In 2008 I went on vacation from New Zealand to California and immediately lost all my impulse control. The financial damage included: $400 on sew-in hair extensions from a MySpace celebrity-turned-crystal healer, $400 on a carousel horse tattoo I sketched in a food court outside Bristol Farms while eating an extravagant cupcake, at least $1,000 at Hot Topic, and well over $1,000 at the Sanrio store in Westfield Mall. I couldn’t legally drink so I spent evenings watching the democratic primaries from my hostel while taking increasingly ridiculous photos of a rapidly accumulating pile of crap covered with the faces of Hello Kitty, Pandapple, and Badtz-Maru. It was the height of the financial crisis and the irony of this whimsical display of consumerism apparently failed to strike.
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Kitty doesn’t just appeal to teenage girls with time on their hands. Tom Sachs subbed her face for baby Jesus’ in a Barney's Christmas window, while Frank Ocean enlists her to traverse uneasy lyrics about his moneyless youth and newfound wealth. But there’s no need, however, to subvert the latest addition to the Sanrio family. Retsuko is the relatable star of the new Netflix show Aggretsuko (a mash-up of the American slang term “aggro” and the Japanese word for “violent”). She is a 20-something red panda working a mind-numbing office job in the accounting department of a faceless trading corporation. She spends her days doing shitty tasks for her sexist boss (a literal pig) and his vengeful secretary, and her nights drunk-screaming scathing death metal ballads at karaoke, U-shaped beads of sweat streaming past her furiously sketched and rapidly-spinning eyes. Sample outburst: “Lightning, grant me your vengeance! / Hit my boss’ golf club, find your mark! / Hit the witch’s head as she runs! / Strike them down!!!”Retsuko lives in Japan, but she’s resonating stateside as a proxy for America’s corporate culture exhaustion, and millennials’ desire for more creative forms of employment. In Episode 2 we’re introduced to Retsuko’s cousin Puko, a stylish, sushi-loving cat who reminds me of Elizabeth Olsen’s Instagram-obsessed character in Ingrid Goes West. Puko convinces Retsuko to quit her office job in pursuit of the millennial dream — a.k.a. opening a super-cute store. Unfortunately, Retsuko sabotages her job before finding out Puko intends the store to live online — “The internet, yo!” — and has to grovel to Director Ton to avoid being fired. The next scene shows Retsuko slumped over with her face jammed against the glass of the office photocopier, which is printing page-after-page of her horror-stricken cartoon face. “It’s thanks to reliable people like you working hard and diligently paying taxes, and keeping the economy from tanking right?,” her cousin later asks.
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Aggretsuko also provides a shockingly accurate, complex commentary on female relationships. When we first see Retsuko arrive at work in Episode 1, she realizes she’s wearing pink Crocs while talking to a particularly judgemental colleague, whom she attempts to distract before dashing off to change into basic office flats. Retsuko goes on hilarious, awkward friendship dates with two more senior female colleagues, Washimi and Gori, intimidatingly debonair women she first cowers from as they pass her in the hallway. Only the Netflix watcher sees Gori’s knees buckle and her stilettos stripped off once she’s out of Retsuko’s line of sight. Women do — and wear — strange things to impress other women, regardless of sexual orientation. It’s this awkward female dynamic that Aggretsuko absolutely nails.
The show also, quite correctly, depicts forming platonic relationships as no less awkward than flirting with boys. Retsuko initially stammers something cringe-worthy about leftovers in the fridge in response to a dinner invite from Washimi and Gori — but all is forgotten when Retsuko apologizes and proceeds to get plastered with her superiors while screaming death metal ballads. Gori’s reaction to spotting an inviting neon karaoke sign as the women walk home from the train station (Episode 5 around 6.30 minutes in) is absolutely pants-pissingly hilarious. And it’s not a guy but Gori who makes manifest her younger colleague’s fear of labeling relationships, sending Retsuko into a panic by deciding they’re now “yoga buddies.” (“A trio of friends on a journey within, opening our chakras and becoming one with the universe together? Yoga buddies!!!)Their blossoming friendship is endlessly more exciting than Retsuko’s pursuit of a husband. “The whole bridal industry is a leech feeding on young love,” she’s told by Fenneko, a cynical, phone-obsessed fennec fox with uncanny social media-stalking ability. Fenneko’s scornful attitude towards thigh gap Instagram pics, and her slightly unsettling familiarity with the app’s location tag function, surpasses that of most human teens.
Most presciently, the show even takes on #MeToo in the context of office politics. Unfortunately, Washimi’s complaints to the CEO about Director Ton’s misogynistic behavior result in something even more creepy: Ton trying to be nice. The effort is short-lived anyway, Ton back to his old ways at a booze-soaked office party involving a rap vs metal karaoke battle. Ton’s secretary, meanwhile, continues to defend the director, revealing herself to be Sanrio’s answer to The Handsmaid’s Tale’s Aunt Lydia — a pawn of the patriarchy who serves to strip away the rights of other women. Perhaps haters of Michelle Wolf’s razor-sharp Sarah Huckabee Sanders takedown should add Aggretsuko to their Netflix queue.