, a fellow red panda from the company’s sales department. He’s known as a clumsy airhead known for making mistakes when it comes to basic tasks and even missed his train stop on the way to work because he was too busy daydreaming.

Retsuko becomes blinded by love, so much that she fails to see the problems in their relationship and how it’s affecting her work. She’s adopted the idea that in order to be happy, all she needed was love. In a way, she became more invested with the idea of being in love than actually having an interest in her boyfriend’s personality.

Eventually Retsuko comes to terms with her feelings and breaks up with him, empowered by the realisation that she doesn’t need a man to accomplish her goals.

In the end, love isn’t about blinding us to each other’s faults, but accepting them. Infatuation turns quirks into cute habits, but a real relationship strengthens them as endearing traits that can comprise a flawed, but otherwise important person in one’s life. So important that you accept all sides of them. In the end, Aggretsuko’s lesson in love is an all-too-important one: sometimes we fall in love with the idea of a person, rather than the people themselves.

Personally, I find it’s the balance between sweetness and seriousness that allows this show to shine. The charm of each death metal song doesn’t fade even as the music becomes less of a coping mechanism and more of a reflection of Retsuko’s true personality. She learns to speak up for herself, be honest about her feelings and accept that she doesn’t need a man to rely on. This isn’t to say that relationships are a bad thing, but I felt that for her to be happy, she didn’t need a man, what she needed was to accept herself and grow out of her shell, becoming the person that she wanted to be – and the series highlighted that perfectly.

I will say that I’ll miss watching Aggretsuko and while I wouldn’t mind a second season, it doesn’t really need one. Aggretsuko ended on a strong note and managed to explore so much in its 10, 15-minute-long episodes than many anime have in the same time span. I highly recommend it as a light and easy watch when you have time – it’ll get you sniggering, relating and you might even catch yourself contemplating some things.

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