#ahhh i wish we got more of this beginning marriage dynamic

[sangled]

What were your thoughts on season two of Aggrestuko??

spoilers for season two!

aggretsuko is a series that’s very easy to binge, since it’s so enjoyable. this season was no exception! my absolute favorite elements had to be:

kabae the hippo mom getting more depth! my biggest complaint about season 1 was that the overarching theme of ‘everyone is more complex than what you perceive them to be on your interactions alone’ applied to nearly every character (ton is a big example) except for her. i didn’t like that she was... such an unlikable caricature, and only her flaws were highlighted. thank goodness this season did her justice. i audibly went ‘ahhh’ when it turns out the only way an immature young man could be tamed was through an angelically patient mother figure. also her dynamic with her family was SOOOOOO CUTE omg i totally understood retsuko’s pining for a family. 

the continuation of the focus on ‘imperfect’ relationships! i liked tadano a lot, and i really love that, as a viewer, you were sort of waiting for some kind of big reveal that proved he wasn’t such a good person under his chill persona. but the thing that broke his relationship with retsuko is just a fundamental difference in life goals (creativity/independence vs. conformity/tradition). i wish the show didn’t make fun of tadano’s anti-capitalist beliefs so much + made retsuko acknowledge that marriage IS ultimately a flawed system that she wants to pursue regardless. like. i 10000% understand and appreciate that retsuko as a person has very simple goals, but the show could have also better portrayed marriage as a fundamentally optional thing. anyway tadano was fun. it’s important to note that NEITHER CHARACTERS WERE VICTIMS in the relationship. neither of them were wrong in trying to push their views on marriage onto the other, and it was the best thing for both of them to go in different directions.

one piece of small criticism (that wasn’t addressed in #2) was that if they were going to redeem anai, they should have toned down his behavior at the beginning. this is going to sound weird, but the show did way too good a job making him look like an absolute monster. it made the turnaround seem more abrupt.

also, while i LOVE that retsuko and haida had more moments of genuine bonding (him talking about the magazine, them struggling with anai together), he definitely needs more scenes of depth himself. if you spend too much time defining a character through their perception/relationship with another character, their personality ends up being defined as ‘likes ___’. haida deserves some focus outside of his crush on retsuko (and on tadano lmao. bicon). i do love the pattern of everything that ended up breaking retsuko’s past relationships (they weren’t interested/attentive, they didn’t share her goals) are subtly foreshadowing haida’s compatibility with her

(also also, thank god gori/washimi + fenneko/tsunoda aren’t getting love interests. they don’t need ‘em. they have each other)

overall, it was a really good season. i like that ton was less of a massive antagonist and more of a rough father figure, it made this season easier to sit through than the previous one. i can’t stop talking about everything i like! it was fantastic. flawed, for sure, but i enjoyed what we got a lot, and i look forward to future seasons.