Aggretsuko - adorable badass

Yesterday I was logging into Netflix to watch my current obsession (Offspring, a charming comedy-drama from Australia), and saw an interesting looking teaser for something called Aggretsuko, based on a character from the Sanrio franchise. I thought it looked cute but maybe annoyingly so, and I didn't have high hopes for the story, but I figured I should probably check this out anyway, just to have an informed opinion.

A couple of hours later I'd binged the entire thing in one sitting and ran off to rave about it to my friends.

It starts out showing us young Retsuko, a fresh-faced college grad starting her new job in a big office, full of possibility and hope for the future. Fast forward five years, and she's a burnt out corporate zombie who has to psych herself up to get out of bed each morning. I think many of us can relate.

Retsuko is the dutiful worker who performs her tasks without complaining and doesn't balk when others dump their work on her or when her sexist pig of a boss (who is literally a pig) goes on and on about how useless women are. She's the kind of person who's afraid of speaking up for herself, even when being followed around a store by an annoying sales clerk. In fact, she buys some socks she doesn't even like because she feels bad for leaving without purchasing anything.

As meek and timid as she appears, she has a secret. One that involves a microphone: she screams her rage out to death metal where no one else can hear her.

And that's where Retsuko's story really begins. Over the course of 10 episodes, we get to watch her come into her own power, with the help of her friends and the guidance of two older, badass professional women who take a liking to her and see a spark of something great behind the anxiety.

OK, so I don't know the characters in the Sanrio universe other than Hello Kitty, and isn't there a chocolate one? But now I'm starting to rethink my assumption that it was all silly fluff. There's something truly subversive going on in Aggretsuko (Aggressive Retsuko) around women's righteous anger as a force for change.

I'm sure there are some self-rescuing princess types out there who came out of the womb already kicking ass and taking names (yay you!), but most of us have had to overcome a huge amount of societal training. As Amy Pohler said, "It takes years as a woman to unlearn what you have been taught to be sorry for." So much of what we've been taught about our worth and how to interact with the world holds us back. Like Retsuko, we were taught not to speak up or talk back, but instead suffer in silence and rage in private.

Another thing Aggretsuko gets totally right is the role of other women in the process of unlearning. The real power comes from truthful conversations with other women, learning from each other's stories and reveling in the support that comes from that kind of shared experience. It's through her friendships with the two older company women, Gori and Washimi, and her coworker Fenneko, that Retsuko is able to imagine other ways of responding to the injustices of life, both professional and romantic.

Aggretsuko earns the Self-Rescuing Princess Society seal of approval for its story of a young woman coming into her own power, and its positive portrayal of female friendships. We get to watch Retsuko unlearning. It's not a straight line. She has setbacks and stumbling blocks. Who doesn't? But with the help of her friends, she is able to grow into a kickass young woman. I guarantee by the end of the season you'll be giving a super feminist fist pump in her honor.

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