'Aggretsuko' & 'Nagi-Asu: A Lull in the Sea'
Two Netflix anime shows this week
Aggretsuko Anime Review: Bite-Sized Episodes of Awesomeness
Season 3
Aggretsuko is a Netflix show that looks deceptively simple on the outside, but it’s AMAZING. In easy-to-digest 15 minute episodes, Aggretsuko is about this red panda named Retsuko who is a shy, Japanese office worker on the surface, but has a hidden side to her that loves screaming death metal. Retsuko is a Sanrio character, so it’s pretty much like Hello Kitty animation, but for an older generation of viewers! It’s relatable on various levels, because aren’t we all just trying to navigate life while battling our inner demons? When Retsuko sings death metal, she goes into “rage” mode, which is absolutely hilarious and a complete opposite of her “good-girl” persona. On top of it all, each season of Aggretsuko is a new exploration of Retsuko’s life - from romance, to office politics, to career. You could honestly jump in to any season without knowing that much about it because the storyline is easy to follow. But I do highly recommend starting from Season 1 to get a more well-rounded understanding of all of the character relationships.
Nagi-Asu: A Lull in the Sea Anime Review: When Unrequited Love Becomes a Shitty Plot Device
The first draft of this review was me ranting about how much I hated this show. But now that I’ve calmed down a bit, I realize it’s not THAT bad. Nagi-Asu: A Lull in the Sea (or Nagi no Asukara) is a 2013 romance, slice-of-life anime about two separate but connected worlds - a society that is able to live and breathe under the sea, and a society that can only live on land (like normal humans). A group of four sea village friends need to start attending the land village middle school, and the story kicks off from there. Nagi-Asu is currently available on Netflix, which is why I decided to try it out. Otherwise, I would have never heard about this anime or had any intention of putting it on my watchlist. The fact that this anime isn’t widely known or beloved might be because it’s pretty polarizing, but also not praised enough to have garnered widespread attention.