Characters / Aggretsuko – Main Characters

Aggretsuko Main Character Index
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Retsuko

Normal Retsuko is Voiced by: Kaolip (Japanese), Erica Mendez (English), Desireé González (Latin American Spanish), Julia Stoepel (German)

Metal Retsuko is voiced by: Rarecho (Japanese), Jamison Boaz (English)

^{Click here to see Retsuko's metal face} 

Normal Retsuko: "There are thousands of girls who work in offices just like me. But this girl has a secret up her sleeve and a mic in her purse."

Metal Retsuko: 'CHOKE ON MY RAGE!!!'

The title character. A hard-working and mild-mannered 25-year-old red panda who works a normal desk job as an accountant. However, she grows sick of her job and her coworkers at points, leading her to vent her frustrations into singing Death Metal.

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• Act of True Love: It isn't Haida jumping in when she is in danger that finally wins Retsuko's heart, it's the realization that nothing will stop him from being there for her, not even him being the one being targeted. Faint heart ne'er won fair lady, indeed.
• Affectionate Nickname: During her relationship with Tadano, he would nickname her "Recchan" ("Retsy" in the English dub).
• Agony of the Feet: During her time dating Resasuke, she insists on using the same fancy shoes on all of their dates even though they're uncomfortable and hurt her feet. This is an early sign that their relationship isn't working.
• All-Loving Hero: Retsuko lacks the outgoing attitude, yet rarely hates anyone outright as she has been willing to aid both people who've been friendly to her in the past, obnoxious yet unintentional nuisances, rough but well-intentioned acquaintances, and even her direct tormentors. While part of this is the staunch need to remain professional, it's telling that when the people she'd otherwise hate show a vulnerable side (or pretend to), her first instinct is to aiming to comfort them.
• Altar the Speed: By the Season 5 finale, she and Haida pull this off quickly after Haida is injured by a truck.
• Always a Child to Parent: Retsuko just can't get her mother to stop meddling in her life enough to respect her own decisions, wrong or otherwise. Their main conflict in season 2 begins when she enters unannounced to her daughter's apartment to shanghai her up for several marriage interviews, on top of buying her an over-the-top frilly dress that'd be more fitting for a child than a grown-up woman.
  • It's finding Haida living with Retsuko that finally makes her mother let go, after some hilarious bits like her mother Terminator-scanning Retsuko's apartment for signs of cohabitation (she finds one: Haida's toothbrush.)
• Angrish: In the Japanese version, Retsuko's Metal Screams sound a lot more like angry and incoherent screaming than it does like intelligible Japanese, such that her songs often have lyrics on-screen to make out what she's saying. Downplayed in the English dub, where her screamed lyrics are more intelligible.
• Bad Liar: Retsuko is too sweet and honest to be a good liar, which is part of why she struggles to hide her real feelings at work. (And her secret hobbies, like death metal karaoke and yoga.)
• Berserker Tears: Essentially what happens when she sings, as she cries out the frustrations of her job and personal life.
• Betty and Veronica: Is involved with this dynamic with Haida in every season:
  • At the end of the first season, she is the Archie to Resasuke's cold and aloof Veronica and Haida's sweet and caring Betty.
  • In season 2, she's once again the Archie with Haida as her shy and smitten Betty and charming rich boy Tadano as Veronica.
  • Season 3 has her as the secretly-temperamental Veronica, with Haida as the Archie torn between her and the kind and demure Inui as the Betty.
• Beware the Cute Ones: Retsuko is cute as a button and a responsible, nice worker who jams to metal karaoke to de-stress and can be quite scary when she stands her ground.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Though many times she is pushed into depression, pushing further than that makes her explode. Said moments are forgotten (maybe) by several circumstances (like drinking too much alcohol and suffering a hangover the next day). That being said her Metal Scream via "The Reason You Suck" Speech towards anyone who tick her off (e.g towards Ton) shows she's not a complete pushover.
• Big Damn Heroes: In the finale of Season 4, when Haida starts to get overwhelmed by Himuro in their arm-wrestling match, Retsuko arrives at the office and Death Metal beams them out of the room through the window.
  Retsuko: Do I have to do EVERYTHING MYSEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELF?!
• Birds of a Feather: She and Haida are both mild mannered accountants who have trouble opening up to others about their problems (her: getting tread on by her work and workmates, him: getting hold of his emotions and feelings). They're both also musically inclined, with Haida being a punk rock fan, and Retsuko a death metal aficionado.
• Boss's Unfavorite Employee: Ton regularly singles out Retsuko for special abuse, because she managed to get him reported to the CEO. Before that, it was because he believed her to be a short-timer (not without evidence), and could see her lack of motivation before anyone else.
• Break the Cutie: Getting harassed, stalked, and almost murdered by a Loony Fan left her a broken mess that shut herself off from the world. It takes Haida giving a "The Reason You Suck" Speech followed by a You Are Not Alone speech to pull her out. While she does leave OTMGirls after their first festival perfomance, this puts the two on much better terms with some Will They or Won't They? sprinkled in.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Although she’s more of a pushover who rarely thinks about how to properly improve her work rather than lazy, in Season 3 it’s shown that by setting her foot down, using her accountable skills and creativity, she manages to turn an barely known underground idol band into celebrities.
• Butt-Monkey: Things rarely go her way: she's at the bottom of the pecking order, singled out by Ton and Tsubone to do extra work, lives a pretty lonely life and she's an Extreme Doormat to boot, making her an easy target for peer pressure. Not to say, most of her attempts to improve her relationship with her bosses end up making things worse for her.
• Call-Back: In the first episode, she says "I'll count to 10 and then I'll be a model citizen" because she doesn't want to go to work. On a date with Resasuke, she runs to the restroom and says "I'll count to 10 and then I'll be a happy girlfriend."
• Cannot Convey Sarcasm: She can understand it, but Retsuko is notably the only character the series that never quite goes full Deadpan Snarker. Mostly because she has her metal jams and because she's way too upfront about things, even when she tries to snark about it.
• Cathartic Scream: Most of her karaoke outings are this: ranting about her problems at the top of her lungs.
• Celebrity Is Overrated: A major theme of the third season. Retsuko finally gets a chance to use her metal singing talents with an underground idol group that quickly gains traction thanks to her superb accounting and management skills, and everything about the situation seems ideal. However, the horrors of fame begin to emerge starting with the unnamed OTM-patch-wearing fan harassing her emotionally and physically after a concert, which brings her to tears (though she puts on a brave face). Said fan is also shown stalking her, taking pictures of her without consent, and posting sensitive information such as her address online. This culminates in the aforementioned fan attempting to kill her on her way home from work (and it would've been successful if not for Haida's timely intervention). In the hospital, Retsuko has a dream which basically sums up everything bad about being a celebrity, and she resolves to quit the group after her final performance. However, in Season 4, it turns out her uploaded Death Metal videos made her incredibly famous and she decides to work with Tadano, Manaka, and later recruit Ton as her accountant to take advantage of this.
  • This jumpstarts her political career in Season 5, as "Aggretsuko" becomes the Death Metal voice shrieking on behalf of Japan's disaffected youth
• The Chew Toy: Zigzagged. Sometimes, her suffering is so ludicrous it oscillates between chuckles and heartbreak.
• Character Development:
  • She starts off the series either indifferent or annoyed with most of her coworkers, save Haida and Fenneko, but as she learns more about them such as Tsunoda, Ton, and Kabae, she grows to slowly respect them. Doesn't stop her from still being annoyed with them, though.
  • Most of her goal of the first season in wanting to marry so she can quit her job and even become a housewife. Come Season Two, she finds a guy so rich who actively encourages her to quit her job to be with him to search a hobby or job she actually adores, but ultimately breaks up with him despite how much they like each other because he doesn't want to get married or have kids, something Retsuko realizes she really does want. By Season 3, she wants to improve in her work as well.
  • In Season 3, she learns to be less passive, wishy-washy, Extreme Doormat. When she has trouble balancing her day job with her debt-ridden duties as the accountant for OTMGirls. It says a lot her no-nonsense attitude finally makes the idol group turn in a profit.
  • Season 4, where to begin? The first thing that happens in Season 4 is she's seen taking self-defense classes with her yoga instructor and now carries around nunchucks with her to fend off assailants. She undergoes the same development as Haida does being able to overcome her Cannot Spit It Out tendencies and is able to form a solid relationship with him. Even when it all starts to go sour and she takes Haida to her karaoke sanctuary to talk to him about it, she doesn't even scream at him like Haida expects to, and instead gives him a simple slap and essentially gives him the same speech he gave her in Season 3. It's abundantly clear she's no longer the same Extreme Doormat she was back at the beginning.
  • In Season 5, she shows Haida some tough love, putting the brakes on their relationship until he can get it together (this backfires on her a bit when the sensitive Haida is scared to tell her he got kicked out of his apartment and winds up sleeping at an internet cafe while he works temp gigs). Eventually she becomes the voice of Japan's angry youth, and she's no longer afraid to voice her grievances in public instead of just venting in private.
• Crush Filter: When Retsuko fantasizes about her crush, his face turns from its blank stare to that of a shoujo anime character. An usual tell for her gaining a love interest is her seeing hearts all over her dingy room.
• The Cutie: She's adorably polite, very friendly and tries to do right for most of the people she meets, even those who hate her guts.
• Dude Magnet: Has a total of four men be interested in her. They include the following: Haida, Resasuke, Shirota, and Tadano.
• Extreme Doormat: As stated by her friends, she's too focused on upholding people's expectations of her. Made even worse when many guess correctly she buys stuff from stores because she doesn't want to feel like she didn't get anything or it would make the workers feel bad.
  Metal!Retsuko: TEAM PLAYERS LOSE!!!
• Facial Markings:
  • When Retsuko goes into metal mode, she develops facial markings reminiscent of corpse paint, in addition to a forehead marking in the shape of the kanji character for "rage".
  • By default, she has the white facial markings that red pandas typically have, though the dots above her eyes serve as her eyebrows. The dots change shape to look like little horns when she is enraged.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Retsuko's passivity (and lack of clarity) on what she truly wants is often the main cause of her problems. A second closer one is her inability to commit to a course of action and when she does, to avoid weighting the pros and cons to see if it's worth it. In Season 3 it takes a talk from Washimi point this out to her that makes her really focused on both improving the OTM Girls and her own job that her life starts to get better.
  • She has the tendency to build walls around her and keep distance from other people. While part of the reason why is because she wants to stay professional, whenever she's in a stressful situation (whether it's financial, physical or emotional), she tends to isolate herself both to protect herself from real or potential hurt, and to not burden her loved ones.
• Fiery Redhead: Well, she is a Red Panda with quite a temper. Although, she only lets loose in private or when really pushed.
• Fur Is Skin: One shot in the Season 3 episode "An Impenetrable Wall" shows Retsuko's light-brown fur-covered hand red and blistered from trying to play a guitar.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Gives a sharp slap to Haida in the end of Season 4 after he went off the deep end because of his intention of trying to become a man worthy of her. Haida broke down in tears because he was fully expecting her to give one of her metal rants, only to get something else.
• Gold Digger:
  • Not a mean one, a rather sympathetic one, at that, but she yearns to become a housewife, as a way to quit her job. She decides that the only way this could happen is if she starts hunting for a rich man to date, after Haida tells her that if they married, he'd like for her to keep working (both because he doesn't make enough to sustain both of them and that they could support each other at work).
    • This is curious especially after season 5, after Haida is revealed to be the eldest son of a politically powerful and very wealthy family. Haida's answer made sense considering he was trying to stay out of the shadow of his overbearing father, who he disdains even in his youth. By then, Retsuko already shed off her Gold Digger tendencies, and understood that her dream isn't to just marry someone rich and become a housewife, but instead to further her goals and career and actually have a family. Haida completely severing off his ties with his family and throwing back the money they offered him to keep him out of the public eye as to not stain his brother's aspiring political career would be something Retsuko would have been extremely frustrated about, but after a ton of Character Development, she now is proud of his choice.
  • Subverted in season 2. When her relationship with wealthy tech mogul Tadano becomes steady, he tries to convince her to quit her job so he can support them both, and then she'll have time to find something she's truly passionate about, making all of these wants she had in season 1 possible. However, it turns out he isn't interested in marriage or having children. This leads to Retsuko breaking up with him, because she's realized that she genuinely wants to get married in order to have a family and not just as a way to escape from her job.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: She's a lot more prone to her raging outbursts in the TBS shorts. Just failing to pull a price tag off a vase is enough to send her into Metal mode.
• Happily Married: Engaged/Married to Haida in the final episode of Season 5.
• Has a Type: The men she fancies are often Nice Guys who, despite being similar to her in certain attitudes, have a different quality about them.
• Heroic BSoD: In Season 3, she is nearly killed by a rabid OTMGirls fan who took his frustrations on the group's legacy on her performance. Thankfully, Haida saves her, but the event leaves her in a state of fear and shock. She may have not fully recovered from it, but her friends are there for her.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: A "tiny girl" with Fenneko in their friendship with Haida; the hyena's a full head taller than Retsuko. Retsuko's interests in season 2, Shirota and Tadano, are also notably taller than her, though that's connected to Retsuko herself being pretty short.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: Retsuko, being a Bad Liar, tends to get herself in trouble by revealing details to things she's pretending not to know. Like when Fenneko asks if she was the anonymous girl who went off about her boss and company on a reality TV show and Retsuko protests she's never even been to the place it was filmed, even though Fenneko never said where it was filmed. Or assuring Ton that the CEO of their company should go easy on him because she was the one who complained even though Ton never said the CEO talked to him.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • Starting from episode 3, Ton starts calling her "Calendar"^note "Short-timer" in the original Japanese version. The English version settles on "Calendar" because as Ton puts it, her days are numbered after seeing her unprofessional comments on TV and confirming with the network manager that she was looking at websites on how to quit her job while at work.
  • Finally picks up the name Aggretsuko in Season 3 as her idol stage name.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Washimi and Gori, who are implied to be at least a decade or two older than her. Despite the age differences, they're all close friends.
• Interspecies Romance:
  • Averted with Resasuke, as he was also a red panda.
  • Played straight with Shirota (polar bear) and Tadano (donkey). The former who was a marriage candidate and the latter was her boyfriend for a time.
  • Massively with Haida, a spotted Hyena. It starts off as merely a Ship Tease with only Haida having feelings for her, but by Season 4, they started dating. And in Season 5, they got engaged/married.
• Jaded Professional: Downplayed. She hasn't become mean or anything, but 5 years have sucked Retsuko's hopes and dreams about her job to the point where she continuously flirts with skipping it early in the series.
• Lady Swears-a-Lot: She is normally quite polite, but both because she's in full Cathartic Scream mode when she freestyles and because it's in the genre, Metal Retsuko gets sweary.
  Retsuko: YOU'RE A SHITTY BOSS! YOU'RE A SHITTY BOSS! I HATE YOU SO MUUUUCH!
• The Load: During her relationship with Resasuke, she's so bad at her job that Ton makes her sit out during a deadline when they were missing three people, knowing she'd just cause more trouble.
• Love at First Sight: Subverted. She doesn't fall in love with Haida at first sight. Far from it. The first time he confesses an interest in her, she turns him down because she's not ready to date anyone at that point. She falls in love with him over time, after she takes the time to get to know him.
• Love Makes You Dumb: After she starts dating Resasuke, her infatuation with him makes her rather incompetent at her job and she's unwilling to realize that said relationship isn't going to last.
• Loving a Shadow: At the end of season one, she realizes she isn't really in love with Resasuke, and the image she has of a perfect prince isn't how he is in reality.
• Maybe Ever After:
  • The first season finale implies she is interested in Haida and would welcome the idea of going out with him, but the viewer isn't shown what happens after Haida's confession. The Christmas Episode then reveals she turns him down by saying she wanted to be Just Friends, which puts Haida in heavy depression. In Season 3, it takes an attempted murder for Haida to push past that and end up with a more positive version of the trope.
  • In Season 4, after her and Haida's attempt to start dating gets derailed by their mutual insecurities and communication issues, the season ends with the two meeting in a crowded street on much better terms, but whether it's for a romantic date or a friendly outing is not clear.
  • In Season 5, they are dating and eventually Haida moves in with her. This is itself a bucket of cold water on Retsuko's tendency to romanticize things, as she learns cohabitating with another person requires adjusting to their idiosyncracies and establishing firm boundaries. Both of which she does... eventually.
• Meaningful Name: Retsuko's name is written with two characters meaning "Rage Child", which naturally refers to all the pent-up anger she has inside of her. The "rage" kanji that appears on her forehead whenever she's in death metal mode is the same one that's part of her name.
  • Also a pun on her species name: in Japanese, "ressaa panda", and the name "Ritsuko".
• Metal Scream: Oh, boy howdy!
• Money Dumb: Normally a saver in her private life, Retsuko's sunk into depression in season 3 after a harsh breakup with Tadano, causing her to spend nearly her entire life savings on Microtransactions for a romantic VR game she's using as a coping mechanism.
• Never My Fault: She has a bad habit of putting blame on bad things happening in her life on her dead-end job, but as Ton points out she is not so innocent as she will use overtime to search for other jobs on the company computer rather than focus on her work and improving herself. Season 3 onward has her grow out of this.
• Nice Girl: And as people around her notice, way too nice for her own good. Manaka later tells her she shouldn't be afraid to step on some toes to make herself happy.
• Nightmare Face: Her Death Metal persona always has her express the face of a ferocious beast when she lets out her frustrations in a song.
• Old Maid:
  • Downplayed since she's only 25 years old, but at the start of the first episode she makes a point to tell the audience that she's 25 and single. She starts making an effort to correct that a few episodes in, though not for the usual reasons.
  • This is what drives much of the plot of the second season, as her mother begins to remind her that it's about time she got married and started a family, and begins to set her up on dates. Retsuko ends the season realizing that she does want to get married and start a family, and ends up breaking with her boyfriend because he doesn't believe in marriage.
• Open Secret: Her Death Metal karaoke is her secret way of performing therapy from the stress of work. As the series continues, however, more of her friends and acquaintances learn about her hobby, and by the time of Season 5, she’s practically a well known face and Celebrity for Death Metal singing, which makes Ikari seek her out.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: During her date with Resasuke, she sings a song in her head; however, it's a happy, soft and upbeat melody, not at all like her usual self. In fact, during the whole relationship, she starts being completely upbeat at all times, but becomes increasingly incompetent at work, this is so notable, even her mean bosses take notice of it and are slightly worried about it.
  • Ends Season 4 with a single slap to Haida instead of her signature Metal Scream. This sets him straight because of how personal it has become that she forewent her rage and instead told him You Are Better Than You Think You Are.
• Outranking Your Job: Invoked. Due to her contentious relationship with Ton, Retsuko is often "asked" (read:forced) to do things beyond her usual workload which she doesn't refuse due to fearing him and lacking a backbone. E.g. fetching tea.
• Rage Breaking Point: What causes her passion for Death Metal is no other than that being the best way to deal with stress when she reaches this. She goes to a secluded place and freestyles until she calms down and goes back.
• The Reliable One: Smart and resourceful in tough situations, Retsuko's diligence is her main feature in the accounting department. Normally her ability to fly below the radar would make her the least picked on but her passive attitude combined with her desire to please everyone overcoming any genuine desire/goal she could have means superiors like Tsubone, Ton and Komiya (to a lesser degree) saddle her with their tasks, peers like Kabae, Haida, and Fenneko will see her as someone who'll accept their idiosyncrasies no matter how annoying and subordinates like Anai will only hold her as their superior as long as she caters to their needs.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • When she makes something to drink in the office's stove is always with a fuming kettle, the fuming and the loud sound of whistling is usually meant to represent that, behind her happy facade, she's fuming inside and ready to burst.
  • The shoes Retsuko wears while dating Resasuke and wearing her "happy girlfriend" mask. They’re nicer than the shoes she normally wears, but they cause her pain. She finally takes them off during her karaoke session with Resasuke and goes back to her usual shoes after breaking up with him.
• Shower of Angst: After the OTM fan held her hand for five minutes while saying hateful things to her, she is later seen scrubbing her hands raw.
• Singing Voice Dissonance: Whenever she sings death metal, her voice is a lot harsher and more guttural than her regular speaking voice. Both English and Japanese have a professional, male heavy metal singer provide it.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: All of her possible love interests made an impression on Retsuko because of their positive personality traits.
• Status Quo Is God:
  • Her many hopeful attempts to ditch her job end up backfiring horribly because the universe doesn't like her that much to begin with. About the only thing she actually gains that she enjoys are the fact she's got some powerful yet comprehensive friends in Washimi and Gori.. Plus, Retsuko also realizes that she likes her job, even with a boss like Ton.
  • At the end of the third season she's left the idol group once the horrors of fame come to light, and back to her office job, albeit with renewed vigor and the support of Haida.
• Super-Strength: Invoked. After several yoga classes, she's the only one in the whole company who can open one of Tsubone's jars of preserves without failing or suffering massive injuries. And in one of the TBS shorts she shattered a phone screen with one finger by hitting a like button too hard when she was mad at Tsunoda.
• Supreme Chef: That or one note. One of the shorts has her curry winning over all her co-workers at a barbecue, even Ton, the pitmaster. This trait doesn't carry over to the Netflix series, where her attempt to make Yakisoba noodles for an event is a disaster.
• Survival Mantra: "I'll count to 10 and then I'll be X". Used at work and when dating Resasuke starts hurting her.
• Swapped Roles: With Haida in Season 4, she started to become worried of Haida appearing to balk under pressure after getting promoted such that she has begun to check on him. Haida meanwhile has started to grow more and more distant not only from her, but also with Fenneko and their other friends that he even declines invitations of having tea with them. They essentially swapped their roles from Season 1.
• Take Our Word for It: After spending so much on microtransactions, she is reduced to eating day old bread crust (which as pointed out is given out for free). The next day, after spending more money, she is eating something which is hidden by her bento lid. Fenniko just states it has to be a step down from day old bread.
• Took a Level in Badass: By season 4, after her attack by the crazy stalker, she underwent self-defense training lessons from the Yoga Instructor. It worked so well that she can defend herself with nunchuks. Too bad Ton's daughters easily disarm her.
• Twice Shy: She becomes this with Haida in Season Four, as they are both shy and insecure enough to make the first move, though they eventually do.
• Vocal Dissonance: Retsuko's voices changes to a very harsh male voice when she sings Death Metal.
• A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Played with. Outwardly, Retsuko is a sweet, kindhearted woman who is endlessly patient with everyone and willing to face humiliation and pain for the sake of the office. In reality, while Retsuko is sweet and kind, she fully gets how annoying and selfish most of her co-workers are and is desperately trying to find some way to escape her job and find a happy life somewhere else. Her Metal self goes into her actual opinions on her workers and boss at length.
• Work Off the Debt: The main issue of Season 3. As a result of accidentally wrecking Hyodo's van (while she had wasted her savings into Microtransactions for her virtual game), she is forced to pay him ¥200,000 and gets roped into being his idol group's accountant.
• Will They or Won't They?: With Haida. They have a lot of Ship Tease with one another but he's the one with confirmed romantic feelings while Retsuko states that she prefers to be Just Friends, but it's still left up in the air. They eventually hook up in Season 4.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Says this in verbatim to Haida at the end of Season 4, mirroring the ending of Season 3.

Washimi and Gori

Washimi is voiced by: Komegumi Koiwasaki (Japanese), Tara Platt (English), America Torres (Latin American Spanish)

Gori is voiced by: Maki Tsuruta (Japanese), Gina Bowes (English), Martha Ramirez (Latin American Spanish)

Gori: Not gonna lie, our “baddest bitch in the room” walk is murder on my back.
Washimi: Be strong; we can't show any weakness at work.

A duo of women who are considered extremely successful in their company. Gori is a Gorilla and supervisor on marketing and Washimi the secretarybird is the president's secretary.

They become close friends with Retsuko after they all start doing the same yoga class and often offer her advice.

Known as Eaglette and Ape Admin in the fansubs for the TBS shorts.

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Both

• The Ace:
  • Washimi is effortlessly on top of everything, all the time, and everyone admires and looks up to her, as well as seeming to have her life more together than Gori outside the office. She also has the CEO wrapped around her finger. This all appears to come naturally to her.
  • Gori subverts this. She does a very good impression of a woman who has her shit together at work, but she's actually quite insecure and sensitive underneath her well-practiced work façade. This is how she's able to bond so easily with Retsuko once they finally managed to get past their difference in rank.
• Beware the Nice Ones: They're decent people, but if you work at their company and you've been causing trouble, they have the power to get you in trouble (or at least, Washimi does).
• Cool Big Sis: They're both older than Retsuko, but are very supportive of her.
• Fat and Skinny: Gori and Washimi respectively form this duo.
• Good Samaritan: In Season 5 they float Retsuko the 3,000,000 Yen buy-in for her political campaign. For Americans out there, this means that they had enough faith in her to go splitsies on about $45,000 USD for Retsuko's sake with no guarantee they'd get the money back.
• Hidden Depths: Their act to be very imposing at work makes many look up to them, though outside of work they're like any other person, except better put together (at least Washimi keeps her cool better than Gori). In fact, it's an Establishing Character Moment when they do their walk and stop away from others just so Gori can complain and Washimi reminds her to keep looking strong.
• High-Heel Power: Their heels are known to everyone in the building, and everybody knows that these two mean business.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Retsuko, since it's implied that they're at least a decade or two older than her. Despite the age differences, they're all close friends. By season 3, this extends to both Haida and Fenneko when they start hanging out more as Retsuko focuses on her work with the OTMGirls.
• Leitmotif: A beat-heavy electro song (which sounds similar to the intro of Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff") appears often as they walk down the hallways.
• Meaningful Name: Gori is pretty obvious, but Washimi's name literally means "eagle beauty". Secretary birds are called hebikuiwashi ("snake-eating eagles") in Japanese.
• Nice Girl: Despite the professional and aloof front they present at work, both of them are very pleasant and friendly people.
• Not So Above It All: They're both really well put-together at work, but both of them have certain insecurities of their own, which helps their friendship with Retsuko outside of work. Gori's insecurities are more apparent than Washimi's but the latter is implied to be better at hiding them if necessary.
• Power Trio: By the end of the series it becomes obvious that they both see Retsuko as an equal and another member of their "baddest bitches in the room" clique.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Gori is the passionate and extroverted red oni to Washimi's calm and serene blue oni.
• Secret-Keeper: They are aware and keep a secret about Retsuko's love for death metal as her way to cope with stress and frustration. They actually start accompanying her to the Karaoke and even try to learn how to sing it.
• Supermodel Strut: They both move with a smooth and purposeful stride (usually side-by-side and in perfect synchrony) which is one of the things that makes them so imposing and confident. Gori even refers to it as their "baddest bitch in the room walk". Gori also mentions that walking like that is murder on her back.
• Team Power Walk: Their trademark is moving towards the camera while doing a Supermodel Strut, all in perfect synchrony while standing shoulder to shoulder, with their Leitmotif playing in the background.
• Those Two Guys: The duo is very close and almost always acts together, both in their workplace and practicing yoga.

Washimi

• Awful Wedded Life: She had a bad marriage which only lasted four months that Gori didn't even know about. It's because of this that Washimi discourages both Retsuko and Gori from the idea of ever getting married, as she finds it to be a baseless aspiration that people have but won't truly make them happy.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Washimi is a nice woman off work but she is quick to destroy anything with her strong legs when angered that the CEO is terrified of her and does whatever she asks.
• Broken Bird: In season 2 her failed marriage is implied to be why she's so much better put together than Gori is; she focuses almost entirely on her career and doesn't tolerate shit from anyone regardless of their station. It's also implied to be the reason she doesn't go along with Gori and Retsuko's more wacky antics; she knows they won't pan out. Poking at this though turns out to be one of her berserk buttons, enough so that she broke her friendship with Gori over it. As of the end of the season the two of them formed a "truce" to help Retsuko but never formally made up.
• Eyes Always Shut: Washimi's eyes are almost always closed, giving her a perpetually calm and serene expression. She has never opened them in the Netflix series, though has done a few times in the TBS series.
• Frozen Face:
  • In one of the shorts, Retsuko gets enraged that Washimi doesn't change her facial expression when they are taking pictures of themselves making funny faces, thinking that Washimi is acting like she is better than them, until Washimi explains that she doesn't have facial muscles.
  • When on the road trip in the Netflix Series, Washimi's barely shows any emotion leading to Retsuko thinking she might not be enjoying it. Gori then points out that Washimi's tail is wagging, which means she's excited. Given that Gori states "the body never lies" implies that Washimi in the series is capable of showing more emotion, but chooses not to so she can preserve her stoic appearance.
• Furry Reminder: Much like an actual secretarybird, Washimi has very strong legs, which are shown by her capacity to destroy things by kicking them. She also can't make facial expressions because she is a bird.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Gori's influence is a bit unknown to the audience, but Washimi clearly runs the CEO of the company ragged, making the most important decisions and (literally) putting her foot down (on the desk) when he acts out of order.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: She looks absolutely adorable on the rare occasions when she does open her eyes, which are large and blue.
• Kick Chick: Pun intended. But seriously, Washimi has some powerful legs, and it's her primary form of intimidation.
• Punny Name: As mentioned above, the Japanese word for secretary bird is hebikuiwashi. And she's also a secretary. Secretary bird.
• Rage Breaking Point: When the CEO tried to brush off Ton's abuse of power, Washimi broke his desk in rage.
• Shipper on Deck: She shows evidence of this in the Christmas special, leaving Retsuko (and taking Gori with her) when they run into Haida.
  • Again when Gori's app returned that Retsuko and Haida were a perfect match, as she fully supported Haida's approach to pulling Retsuko out of her slump, when she's known for being level-headed.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Washimi is rather formal and reserved, even outside of work, but she's just as nice a person as Gori.
• Truth in Television: Washimi's powerful kicks aren't just for comedic effect, but are the secretary bird's actual hunting method.
• Visual Pun: Washimi is a secretarybird. Take a guess as to what her job is.

Gori

• Amazonian Beauty: Gori, a big muscular gorilla woman who flexes for Retsuko at a yoga class.
• Big Beautiful Woman: She's large and muscular, but that doesn't stop her from attracting a guy (that she later broke up with, but that's not the point).
• Cuteness Proximity: Gori, when she sees Retsuko at the same yoga class, can barely contain her glee at the opportunity to befriend her.
• Gentle Gorilla: She's a large and muscular gorilla who looks intimidating at first glance, but she's actually very sweet and friendly once Retsuko gets to know her.
• Gonky Femme: She wears a pink dress and necklace and can be rather cute, and she also happens to be a large, muscular gorilla.
• Hidden Depths: When outside of work and not putting up her "baddest bitch in the room" front, Gori is a sweet and enthusiastic woman who bungles her introduction to Retsuko, forcing Washimi to tag in.
• In Vino Veritas: Gori tries to invoke this at karaoke by putting in Retsuko's request for oolong tea as an oolong cocktail.
• Mrs. Robinson: She freely admits to Retsuko in season 2 that she attends dating services to meet young men.
• Punny Name: The Japanese word for gorilla is simply "gorira".
• Trademark Favorite Food: Gori is always hungry for quiche.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Washimi points out that Gori tends to dream big, which always ends badly because they rarely pan out. This is in contrast to Washimi's more grounded nature and why Gori tends to be the one with any zany schemes (and more prone to dramatic breakdowns).

Haida

Voiced by: Shingo Katou (Japanese), Ben Diskin (English), Julio Bernal (Latin American Spanish), Rainer Fritzsche (German)

"I don't envy you girls one bit."

A 27-year-old spotted hyena. In the TBS series, Haida is a chick magnet who uses his looks to attract his female co-workers into doing his work for him.

In the Netflix web series, however, Haida is a close friend to Retsuko and Fenneko. He tends to be paranoid about a lot of things and is easily flustered, especially over Retsuko, whom he also has feelings for.

Known as Heinrich in the fansubs for the TBS shorts.

---

• The Ace: Is extremely competent at his job as an accountant if encouraged that he can whip up a very accurate and concise accountancy table in a fraction of the time a co-worker would with just his tech know-how. Downplayed when he barely gets any recognition from it resulting in him coasting, with even new CEO Himuro initially thinking his work is riddled by inconsistencies and mistakes. This is what gets him promoted as department head. Later on it leads him into his dream job: IT engineer.
  Ton: I'm only gonna say this once, Haida: you're good at stuff.
• Act of True Love: What convinced Inui that his heart belonged to Retsuko was him saving her from her stalker by grabbing the box cutter with his bare hands and his subsequent reaction upon seeing her unconscious on the sidewalk. Inui noted that she knew he would do it for any friend of his, but his actions told her that Retsuko wasn't just a friend to him.
  • In Season 5, Haida is almost crushed by a truck (almost certainly sent by his father) sent to intimidate him and Retsuko into dropping out of the race for the Haidas' seat in the Diet. Retsuko sees him lying on the pavement, dazed and trembling in shock and fear, and tells Haida she'd rather give it all up than see him be hurt. He makes it clear that that isn't going to happen, and he's with her all the way, for life. She immediately signs a marriage registration form with him.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: In the Netflix series, he isn't coasting on his looks and doesn't have his playboy tendencies. Rather, he has a devoted crush on Retsuko and is a very nice friend to both Retsuko and Fenneko.
• Ambition Is Evil: Haida's character arc in the later seasons has him suffering from too much ambition, but also too little. He starts off season 4 in desperate need of the confidence and assertiveness to get any kind of functional relationship with Retsuko. Thanks to Himuro's approval, Haida seemingly manages to do this, advance his career, and make the company more financially-stable without firing anyone. But Haida then starts neglecting Retsuko to focus on his work, emulating Himuro's more ruthless businesses practices, and becomes party to serious fraud. After that leads to his resignation, Haida starts season 5 too morally deflated to find a new job or even hold onto his savings.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: A gender-flipped example. He wasn't interested in Retsuko initially until he caught her stealing water from the water fountain and realized she was just as flawed as he was.
• Altar the Speed: By the Season 5 finale, he and Retsuko pull this off quickly after Haida is injured by a truck.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Haida's one-on-one with Retsuko in the hospital starts this way, but he changes it to a realization that he was Loving a Shadow, and that he would instead like to really get to know her.
  Haida: It's just, I know you way better than that guy ever could. Five years now, right? So, how did I lose to him? Heh, that's what I wanted to say. But the truth is, I don't know you. The Retsuko I know is the idealized one in my head.
  • Tries this again in Season 3, in a bid to pull Retsuko out of her self-isolation, and this time he did not hold back. He was harshly rejected and berated for doing this only because an app declared them a perfect match, however it had the intended effect of having Retsuko let out all her rage and innermost thoughts on Haida, who managed to calm her down and assure her that she is not alone in her struggles. They made amends after, and appears to have a minor Relationship Upgrade in the final scene.
• Ascended Extra: He becomes a major character in the Netflix series from being a relatively background character in the shorts, gaining much more screen time.
• Ascended Fanboy: Of Tadano. Was a huge fanboy of the millionaire techie until Haida found out he and Retsuko were dating turned him sour, but later on warmed up to him until Retsuko broke up with him. Then a chance meeting with him when Haida went to Hokkaido turned them into best friends, and they started to hang out with Tadano even taking him for ramen in Hokkaido much like how he treated Retsuko.
• Badass Longcoat: Wears a parka when going out, usually on top of his work clothes, as his casual clothing of choice.
• Bad Liar: In Season 4, he constantly gets cold feet trying to get into the next, crucial step in his relationship with Retsuko by making up lies about doing something else. Events out of his control make it obvious to her that he was lying, though she still knew before then.
• Bare-Handed Blade Block: Gets a hold of the box cutter Retsuko's stalker wielded before it could harm her. It cut his hand, but didn't realize it until Inui pointed out that his hand was bleeding.
• Belated Injury Realization: Gets cut on his hand trying to restrain Retsuko's attacker, which bleeds and spills off to Retsuko's scarf. When Inui pointed it out that it was his blood and that his hand has been cut, he gave a sigh of relief.
• Beneath the Mask: Beneath an unassuming yet witty white collar worker who has a dearth of self-confidence is a rebellious Punk Rock fan and bassist who is the eldest son of a very rich and old political family who has a firm grasp on the local area. He hid his status as a means of emancipation from them, turning to Punk Rock as a means of expressing his distate for his domineering father and the status quo in general. He hid his status too well that no one, not even Fenneko knows much about his background. This is curious as back in Season 1, the way he answered Retsuko on how they would live if they end up married suggests that he does not want anything to do with his family, and would rather settle down on a simpler and quieter life with her.
• Berserk Button: A simple one, but still problematic: Anyone dating Retsuko, whom he has an enormous crush on. A rare instance of it leading to seething anger that consumes him the further it goes instead of an immediate switch. Also often - and to his own detriment - leads to I Need a Freaking Drink.
  • Although only by Word of God, he's a little sensitive about his underbite that he will flip off at anything that vaguely sounds like 'crooked' and interrupt the person.
  • Do NOT ever insult Retsuko in front of him. His father Juzo learned this the hard way, as he was initially just berating Haida for being a shame to his family especially after him resigning from his job at Carrier Man after the aftermath of s4. He was willing to take it AND the money to lay low and not interfere with his brother's budding political career. Then Juzo instead berated Retsuko, which caused Haida to turn back on their deal, and put Retsuko's political career on overdrive, pitting them directly against his family in the process.
• Betty and Veronica: Is in this dynamic with Retsuko in the first three seasons.
  • In Season 1, he's the shy and sweet Betty to Retsuko's Archie, competing against the stoic and aloof Resasuke as Veronica.
  • In Season 2, he and Retsuko are once again Betty and Archie, with charming tech mogul Tadano as the new Veronica.
  • In Season 3, Haida becomes the Archie, torn between the sweet but placid Inui as Betty, and the sweet but secretly edgy Retsuko as Veronica. He chooses Retsuko.
• Big Damn Heroes: Saves Retsuko's life from the stalker fan when he tries to murder her on her way home from work. He takes a knife to his palm but otherwise is able to subdue the fan.
• Birds of a Feather: He and Retsuko are both mild mannered accountants who have trouble opening up to others about their problems (her: getting tread on by her work and workmates, him: getting hold of his emotions and feelings). They're both also musically inclined, with Haida being a punk rock fan, and Retsuko a death metal aficionado.
  • He and Inui are both punk rock fans who became friends relatively easily.
  • Haida provides the electric guitar accompaniment to Retsuko's final use of the Death Voice in the series, at her last political rally before the election. They're also an official Battle Couple at this point, since they're newlyweds.
• Bittersweet Ending: In Season 4, he redeems himself by not going through Himuro's window dressing, but feeling ashamed of his actions, he quits his accounting job. However, his relationship with Retsuko remains intact and he apparently no longer feels unworthy of being by her side.
• Breakout Character: His becoming an Ascended Extra got him a lot more attention, making him one of the most popular, if not the most popular, character in the Netflix series (yes, he is up there with Retsuko) by season 2. His kind yet naive nature captured the hearts of many, and his dogged approach to love that ends up in awkwardness only made people want to give him a hug. His drunken antics (both in alcohol and in love) are also usually a laugh too.
• Broken Ace: Despite him being clearly one of the most competent employees in the company with his only weakness according to Ton being his lack of motivation, him not being recognized as one and being overshadowed by Retsuko being the Boss's Unfavorite Employee fed into his inferiority complex that he coasted on the job until Himuro recognized his skills and promoted him as department head. This however went downhill when it turned out Himuro is manipulating him for a window dressing scheme with his expertise in tech, using Retsuko's job as a threat if his performance falters. This turned him even more sour and distant, feeling his worth as an employee hinged on Himuro.
• Broken Bird: Was slowly turned into this in Season 4. Between him struggling with his Inferiority Complex and Himuro coercing him to cook the books to keep the company afloat, he has started to alienate his friends and become more cynical. Was shown when he ranted on Retsuko after she noticed him getting increasingly stressed over him being the new Accounting Head.
• Broken Tears: Ends up in tears after getting a wake-up slap from Retsuko.
• Brutal Honesty: Retsuko's plan to paint Haida in glowing terms to her parents works like a charm... until Retsuko's mother makes a comment about how she can sleep easier knowing he's there to take care of her daughter. His conscience immediately overtakes him and he confesses everything. This makes him look far, far less appealing.
• Butt-Monkey: He becomes a wreck whenever his relationship (or lack thereof) with Retsuko is brought up, which Fenneko likes to exploit. That's not the only way life likes to kick him around; just the most prominent.
• Cannot Spit It Out: He just can't, for the life of him, confess to Retsuko. She points this out in the last episode, saying that she can't go out with him unless he asks her properly. His inability to speak his feelings comes to bite him again in season 3 when Inui confesses that she likes Haida and wants to be with him. Poor Haida can't bring himself to give her an answer because he's still torn between her and Retsuko.
  • He lays everything out on the line in the finale of the third season in an attempt to pull her out of her trauma-induced slump. The result is Punk-Rock Voice Haida versus Metal Voice Retsuko, ending with Retsuko agreeing to let her friends (and Haida) support her through her trauma.
• Catch Your Death of Cold: Haida gets pneumonia after his Despair Event Horizon, leaving him out of commission for the budget deadline.
• Character Development:
  • By Season 2, Haida still likes Retsuko but is able to be her friend and help her out without getting clingy or flustered. Has a minor Character Regression when he finds out she's dating Tadano, though he's still learned from last time; calls Fenneko during his Grey Rain of Depression before getting sick, tries to confront Tadano rather than stew in his jealousy like last time (only to chicken out and get his autograph instead), and gets enlisted by Gori and Washimi to stage a breakup for Retsuko's own good, which he clearly takes no pleasure in.
  • Gets a massive one in Season 3, where he gets his own Romance Arc in the form of Inui, and with it facing the reality of his feelings towards Retsuko and how it affects him going forward. Over the course of the season, Haida changed from being a guy who Cannot Spit It Out and often getting cold feet to someone who doesn't fear facing his feelings and become more honest with it, with the breakup and its aftermath being his point of turn. During the karaoke scene, he has shown to be able to withstand Retsuko's Metal Scream and push through it to prove that she is not alone, proving to her that he is always behind her as a friend.
  • Gets another massive one in Season 4, it's revealed that his Cannot Spit It Out tendency toward Retsuko is because he doesn't feel "good enough" to date her, his jealousy toward her old flames like Resasuke and Tadano is beause he negatively compares himself to them, and his slacker tendencies at work are because he feels he's useless to everyone. While Haida gains a temporary confidence boost after Retsuko reveals she likes him, and the new CEO sees his talents and gives him a promotion, his old insecurities and jealousy issues rear up when Retsuko becomes a famous heavy metal pop idol and starts seeing Tadano again. His desperation for validation also allows him to be dragged into illegal activities by the new CEO. After Retsuko and their friends make it clear You Are Better Than You Think You Are and You Are Not Alone, he comes to his senses and realizes he needs to stop negatively comparing himself to others (like Retsuko's heavy metal fame, or Tadano's success), and he needs to gain a sense of self-worth not reliant on the validation of others (like Retsuko liking him, or his superiors at work seeing something in him). In the Season 4 Finale, he seems less jealous of Tadano, especially knowing that he and Retsuko are staying as Amicable Exes. No longer seeing Tadano as competition, he's a lot happier for his endeavors.
  • In Season 5, It's revealed Haida is the eldest son of a wealthy and powerful Japanese politician (When they visit his palatial childhood home, Retsuko asks him if he grew up in a museum, to which he responds that it felt like it). His relationships with his domineering father and his politically ambitious younger brother are not in good shape. This puts his behavior in Season 4 into perspective - he was on the verge of attaining the respectability and social status that might get a "Well Done, Son" Guy moment out of his father. Instead, he's treated like an embarassment, paid off and told to be invisible so he doesn't become a political liability to his brother Jiro. He would be willing to put his head down and take it if they were just treating him like crap, but after his brother and father condescend to Retsuko he loses his temper, stands up to them both, and eventually throws the money back in Jiro's face. This leads to his emancipation and his eventual attainment of his dream of happiness with Retsuko.
• Chekhov's Skill: He reveals he has very good hearing, where Gori used it to try to find out what Retsuko was doing with the OTM Girls (before they knew who they were). It later becomes very useful when Haida overhears Retsuko's and Manaka's phonecall about Retsuko being in danger, making it so he could save her in time.
• Cooldown Hug: Reaches for Retsuko's hand while she was in her rage-induced Metal Scream to assure her that she is not alone in her fight. It works.
• Commonality Connection: Both he and Retsuko confide in performing rock music to express themselves, though Haida prefers Punk while Retsuko specializes in Metal. Thus far, Haida is the only one of Retsuko's love interests not to back down from her once she unleashes her Metal Voice on him.
  • Becomes friends with Tadano due to (much to Haida's chagrin) both of them having been turned down by Retsuko before. Tadano explained this to Gori who followed Haida into the restaurant where they were supposed to meet, and his reaction is gold. He is however not shy in confiding to Tadano his true feelings, and Tadano on the other hand is more than happy in lending a hand to his relationship troubles.
  • Becomes interested in Inui when he found out they both are Punk Rock lovers after bumping in a record shop.
• The Corruptible: Haida's desire to prove himself leads to him treating Himuro as a role model and then become his criminal accomplice.
• Cute Little Fangs: He has a pronounced underbite, which results in three little fangs sticking out from the bottom of his mouth. According to the website, he's sensitive about his jaw and interrupts people who say "cr-" words, so they don't say "crooked"—this might only apply to the TBS version.
• Deadpan Snarker: Second to Fenneko in the snarky department. If she's not saying it, chances are Haida is covering it.
• Despair Event Horizon: Among other things, when his jealousy becomes too much to bear he finds himself lying in the sidewalk while it is raining... ''twice''.
  • His biggest one however is when he finds Retsuko lifeless after being attacked by a stalker thinking she's dead. Fortunately, he was almost immediately snapped out of it by Inui, who pointed out that she's only been knocked out cold and the blood is his.
• Deuteragonist: Of the third season, with him being thrust into the spotlight just behind Retsuko, and his Betty and Veronica dilemma subplot running parallel to her idol main plot. This continues into every subsequent season, culminating with him sharing the opening credits with Retsuko in the fifth and final one - a season wherein his family are the main antagonists.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Falls for Retsuko but admits he might just be Loving a Shadow. Still helps her whenever she needs it (to the point that it is involuntary on his part). The more the series progressed the more his feelings for her blossoms, but he is mostly content with being friends.
• The Dragon: Near the end of season 4, Himuro appoints Haida as the head of Accounting and manipulates him through his desire for recognition into cooking the books to increase company profits.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Alcohol is a major thing that he uses to cope with his stress and anxiety, seen in both the main series and the Christmas Special. However, he gets completely sloshed after just one beer. Anai could only contain his disbelief as he was carrying him home after their bar night out.
  Anai: "HOW THE HELL ARE YOU THIS DRUNK, WE ONLY HAD ONE BEER A PIECE, WHAT THE HELL, HAIDA?"
• Entitled to Have You: Averted. While Haida has known Retsuko for years and feels very jealous of her feelings for Resasuke, he acknowledges that it's his own fault for not asking her out while he had the chance, and is very happy for her. When he finally confesses to Retsuko, though, he admits that he'd convinced himself that he should be the one dating her since he knew the real her, but now realizes that's ridiculous and he doesn't really know her well at all, but would like to get to know her better.
  • Averted again during season 2. While Haida wants to punch Tadano, he says it's not because he's dating Retsuko, but because he worries that she'll get hurt. And considering there are tons of nasty comments on the internet about Retsuko when the article of her relationship with Tadano released, his fears are not unfounded.
  • Discussed and Inverted in Season 3. When he tries to be assertive and ask Retsuko to return to work after being traumatized by her stalker's murder attempt, he offered himself as a someone she can trust, effectively telling her that she is entitled to have him. Retsuko becomes furious and calls him out on expecting her to get over her trauma and return to the real world just to accomodate his feelings, as that makes him no better than her stalker. Haida concedes the point, but still encourages her not to hide from the world since she is not alone, she has him and her other friends. This makes her snap out of it.
• Evil Costume Switch: He begins wearing a black trenchcoat instead of his usual green coat after being promoted to Director of Accounting and acting as Himuro's crony in season 4. Inui even discusses this with Haida when they go for drinks, where he says he decided to wear it to look more professional. The season finale shows him switch back to his regular green coat after quitting his job.
• Eyes Never Lie: He was already pretty obvious about liking Retsuko with his Luminescent Blush and pupils dilating whenever he's interacting with her, however this becomes a plot point when Retsuko got attacked. The sight of her being unconscious assuming her to be dead turned him into a sobbing mess, that Inui who happened to be there caught onto it.
  • Was what tipped Tadano on his feelings for Retsuko.
  Tadano: Hey, I know that face. You like Retsy don't you?
• Face–Heel Turn: When he became The Dragon to Himuro after getting promoted to section head. Retsuko put a stop to it in the finale.
• Facial Markings: At the end of Season 3 when he sings to Retsuko to help break her out of her seclusion, he gains his own set of markings around his eyes similar to her death metal ones.
• Fallen Princess: A male example. Haida grew up the eldest son of a wealthy politician. After making an obscene song that hurt his father's reputation, he hasn't gotten anything to show for it but a free apartment and the education for a middle-class office job. In a short span, he ends up quitting his job in shame, losing most of his savings on a video game gacha, and kicked out of the apartment. He ends up "renting" an internet cafe stall, barely scraping by on the very narrow, exhausting, and dangerous job opportunities available without a permanent address. It takes both Retsuko's financial aid and Haida's own effort to get by on retail work while reorienting his career to IT engineering. For all the faults and hangups he's acquired, it's clear it all made Haida a much humbler, kinder person than his brother or father.
• Fanboy: Of tech mogul Tadano. Then it falls into Broken Pedestal once Haida learns he's dating Retsuko, to the point Haida wants to punch the guy silly. He doesn't go through it and instead asks for an autograph. They become friends later.
• Fatal Flaw: His inferiority complex, which hinders his progress with Retsuko (because he thinks of himself as unworthy of her affections) and makes himself vulnerable to manipulations (as he desperately wants to be needed).
• Flat "What": Retsuko messaged him asking him for a little help with the guitar as he and Fenneko were just talking about him moving on from Retsuko. Tries to decline by focusing with Fenneko helping by making him remember things he hated about Retsuko. He involuntarily replied "Sure thing~♪" anyway, leading him to drop his focus and say this.
• Freudian Excuse: Haida’s self-esteem and self-worth issues stem from his father never holding him in high regard like his brother and from being viewed as the family black sheep. It doesn’t help that he has to depend on him for an apartment.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: When he can't take more any of Anai's threats to Retsuko, he decides to take matters into his own hands by confronting Anai about it, since Anai is at least willing to listen to Haida. This only causes Anai to target Haida as well.
• Gossip Evolution: Retsuko's little lie about not being able to poop for a very long while (while she was actually hiding the fact she was going to quit her job) was passed around so much that the lie got heavily altered by the time it reached Haida, who freaked out believing she gave birth (which didn't help him especially because of his massive crush on her).
• Green-Eyed Monster: Despite his niceness, he becomes more and more jealous of Retsuko and Resasuke's relationship. Conflicts massively with his I Want My Beloved to Be Happy part that he ends up getting drunk silly and sprawled on the sidewalk while it's raining. Sometimes borders into Crazy Jealous Guy, but he eventually staves it off when he realizes what he's doing is wrong.
  • It happens again when Retsuko's dates with Tadano are revealed on social media. To add insult to injury, by the time Fenneko called and tried to make sure Haida wouldn't walk out at night during rain while drunk again, he had already sprawled himself on the sidewalk.
• Grey Rain of Depression: Gets caught lying on the pavement while it's raining not once but twice. Fortunately by the second time he has wisened up and got Fenneko to come fetch him.
• Guilt-Ridden Accomplice: Haida becomes Himuro's co-conspirator in a window-dressing scheme, spending the whole time barely able to conceal his anxiety and guilt from their coworkers.
• Happily Married: Engaged/Married to Retsuko in the final episode of Season 5.
• Heinous Hyena: Inverted. While Hyenas are usually mean-spirited or insane in fiction, Haida is sweet, kind, and dorky. He's quite possibly the most outright friendly hyena character ever to appear in fiction. Later seasons bring Haida closer to being a Double Subversion, as his inadequacies can be quite damaging to himself and others despite his intentions, and he can be manipulated into downright criminal behavior.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Played with. Haida wears a leather jacket in his casual punk attire, but personality-wise he's cute and dorky. He's not afraid of being badass when he needs to though, such as taking down Retsuko's stalker when he tries to stab her.
• Hidden Depths: A brief scene in the first season shows that at least he seems to have a thing for playing bass guitar when off-work and dresses like a punk. This is further explored in the Christmas Special, where his go-to party bar is Punk Rock themed. Becomes a plot point in the third season, where Haida's guitar playing skills are made apparent. When Retsuko needs to learn to play guitar for her band, she goes to Haida for lessons (which unintentionally worsens his Betty and Veronica dilemma).
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Hyenas are bigger than red pandas and fennec foxes, so appropriately Haida is much taller than Retsuko and Fenneko.
• I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: Deconstructed in Season 4. It's revealed that the main reason Haida doesn't ask Retsuko out when given the chance is because he feels he's "not good enough" for someone like her. He thinks she's this amazing woman who can do things like date a tech billionaire and fall into being a famous pop idol without effort, while he's just another face in the crowd, soaking up her light. However, even after they start dating midway through Season 4, his insecurities and lack of confidence strain their budding relationship. It's not until he realizes You Are Better Than You Think You Are and You Are Not Alone that he starts to grow out of this mentality.
• Informed Attractiveness: Apparently can attract most females to do his work for him in the TBS series. This is only touched upon in the Netflix series at the department drinking party, with Tsubone and Kabae practically begging him to sit next to them to his dismay.
• Interspecies Romance: He (a spotted Hyena) has a nice amount of Ship Tease with Retsuko (a red panda), especially since it's confirmed he has romantic feelings for her.
• Insecure Love Interest: In season 4, his belief that he is unworthy of dating Retsuko leads to their burgeoning relationship stalling, and Haida being manipulated by Himuro to commit white-collar crime in an attempt to be seen as someone who has made something of himself.
• Irony: Haida is a fan of Punk Rock, a genre where expressing confidence and swagger plays a central part, but he has severe problems opening up to the woman he likes about his feelings for her.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: While he can get flustered, clingy, and jealous in love, at the end of the day he greatly cares about Retsuko and wants her to be happy even if it's not with him, even if it eats him up inside.
• Karma Houdini: Played with. While he faces no legal consequences for the financial crimes he committed as Himuro's accomplice, his personal shame and guilt leads to him resigning from the company. This could also be an instance of Self-Punishment Over Failure, since by quietly admitting the fraudulent action while it could still be corrected and resigning, he avoided embarassing both Carrier Man and his prominent family. His conversation with Ton in Season 5 hints that Carrier Man would have accepted that he committed the fraud under coercion and given him back his old job, but a combination of his shame and his existential desire for something more led to him resigning anyway. In Season 5, he actually suffers quite a bit in other ways; he's become addicted to gaming since leaving the company, his family kicks him out of his apartment, and he even becomes homeless for a time while resorting to living in an internet cafe. Haida also loses a job opportunity when he is forced during the interview to explain why he left his former job.
• Last-Name Basis: It is revealed in Season 5 that "Haida" is actually his family name, as his brother Jiro and father Juzo are referred to as Jiro Haida and Juzo Haida over the course of the season. It is never revealed what his own given name is.
• Love at First Sight: By the beginning of the series, he's had an Office Crush on Retsuko for five years. He's just been too timid to say anything.
• Loving a Shadow: At the end of season one, he admits that he might not really know Retsuko as much as he thinks he does, though, rather than that pushing him away from her, he decides he wants to get to know her better.
  • Repeatedly called out on it in Season 3, as several characters ask him why he even likes Retsuko, or what he even knows about her. Subverted when he revealed to Fenneko that Retsuko's hidden side she wasn't aware he saw was his reason for wanting to know her more. Retsuko herself calls him out on it during her Metal Voice "Reason You Suck" Speech. While he concedes to her point, he grabs her hand mid metal-scream and tells her that while life is going to beat you down, you can always punch back. This is what finally gets her out of her trauma-induced slump and back into open-communication with her friend group (and the final scene of the season has her agreeing to go to dinner with Haida).
• Luminescent Blush: Even more prone to that than Retsuko... and mostly when dealing with Retsuko (or drunk).
• Made of Iron: In Season 5, he gets rear-ended by a friggin' dump truck and walks away from it without needing any hospital care.
• Maybe Ever After: Zig-Zagged. The season finale implies Retsuko is interested in Haida, and would welcome the idea of going out with him. Their actual discussion is never seen, and in the Christmas Special, we see she's only interested in being Just Friends at that point. However, at the end of the episode, after Haida walked Retsuko to the train station, Haida gives a fist-pump when her train pulls out, suggesting the time may have come for them to explore more. Just like the end of Episode 10, we don't know for sure. Season 2 reveals that they're still not together.
  • The ending shot of Season 3 implies she has started opening up more to her colleagues, or at least to Haida. Where this will end up is still up in the air.
  • In Season 4, they start dating midway into the season, though their relationship is strained and possibly derailed by their insecurities and communication issues. After a lot of Character Development on both sides, Season 4 ends with the two meeting up in a crowd, though whether it's for a date or a friendly outing is not entirely clear.
  • In Season 5, their relationship progresses when Retsuko moves Haida in with her after he's kicked out of his apartment, they meet each other's families for real, and eventually sign a marriage registration form.
• Medium Awareness: Develops this for a gag in the Christmas Special.
  Fenneko: INSTAGRAM IS EATING HER SOUL!
  Haida: They are not gonna like this episode, huh?
• Mood-Swinger: Moreso than most other characters. A few scenes have him go from normal to panic to normal then angered then back to panicked.
• Nervous Wreck: Partly due to Cannot Spit It Out, Haida gets panicked at the drop of a hat with anything dealing with Retsuko. This is sometimes exploited by Fenneko, who invokes these situations to get him to confess to her... then later has to rein him in so he doesn't go overboard. Gets downplayed on the later seasons.
• Nice Guy: Haida is shown to be a sweethearted, laidback man with not a bad bone in his body. He's supportive of Retsuko even when she's in a relationship with Resasuke. Till it slowly breaks him just thinking about it. Lampshaded by Inui when she witnessed him saving Retsuko from the stalker fan, however...
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Calls Anai out on bullying Retsuko, only to become his next target.
  • Saving Retsuko from the unhinged fan made him bare out his true emotions... right in front of Inui who incidentally was nearby. She pointed it out that what happened was an Act of True Love and that sealed his choice, but even then Haida doubted himself and tried to backtrack, only to be met with a steely gaze. Nevertheless their relationship ended there.
• No Full Name Given: In Season 5 the introduction of his father and his brother reveal that "Haida" is actually his surname. It's never revealed what his given name is.
• Oh, Crap!: When his phone alarm rings signaling that it is time for Inui's visit. Retsuko just left his house after almost a whole day of guitar lessons.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Normally a Nice Guy, when Haida confirms with Fenneko that Retsuko is dating Resasuke, he takes Fenneko hiding it in his usual stride, then mournfully states he wants to punch Resasuke for beating him to Retsuko.
  • Shows his aggressively protective side again in season 3 when he tackles Retsuko's stalker to the ground and screams in his face. What happened to the mild-mannered hyena from work?
• Odd Friendship: "Faceless worker bee" Haida was caught by Gori to be hanging out with "whiz kid millionaire" Tadano. She thinks there is something more to this.
• Paper Tiger: He's a tall hyena who wears black and red and loves punk rock, and tries to act edgy and tough sometimes, but he's a sweet, harmless Nice Guy. To the point that when he tries to get Anai to leave Retsuko alone he just becomes his next target, and after psyching himself up to punch Tadano he ends up asking for an autograph instead. Fenneko, naturally, loves mocking him over this.
  Haida: It's tough for those of us guys who refuse to kiss butt...
  Fenneko: You kiss up all the time!
  • Breaks out of this after getting hit by bad experiences over several weeks starting with Retsuko's attack. He grabbed hold of his feelings, and took Retsuko to the one place she called her sanctuary, and lashed out on her decision to wallow in her despair while not letting his friends help her get out of it. She countered it by invoking this trope, saying that Haida only gathered the courage to do so just because an app declared them a perfect match. Unlike before, he never backed off nor defended himself while Retsuko was ripping him up, instead stood his ground against her anger, and still reached for her when it became apparent that she felt alone, proving to her that she never was.
  • Only to relapse after repeated blows to his confidence in Season 4 slowly ground through his character that he becomes completely subservient to the new CEO. It takes a slap from Retsuko to set him back on track.
• Promoted to Love Interest: Haida wasn't that close to Retsuko in the original shorts, but in the Netflix series, he develops feelings for Retsuko. Episode 10 and the Christmas Special contain much Ship Tease to that effect, but they never become a couple. Season 3 however pushes the Will They or Won't They? to the forefront, however, and ends with the two now talking openly.
• Punny Name: Haida is a pormanteau of the Japanese surname "Kaida" with the Japanese spelling of his species "hyena"^note as ハイエナ/"haiena"
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In Season 3, he gives a punk rock singing version to Retsuko during her Heroic BSoD, scolding her for completely shutting down over the incident and declaring she needs to let others in her life (including him), motivated by Gori's app declaring they were soulmates. In return, she delivers her own heavy metal "The Reason You Suck" Speech to him, scolding him for trusting an app to do his choice for him and being so insensitive to her plight when he barely knows her personally, saying she doesn't need him or her friends. Haida refuses to back down, however, and the two reach a middle-ground and are on good terms by the final scene.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Averted. His workplace clothes, dress clothing, and his punk outfit have a black and red pattern, yet Haida is a sweetheart.
• Say My Name: Tearfully screams Retsuko's name when she won't wake up after being attacked by the unhinged fan, thinking she had died.
• Screw Destiny: Virtually everybody and everything is telling him to pick Inui. However he ultimately decides on Retsuko.
• Secretly Wealthy: In Season 4, Fenneko casually says in one of the various meetings among the Accounting Department's employees that Haida's parents own the apartment building where he lives, and they allow him to stay there rent-free. Season 5 gives us the physical debut of his family, and it turns out that they're deeply involved with national politics, with his father being a powerful representative in the Diet and grooming Haida's younger brother to be his successor. However, ever since he caused a scandal by putting an obscene song on the internet, Haida's family haven't given him any support besides the free room. Once they find out he's unemployed, Haida loses even that right after he blew most of his savings. He gets one last payoff from his family to keep a low profile during the upcoming election, but otherwise is cut off and practically disowned.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Or so Gori thinks.
• Status Quo Is God: Averted. Gives the series its first massive change for a season finale by resigning from his job at Carrier Man.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Though his father let himself go a lot, he pretty much got the round shape of his droopy head from him.
• Super-Hearing: Not surprising, spotted hyenas have acute hearing that can extend up to 10km. Puts this into good use while he and Gori are tailing the OTMGirls in the airport, he can overhear their talk while being a good distance from them in a fairly busy airport. Becomes important later, when Manaka warned Retsuko of impending danger over the phone, he overheard what she said despite being a decent distance away from Retsuko who's not on speakerphone.
• Swapped Roles: With Retsuko in Season 4, he became secretive and more distant with his friends after pressure from his promotion started to mount up that he has begun to decline hanging out with his friends and be more focused with his work. Retsuko meanwhile has started to worry about him, often trying to talk to him and inviting him out for coffee, only to get declined. They essentially swapped their roles from Season 1.
• Temporarily a Villain: In Season 4, Himuro's praises for Haida makes him secretive around his colleagues to hide his window dressing in an attempt to keep the company's finances afloat, because being praised by a higher up made Haida feel like he was worth a damn. After Retsuko confronts him and he arm-wrestles Himuro (and nearly loses), he comes to his senses.
• Those Two Guys: One half of this with Fenneko in the early half of the season, though the usual pattern breaks the more the series goes on and the more he falls for Retsuko.
• Three Chords and the Truth: He seems to be an advocate of this in Season 3, referenced when he teaches Retsuko how to play some chords. On the subject of learning the chords: "Maybe not all of them - only three or four." Fitting, given his punk rock background.
• Trauma Conga Line: Saw Retsuko almost killed by a "fan", then had his relationship with Inui ended, then finds out Retsuko has shut herself out from the rest of the world and is in danger of losing her job (and her life) after the attack, then had his friends try to convince him that Retsuko isn't for him while trying to set him up for a date using Gori's app (except Retsuko showed up anyway) all in one episode. This is what makes him break out of his Paper Tiger shell.
  • Gets an even worse one in Season 4 which lasted the whole season. While his relationship with Retsuko vastly improved that she has started to grow feelings for him, his inferiority complex began to eat through his confidence such that whatever progress he has with Retsuko gets stagnated when he thinks of the difference between him and Retsuko and her former suitors. Every instance this happens deals a heavier blow to his psyche, until the new CEO Himuro saw his potential and promoted him to department head after Ton's reassignment, only to get shattered again the next scene after the "celebration" his friends held for him turned into a mockery of his character. This caused him to focus harder on his work and increasingly distant from his friends and closer to Himuro, who then abused it by manipulating him to become the architect of his window-dressing scheme, which only hefted an immense amount of pressure and stress onto him that he has started to lock himself in his office desperate to prove his worth. It's little wonder why he's emotionally drained by the time Ton got to him to be brought to Retsuko's sanctuary, such that he can muster only a few sobs after Retsuko slapped him back to his senses.
• Twice Shy: He and Retsuko becomes in this in the Season Four, because they both have feelings for each other but they are both shy and insecure enough to make the first move, much to Fenneko and Tsunoda's chagrin, though they eventually do.
• The Unfavorite: His father pretty much hates him because of Haida being a washed out man who ridiculed his father's image with a song that had a lot of profanities in it and because he didn't follow in his father's political footsteps unlike Jiro.
• What Does He See in Her?: By the third season, both Fenneko and Gori directly ask him what it is exactly that makes him obsessed with Retsuko since he barely even knows her personally. It's the little things he notices about her behavior that made him realize there's a lot more to her than what she openly displays to the public that makes him infatuated with her, and want to get to know her.
• What Does She See in Him?: Interestingly also applies for this as this is his conundrum for much of Season 4, exacerbating his already rampant inferiority complex. The imagery of him being only a face in the crowd cheering for Retsuko gets juxtaposed in scenes this gets stressed in.
• Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: It's already odd for a Sanrio character to have pupils in general, but even odder is that under panic (which happens a lot), his pupils dilate and show off hazel iris◊.
• Will They or Won't They?: With Retsuko. They have a lot of Ship Tease with one another but he's the one with confirmed romantic feelings while Retsuko states that she prefers to be Just Friends, but it's still left up in the air. In season 4, they start going out around the midpoint and are together in season 5. By the end of the final season, they get engaged/married so, ultimately, they do.
• You Are Not Alone: In the finale of Season 3, Haida tries to give one of these to Retsuko. She counters him that he doesn't even really know her outside of work and has no room to speak. When she unleashes her Metal Voice on him after he uses his Punk Voice on her, he isn't intimidated, instead pushing through all the rage (metaphorically, but in the show it's presented as him literally pushing through her screams) to let her know that she doesn't have to go through the trainwreck that is life alone. It works.

Fenneko

Voiced by: Rina Inoue (Japanese), Katelyn Gault (English), Vanessa Olea (Latin American Spanish)

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

"Call us girls, again — I dare you."

Retsuko's best friend at work and a computer wizard. While the 25-year-old fennec fox seems cold at first with both her monotone voice and cold attitude, she generally cares for her friends and will do whatever she can to make sure they're happy.

Known as Zelda in the fansubs for the TBS shorts.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: In the TBS shorts, Yagyuu/"Buffalo Boss", a good 30 years her senior, takes an interest in her and tries to arrange an office party as an excuse to talk to her. She doesn't bite.
• Adaptational Personality Change:
  • A small one. In the shorts, Fenneko would sometimes join in Retsuko's songs. In the Netflix series, Fenneko's as oblivious as anyone else, to the point that, after getting drunk and remembering one of Retsuko's Death Metal moments, Retsuko knocks her out so she doesn't remember. She finds out by the end of Season 3 however, and occasionally joins Retsuko at karaoke during Season 4.
  • Fenneko's description of a "frenemy" of Retsuko (see below) may actually qualify in the original TBS shorts, where she's sometimes as indecisive and inept as the rest of the coworkers and has her own quirks that confound Retsuko. Here, Fenneko's at least working hard enough to never get into trouble and is definitely one of Retsuko's True Companions at work.
• Aloof Ally: She's one of Retsuko's closest friends, but you probably wouldn't be able to tell that instantly considering her deadpan tone and rather trollish antics.
• Arch-Enemy: Despises Tsunoda due to her kissing up to Ton in order to get out of work, to a point where she follows her just so she can keep a constant eye on everything she's doing at all times.
• Awesomeness by Analysis:
  • Was able to effectively figure out that Retsuko hadn't been spending time with her and Haida because she had been attending yoga classes, but did so by piecing it all together from online pictures on social media without any kind of natural assistance.
  • In the Christmas special, she also manages to figure out from a picture Retsuko posts on Instagram that Retsuko is not actually out on a date at a fancy restaurant, and that she just staged the photo to make it look like she was. She manages to figure this out from observing several small details in the photo.
• Breakout Character: Of the original series, which is why she became such a major one for the Netflix series.
• Cloudcuckoolander: A mild example. She has odd characteristics, some odd habits, and an uncannily robotic way of laughing, but is overall a very intelligent and capable woman.
• Cunning Like a Fox: She is a fennec fox, and like a fox, she is very intelligent and a bit of a trickster.
• Deadpan Snarker: She responds to almost everything with monotonous but sharp wit.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: As the series goes on, she proves to be much more interested in both Retsuko and Haida's happiness than she showed earlier.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: She mocked Retsuko's routine of 'work, home, phone, sleep', proudly flaunting her hobby as Instagram stalker-slash-sleuth. Which Retsuko pointed out as...
  Retsuko: So, in other words...
  Fenneko: Work, home, phone, sleep.
  Retsuko: You see?
  Fenneko: ...WE'RE THE SAME!!!
• Failed a Spot Check: At the singles mixer, she believes that Retsuko isn't taking an interest and has therefore been successfully "protected" from the guys because she was messing around with her phone all evening. In truth, Retsuko was texting Resasuke. (To be fair, Fenneko was also quite inebriated and distracted.)
• The Gadfly: Described as one by Haida, when she laughs at his expense.
  Haida: God, you're such a troll!
• Good Is Not Nice: She's one of the main protagonists and usually has good intentions, but she is still a snarky Troll.
  • Sanrio's own website says Retsuko thinks Fenneko is a "frenemy" who talks about her behind her back. The same site says "she's nowhere near as bad as Retsuko believes", and her intentions are probably all genuine so far as Retsuko is concerned.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Despite her dislike of Tsunoda, she joins her and Retsuko for a singles mixer. Though her original motive was to keep Retsuko from falling for one of the guys so she stays available for Haida.
• Gossipy Hens: She could get along with Kabae just well, especially after pointing out the impossibility of Retsuko having dinner 900 kilometres away in one night.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The "tiny girl" with Retsuko in their friendship with Haida; the hyena's probably twice as tall as Fenneko.
• Hypocrite:
  • She accuses Retsuko of becoming one of "them" who are obsessed with social media after seeing her and Tsunoda together in a picture Tsunoda uploaded to social media. This is in spite of the fact that Fenneko is on social media all the time and stalks people using it (which is how she found out Retsuko was doing yoga.)^{Then again...}  Fenneko's never actually seen posting, just following others to gain ammunition or information.
  • Haida calls her out on this in Season 3 after learning that she got into VR gaming and microtransactions. Haida jabs at her that she always pretends to be above whatever new social trend is happening before eventually caving in. Given the Not So Above It All list, he's right on the money.
• I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham: She gets the VR game and console, complaining the entire time how stupid it is during the set up, and states she will just play it for a minute and leave a terrible review. The minute she meets the love interest in the game, she is squeeing as hard as Retsuko was. According to Haida, she has done this multiple times.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She is quite the trickster to a lot of works, especially towards Haida. On the other hand, she is also a friendly worker and shown to care quite a lot of those around her.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Tends to act like a relationship expert in regards to Haida and Retsuko. But as Tsunoda bluntly tells her in season 3, she has even less romantic skills than both of them.
• The Lancer: Retsuko's best friend and frequent confidant, who occasionally backs her up on drums during her enraged singing in the TBS shorts. She's not as aware of Retsuko's hobbies in the Netflix version, but she still is this for Retsuko at work, with workstations next to each other, frequently taking lunch together, and Fenneko being one of Retsuko's more understanding coworkers.
• Lesser Star: Despite being in the main cast, she is one of the few members to not have had any Hidden Depths revealed so far, and we don't get as much of a glimpse of her life outside of work as Retsuko or Haida.
• Meaningful Name: The first part of her name describes her species—a fennec fox. The "ko" suffix makes the name feminine in the original Japanese, which makes Fenneko literally a "fox girl" or "fox child". By sheer coincidence, Fenneko sounds the same as the Spanish name of her species, "feneco".
  • Her name in the fansubs, Zelda, is a corruption of "zerda", as in Vulpes zerda, the Latin name of the fennec.
• Not So Above It All:
  • Despite expressing disdain for mixers when Tsunoda forced her to go, the second Resasuke's friend Manumaru compliments her, she instantly gets giddy and admits mixers are better than she thought.
  • She's not above laughing at Retsuko being roasted by Ton during the latter's rap solo. Although at the time Fenneko was completely shitfaced.
  • She warns Retsuko about the dangers of Microtransactions in her virtual date game and how that can easily put her in court if she isn't careful about the expenses. Cue Fenneko trying it out and becoming too engrossed in it.
• Not So Stoic: There are certain things that will cause her to lose her cool. Such as Retsuko hanging out with her Sitcom Arch-Nemesis Tsunoda.:
  • Starting in Season 3, Fenneko's voice begins getting more expressive such as developing a crush on the VR Unicorn that Retsuko told her in Episode 1.
  • Season 4 is when she really starts sounding more emotional and expressive. Notably when she and Haida are having a personal conversation while drinking alcholic beer. She suddenly starts yelling at him and almost on the verge of tears while drunk.
• Oh, Crap!: Two.
  • Fenneko deduces Retsuko is going to yoga from a pic on social media. When Retsuko effortlessly pulls off one of Tsubone's lids, she reacts with a visible "O_O" face and the Japanese "oro!?" ("what!?"). It also forces her to rethink her entire deduction process because Retsuko might be stronger than she suspects yoga to make her.
  • Fenneko tries to hide Retsuko's involvement with Resasuke after the mixer from Haida. When Haida finds out on his own - through Retsuko's interest in Resasuke's favorite canned coffee - and asks Fenneko about it, Fenneko does a visible Spit Take and apologizes for not explaining it to him earlier. Notable because it's the only time in the series she's cowed, gaining noticeable Blush Stickers and even trying not to look at Haida.
• Out of Focus: Interestingly intertwined with her Breakout Character status, despite starting off more prominent than her original TBS incarnation, Fenneko slowly got pushed into becoming more of a supporting character midway through the second season. A big reason for this is the show started to put more emphasis on Retsuko's struggles outside of work, and the two don't hangout outside of work, and then in late season 2 and into season 3, former Those Two Guys partner Haida got more focus and started to branch out and hang out with other characters, giving her even less prominence.
• Playful Cat Smile: Her default expression is a playful cat smile, and it's rather fitting with her status as The Gadfly.
• Secret-Keeper: For most of the series, the only one to know (aside from Retsuko herself during season 1 finale) Haida's attraction to Retsuko. Until Tadano read Haida like a book in season 3 that is, then this becomes some sort of an Open Secret.
• Serious Business: A side effect of her dedication to looking out for Retsuko is that sometimes she'll go a bit nuts over, for example, Retsuko starting to use Instagram.
  Fenneko: INSTAGRAM IS EATING HER SOUL!
  Haida: They're not gonna like this episode, huh?
• Sherlock Scan: A veritable expert: she uses both social media and her own logical deductions to figure things out, deducing that Tsunoda's trying to attract a guy based on a change in her meticulous posting order, and correctly ascertaining that Retsuko has started doing yoga from a smattering of clues and a photo that Retsuko's in the background of.
  Haida: Okay, you're freaking me out. I hope I never piss you off.
  Fenneko: If you do, just stay away from social media. (wine sip)
  • She does this again in the Christmas special, when she quickly deduces that Retsuko is not out in town with a date, merely from looking at her Instagram pictures. Said sequence goes so far as to include a shot of her in a deerstalker and pipe.
• Ship Tease: With Manumaru at the singles party.
• Shipper on Deck: She is cheering for Haida to end up with Retsuko, and has helped them more than once, including going to a single's meeting just to make sure Retsuko wouldn't be with anyone and often pushing Haida into action.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Nearly all of her scenes are played for laughs, and she isn't present during some of the more intense scenes such as Anai confronting Retsuko in the supply room in Season 2 and all of the scenes with the unhinged fan in Season 3.
• Signature Laugh: A flat and deadpan "hahahahahahahaha", usually when laughing at someone else's expense, although Season 5 later shows that she uses the laugh in other situations too, which can sound really weird. This laugh is also retained across all the dubs too, not just English and Japanese.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: To Tsunoda.
• The Smart Girl: One of the smartest characters in the series and easily the most intelligent of the main characters.
• Stalker without a Crush: To everyone. She keeps tracks on her friends and hate follows Tsunoda on social media.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She has an icy exterior but she cares deeply for her friends.
• The Stoic: She hardly shows any emotion aside from her perpetual Playful Cat Smile, but she has some Not So Stoic moments, especially when she gets drunk or faces Tsunoda.
• Those Two Guys: One half of this with Haida in the early half of the season, though the usual pattern breaks the more she gets involved in Retsuko's love life.
• Troll: Intentionally messes with Haida especially when he becomes increasingly worried about Retsuko. Often ends up with Haida getting flustered such that he even calls her one.
• Vegetarian Carnivore: She's a Fennec, which are omnivores and primarily eats protein. But in the TBS short, she said she doesn't like meat.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Haida, whom she often hangs out with in and out of work. She's also very invested in his love life, going to great pains to get him hooked up with Retsuko. That said, she often bullies, trolls, and teases, often insulting his intelligence and lack of spine. Somewhat deconstructed in Season 4, where Haida reveals that he has deep-seated self-worth issues, and believes most of his colleagues look down on him and think he's stupid and useless, partly because Feneko often puts him down.
• Wine Is Classy: Typically when drinking out with her friends, wine is her go-to drink of choice
• Women Are Wiser: Played with, as she's easily one of the more intelligent members of the cast but has her own quirks and foibles, especially regarding social media. She's definitely more level-headed than Haida, though, who tends to fly into panic at the slightest provocation.

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