A pretty shining example of Netflix throwing their money at the right horse.
Eight months divorced from the flood of Aggretsuko thinkpieces, I finally managed to sit down and watch all of it over the course of an evening, and I came away with something not only satisfying, but incredibly impressive. It starts with such a simple premise and then works its way outwards into a series of incredibly relatable stories and characters.
You wouldn’t think that what looks like an extended series of Flash animations would cohere nearly as well as the first season of Aggretsuko, and indeed I wouldn’t have been surprised if this had merely been an episodic series revolving around challenges at the office, but instead the narrative closely follows Retsuko’s personal life and turns her into someone that pretty much anyone my age can relate to – she hates her boss who thinks he’s the best thing since sliced bread, she doesn’t know what she wants to do for the rest of her life, and she has to secretly hide her incredibly extra aggressive side from the view of the people it’s directed towards. And if that had been the extent of the joke, again, I wouldn’t have been surprised, but she actually branches out and makes new friends whom she can trust with her secret and whom are older than her, but very supportive. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that dynamic play out in a work comedy before, but it’s very nice to see how quickly things develop and how the status quo doesn’t ever really go away, but it does prove pretty flexible.
There are elements that hold the show back. While the Flash-style animation is used to pretty decent comedic effect, it’s not great at conveying a lot of visual clues. The metaphor used in the last few episodes ends up needing to be focused on a lot just to make sure the audience remains aware of it, and the ending is enough of a cop-out that it wouldn’t terribly surprise me if the next season fully disregards it, but if we can keep the continuity ball rolling, Aggretsuko could be a steady and highly enjoyable franchise that I’m looking forward to seeing more of.
Oh, and a side note, I do like that Netflix seems to be using the same renewal treatment for its original animations as it does with its fully in-house productions, so if the industry could get into that habit of not leaving people desperately in suspense for years at a time, that would be pretty great.
Final Score: 8/10 (9/10 if the ending actually matters next season.)
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