Sanrio has a ton of classic characters, like the inescapable Hello Kitty, but none have tapped into the adult market quite as well as Aggretsuko, the rage-filled office-working red panda. This fiery persona deals with everyday annoyances and problems by going to karaoke and death metal singing her frustration out. Truly, she is one of us. And soon, we can all feel her pain, with her new show on Netflix.
Aggretsuko will follow the title character as she navigated daily working life, dealing with different trials and tribulations, rage-singing the entire way. The character originally had a series of shorts that aired during the Ō-sama no Brunch TBS Saturday morning program, with over 100 shorts in all. Now it seems that the popularity of the character has risen to the point where Netflix is now interesting in getting in on the action.
“Aggretsuko may be a uniquely Japanese show, but the frustration it taps into—not to mention the joy of venting—is universal,” said Rob Roy, Vice President of Content Acquisition at Netflix said in a press release. “We’re excited to partner with Sanrio in bringing it to a global audience.”
To me, Aggretsuko and the other major character they’ve released recently, Gudetama (you know, the creepy egg one), signal that Sanrio finally understands the market they are trying to engage. Cute isn’t enough anymore — young people are frustrated and tired, we feel stressed out and want to be lazy. Aggretsuko directly deals with the frustrations around bad jobs, flaky friends and little problems that pile up with humor, but also a weird amount of truth. At the end, like all of us, she accepts it and moves on, but her scream-singing gives voice and validation to a lot of the thoughts, fears, and rage fantasies of the millennial generation.
Aggretsuko will premiere worldwide on Netflix on April, 20, 2018.
