About “Aggretsuko” in a few words:

Aggretsuko is a popular Japanese anime series produced by Sanrio. The show revolves around Retsuko, a red panda who works in an accounting department and uses heavy metal karaoke to vent her frustrations with her mundane office job and sexist boss. The show has themes of friendship, love, and finding oneself in the face of societal pressures. The characters are all anthropomorphic animals and the animation style is cute and colorful, providing a fun contrast to the show’s adult themes.

Meet the characters from Aggretsuko

Retsuko

Retsuko is the whole show — a pink-faced red panda who looks meek but is an absolute volcano under a blazer. She clocks into the soul-sucking office life, smiles politely, then goes home and screams death metal lyrics into a karaoke mic like it’s therapy. Quiet, hardworking, simmering with righteous anger, yet somehow ridiculously caring and clumsy, she hoards tiny plushies while drafting passive-aggressive emails (true story). She can be awkward, decisive, fragile, and ferocious in the same episode; honestly I love that she collects ramen vouchers but also has a major crime-fighting level of moral outrage — complicated, yes, sometimes inconsistent, but so real.

Haida

Haida is the long-suffering hyena coworker who has a face that says “is this my life?” and eyes that absolutely adore Retsuko (awkwardly). He’s loyal and nerdy, neurotic and romantic, a little jealous but mostly sweet and deeply self-aware, like he’s got this brain that overthinks everything — including whether to send emojis. Sincerely decent, he leaves mixtapes and listicles in the break room and somehow thinks bringing a salad to karaoke is an acceptable power move. Also, random detail: he keeps a pencil behind his ear and once made a speech that was half poetry, half panic — charming disaster, basically.

Director Gori

Director Gori is the towering, ultra-stylish gorilla of the office, the kind of boss who could bench-press your entire cubicle but chooses to wield spreadsheets like a sword. She’s intimidating, efficient, and has this weirdly maternal streak where she shocks you with a compliment then slams a deadline — it’s terrifying and comforting at once. Fashionable to the point of being weaponized, she probably owns more blazers than sense, yet secretly adores cheesy pop ballads on the subway (don’t tell). She’s strict but fair, ruthless in meetings, and somehow also the person who brings emergency candies to staff when morale drops — boss energy with a soft center, occasionally inconsistent in a very human way.

Washimi

Washimi is the impossibly composed, silk-scarf-wearing powerhouse who radiates chill but is low-key terrifying because she can cut through nonsense with one sentence. Calm, refined, and wise — the “adult” of the group who drinks black coffee and organizes emotions like a professional, also maybe smokes? — details get fuzzy but she’s classy. Mentor vibes hard: she gives blunt, surgical advice to Retsuko and carries a whole secret life that hints at deliciously complicated choices (there’s depth, for sure). She hates pointless drama but will stage a perfectly-timed, quietly dramatic intervention if needed; elegant and cool on the surface, but with tiny theatrical moments that betray how much she cares.

Fenneko

Fenneko is the gossip-obsessed fennec fox with binoculars for eyes and a brain that catalogs people’s behavior like a very judgmental librarian. She’s painfully observant, deadpan hilarious, socially stunted but emotionally sharp, and can roast you and diagnose your childhood in the same breath. A little cynical and a lot loyal, she loves stalking social feeds for tea and allegedly keeps spreadsheets of coworkers’ habits (I swear it’s true, maybe). Also quirky: she claims to hate affection but will slide snacks to Retsuko at midnight, contradictory but adorable — basically the show’s unofficial detective and roast-master.