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A review by mikorin
Aggretsuko: Metal to the Max, Volume 1 by Daniel Barnes
3.0
I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.
I got really excited when I spotted that there is an Aggrestuko comic! I love the Netflix series.
The base story is this: Retsuko is a young office worker in Japan, who strives to be an ideal employee but she deals with a lot of work stress. Her one escape is karaoke, more specifically death metal karaoke. Her adventures manage to hit just the right notes on how personally taxing it can be to do everything right at work and putting our personal interests aside. The series is also very real about relationships, workplace friendships and the difficulties of a grown up life.
It is good to have seen at least a few episodes before you read the comic, as it doesn’t really have an introductiory part and you might wonder who are all these characters. Sadly, I did not like it as much as hoped, a lot of them feel like watered down, shallow caricatures of the characters I came to love in the show.
Each chapter seems to tackle a different topic. First, we deal with a virus outbreak at Restuko’s company. Corona, anyone? In the second part we go shopping and have a bit of a look into second hand stores vs. brand clothes. In part three a foreigner colleague makes a work visit. While the first two parts felt a bit rushed for me, this last part was written pretty well and it was an enjoyable journey with Resuko and how she deals with Karen, the Canadian office lady who is hellbent on improving employee satisfaction.
While the parts with Retsuko singing hit the same notes - this is where she gets real about issues that bothered her during the day - as there is little substance to her in the short stories she comes off meaner as she actually is.
I am unsure about a few translated phrases, like why people call her Calendar. I think it was short-timer in the show? That made a bit more sense, but I don’t get what Calendar even means in this context.
Overall this was a fun read, but I felt that the stories were a bit short to really have the same impact as the series.
I got really excited when I spotted that there is an Aggrestuko comic! I love the Netflix series.
The base story is this: Retsuko is a young office worker in Japan, who strives to be an ideal employee but she deals with a lot of work stress. Her one escape is karaoke, more specifically death metal karaoke. Her adventures manage to hit just the right notes on how personally taxing it can be to do everything right at work and putting our personal interests aside. The series is also very real about relationships, workplace friendships and the difficulties of a grown up life.
It is good to have seen at least a few episodes before you read the comic, as it doesn’t really have an introductiory part and you might wonder who are all these characters. Sadly, I did not like it as much as hoped, a lot of them feel like watered down, shallow caricatures of the characters I came to love in the show.
Each chapter seems to tackle a different topic. First, we deal with a virus outbreak at Restuko’s company. Corona, anyone? In the second part we go shopping and have a bit of a look into second hand stores vs. brand clothes. In part three a foreigner colleague makes a work visit. While the first two parts felt a bit rushed for me, this last part was written pretty well and it was an enjoyable journey with Resuko and how she deals with Karen, the Canadian office lady who is hellbent on improving employee satisfaction.
While the parts with Retsuko singing hit the same notes - this is where she gets real about issues that bothered her during the day - as there is little substance to her in the short stories she comes off meaner as she actually is.
I am unsure about a few translated phrases, like why people call her Calendar. I think it was short-timer in the show? That made a bit more sense, but I don’t get what Calendar even means in this context.
Overall this was a fun read, but I felt that the stories were a bit short to really have the same impact as the series.