Sanrio, home of adorable characters like Hello Kitty, Badtz-Maru and Keroppi, introduced one of its newest mascots last spring: Aggretsuko, a very, very emotional red panda with a penchant for heavy metal. Although she’s been around for nearly a year, the company’s Twitter account re-introduced her to the world yesterday, and Aggretsuko’s since taken the social media world by storm.
Introducing, #Aggretsuko! She's a Red Panda who works as an office associate of a trading company in Tokyo. Watch this video to learn more! pic.twitter.com/wwh79GzRw4
— Sanrio (@sanrio) January 5, 2017
The video made it onto YouTube in mid-December, but it wasn’t until Sanrio’s tweet that people became obsessed with the character. It’s easy to see why everyone’s so in love with her: Unlike the mild-mannered Hello Kitty, or cutesy ciphers like the Little Twin Stars and My Melody, Aggretsuko is someone we’ve all met before. Even more likely, we’ve all been Aggretsuko at some point in our lives.
She’s a 25-year-old single female who works a mundane office job she hates. No one respects her; they all dump their work on her pile so they can goof off, giving her grief. How does she cope? With a lot of booze and karaoke, it looks like.
Current Mood: #Aggretsuko pic.twitter.com/A40Pydnayr
— Julia (@cathexing) January 6, 2017
There’s plenty of Aggretsuko merch already out there for newcomers to pick up, and an anime of 10 mini-episodes ran in Japan last year. We’ve got our fingers crossed that it comes out in English someday soon, because we can’t wait to drink away our troubles with this frustrated red panda. For now, it’s just nice to know that there’s someone else out there who gets it.
all of my friends in my early twenties and I heavily identify with our new patron saint #aggretsuko
— kawwnensens (@Dizraeli262) January 6, 2017
#aggretsuko perfectly encapsulates my life tbh
— ere ☆ YOI hell (@mimesisemblance) January 6, 2017