Retsuko vs. The “Woke” Billionaire Philanthropist

Alex Mell-Taylor
9 min readJul 29, 2019

The Red Panda’s Fight Against “Well-Intentioned” Entrepreneurs.

There is something oddly refreshing about the red panda Retsuko (voiced by Kaolip in Japanese, and Erica Mendez in the English dub) in the Netflix-syndicated anime Aggretsuko. The Sanrio mascot of Hello Kitty fame is as far from the perpetual 3rd grader in London as you can imagine. Retsuko is a disgruntled, entry-level accountant who channels her work-related frustrations into death metal karaoke after office hours. This premise manages to tap into the existential dread that a lot of Millenial workers feel throughout the world — the feeling of being lost. Retsuko’s ultimate goal is not to find a boy or defeat a melodramatic supervillain, but to carve out a meaningful existence while navigating the often demoralizing world of business.

While the first season had our karaoke avenger overcome comically abusive bosses and inattentive romantic partners, the second season has her face figures that are more morally ambiguous. These shades of gray include an intern named Anai (Billy Kametz) who cannot handle confrontation, an overly communicative coworker named Kabae (Misty Lee), and a super-rich boyfriend named Tadano (Griffin Burns) who wants to dismantle late-stage capitalism.

One of these is not like the others.

Retsuko’s relationship with Tadano, while not as outwardly antagonistic as with Anai and Kabae, is the emotional climax of the second season. He is a character with great intentions who also happens to be neglectful and distant — character flaws that admittedly allow the show to sidestep the philosophical concerns he represents. He is “woke,” but also emotionally abusive, which highlights the show’s theme. Like with Anai and Kabae, Tadano cannot be so quickly filed away under “good” or “bad.”

He is both.

With this characterization, Aggretsuko asks its viewer a question they should be quite familiar with: how should they deal with “woke,” privileged men with good intentions who also happen to be very shitty.

Expectations Can Be Deceiving

The central concept of the second season is that people act differently in different situations. Someone who might be your best friend in one…

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