I’m back again this week with an analysis post. (Haven’t had one of those in a while) This time I will be looking at this “totally adorable” anime titled Aggressive Retsuko, or Aggretsuko for short. For those of you who have never heard of and/or seen it here is the trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n3xXuEyr40
On the surface, this looks like a very basic slice of life anime where the main joke is “haha cute animal sings metal”. I can say for a fact that it is so much more than that. At the end of the day, Aggretsuko is a slice of life anime, but with more complicated themes than usual. You may be asking, “what makes this anime a bait and switch”? Well…
Why animals?
One of the first questions that gets asked regarding this anime is “why are all of the characters animals”? If these are “normal people” doing normal stuff, then why do they need to be depicted as animals instead of regular humans? Well for starters, you should call up Nintendo and ask them the same thing about Animal Crossing. But for this show, the parent company of this show is Sanrio. While you might not recognize the company by its name alone, you should be able to recognize it by this:
Sanrio is the creator of Hello Kitty. Now, this could be the main explanation of why the characters are animals in this anime, but I don’t believe so. As the title of this blog implies, I believe the character design is the bait to get people interested in the anime before getting them hooked. The character design choice is also on point because most characters are puns. For example, Ton.
Ton is the main character Retsuko’s manager, and he’s a pig. But there’s more here than just what kind of animal he is. His character is the archetype of a misogynistic pig. From the viewpoint of Retsuko, Ton constantly berates her and abuses his power as her manager to get her to take on extra work and non-work-related duties. While this task could have been accomplished by just designing him with a human outer shell, it makes the character more visually interesting to see him as the pig he is. Somebody once told me that pigs, much like ogres, have layers. Later on in the first season you get to see a different side of Ton, serving as a juxtaposition to his outward appearances. However if you are curious about what that may be you’ll have to go watch the show yourself.
The Switch
I talked about the bait, so what’s the switch? It comes in the form of the surprisingly grounded and believable story. (I’m going to talk about the story completely spoiler-free for those who may want to see this for themselves.) The story stars 25-year-old Retsuko as she deals with her day to day life, both in and out of work. Work can really suck every now and then, as some of you may know. Sometimes it’s your boss, your coworkers, or even the work you’re doing. Unless you found something you absolutely love, you’ll experience burnout and the world is gonna roll you. This anime tackles burnout in a healthy way. One that anyone who has also suffered from the same feeling can relate to. Retsuko copes with her burnout through her love of metal. This is an important lesson for others who may be experiencing this; find something you love. Practice it and use it to escape from the problems weighing you down. However, you can only escape for so long. Just like Retsuko, you eventually must go back to work. You may hate it, but you must grin and bear it because your work is important. The quicker you get done with it, the sooner you can get back to your true hobby.
This show also talks about other topics such as relationships, using unhealthy ideas to escape reality, the unpredictability of life, and many others. I’ll leave that for you to discover.
Conclusion
In the end, this is an adult slice of life show masquerading as a cutesy kid show. Now I’m just a guy with opinions, and I ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed. So, I could be completely wrong with my interpretation of this anime. (Which is still currently on Netflix as of this blog post) So why not go watch it to see if I’m right or wrong?
Animation: Art in Motion 