Aggressive Retsuko (ONA)

Some offices have stereotypical dynamics: the chauvinistic pig of a boss who never does any real work; the employees whose goal is to suck up to the boss; the ones whose lives seem perfect; and the individuals who have all the actual work pushed onto them. Retsuko the red panda is in the last group, as she stays late most nights to make up the work her coworkers are too lazy to do themselves.

Her relief from the stress of her everyday life comes in the form of singing death metal at a local karaoke club. Night after night, Retsuko channels her grief into a microphone and considers the place to be her own personal sanctuary. But as she moves further away from her comfort zone and the ideas people have of her, she discovers that letting others into her world of death metal may not be such a bad thing.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Retsuko Main

Rareko Japanese

Haida Supporting

Katou, Shingo Japanese

Fenneko Supporting

Inoue, Rina Japanese

Washimi Supporting

Koiwasaki, Komegumi Japanese

Buchou, Gori Supporting

Tsuruta, Maki Japanese

Resasuke Supporting

Katou, Shingo Japanese

Buchou, Ton Supporting

Arai, Souta Japanese

Tsunoda Supporting

Inoue, Rina Japanese

Kaba, Megumi Supporting

Takahashi, Yuki Japanese

Yoga Instructor Supporting

Arai, Souta Japanese

Rareko Director, Script

Leroy, Julie Script

Seitz, Patrick ADR Director

Sakurai, Miki Music

Reviews

Jul 24, 2024

joemaamah

Recommended

When I saw the first ep, I was like "WTF was THAT?" Didn't really know what to make of it, but it was weird enough to intrigue me into the 3 Eps test. I'm so glad I gave it a chance.

The artwork? Eh, looks like a high school art project. The animation is a little better, but it comes up amazingly short a lot of the time. This is much more episodic, than having any kind of plot. It's far from perfect. There are some running gags that kind of loosely string episodes together.

What makes this worthwhile is the characters and their goofy ... antics. The MC is a cute, shy, insecure little red panda office worker. But in her spare time, she's breaking out into dope Death Metal karaoke. OMG, I almost fell on the floor and died of laugher. I never knew what was coming next with this series, and I really appreciated that. The tyrantical boss that makes Hitler look like a kitten. The two old biddy senpais that mean well, but seem to do nothing but try to fill our MC with their cynicism. The doofus coworker. it's no wonder she's a confused, neurotic mess. She's surrounded by craziness. Yeah, the characters are definitely the main attraction here.

You can have good characters, but if you don't have a fine VA cast to bring them to life, you're left with shit. This cast is superlative. They are off the wall, but they don't end up off the chain. Fine direction on display there.

If I was grading this I'd give it an 85%, a solid B. Worth checking out, especially if you are into goofy, aimless comedy.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Apr 22, 2023

EvenWeirder

Recommended

This will cover all 5 seasons without spoilers. A sweet, extremely relatable dramedy about office drama and common social issues with endearing characters.

Each character reflects a common coworker personality almost everyone has and puts them into zany yet grounded life office issues. The main draw is how close to home the scenarios these characters are in, and how it looks at the situations under an optimistic and realistic lens. You will feel all the emotions the characters are feeling: stress, despair, hopeful, confident, etc.

The show does its best to keep things fresh and moving to avoid being boring and repetitive. The show is constantly introducing ... new characters and developing the preexisting characters by giving them new dynamics to the main character. The show balances between goofiness and drama perfectly.

That is, until the 4th season. I recommend leaving the show at the end of the 3rd season. At that point, the main arcs of the characters have mostly been completed and leaves the characters on a high note where you can gauge where their lives are heading. The last two season lost a lot of what made the show special, and I struggled to finish them. Watch them at your own risk.

I overlooked this show due to the animation and assumed it was a generic comedy. Mistake.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jun 13, 2024

Karkov_05

Mixed Feelings

I will do this review quickly due to how unremarkable and tasteless the final product turned out to be.

This is a repeated joke and it ends. It's not a very funny joke, that they give you one-dimensional characters abusing you in an absurd way as if they were a villain from a children's series and not a human being to shout at karaoke. There are subplots but nothing more, a corduroy series that shows the normal life of an office worker from Japan who abuses her with furries and clichés. She stays in Meh.

That's all I can say about this mediocre series...

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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