The story starts off in a tiny, cramped office where Momoko works. Momoko is miserable; she is now a working adult after years of studying to be an illustrator, and instead of landing her dream job, she designs pachinko parlors. Who even likes pachinko? At least that's what Momoko thinks anyway. Her situation is glum—standard for the work/adult life genre, where conflict often arises from the transition to youth to adulthood, in which one learns that a life under mind-numbing capitalism isn't at all ideal or inspiring.
This is a hugely popular theme, even today. Millenials now more than ever are unhappy with the work force, and future generations have even less to look forward to. Works like Aggretsuko resonate with audiences in 2019 because they represent the reality of our day-to-day. Even if we ourselves are comfortable with our work-life balance, we likely know someone who isn't. And as with all things in adulthood, stability is temporary and fleeting. It is not easy to maintain a relationship. It is not easy to get the career we've been dreaming of since we were small. It is not easy to say goodbye to our friends, whether we lose them to domesticity or the cemetery.
So why is it I struggle to find what exactly it is that Youko wanted to accomplish with this manga? I can't help but be hopeful that maybe, just maybe—I am misunderstanding her message. As it is, it feels like the takeaway I got from this manga is that as long as you enjoy your time with coworkers, a miserable job you don't actually enjoy is perfectly fine.
Let's dive into that a little.
[STORY](#####)
I'm going to freely talk about the story now, so if you haven't read the manga yet, feel free to go ahead and do that now and then come back.
The story is super cute! Absolutely everything I love about the josei genre, from the introspective looks at the lives of real women in an-often-candid storytelling format, to the way female authors inject their own personal feminist leanings through their experiences into their beloved characters. I like Momoko. She feels like she could be one of my friends—in that way, I find myself rooting for her in every situation she's in.
The manga is only fifteen chapters long, and it mainly follows Momoko's romance with a guy that delivers packages to her workplace. Now, I have no problem with this romance. The way it's set up is actually interesting, if not a little predictable near the end. Momoko's pretty boyfriend cheats on her at the beginning of the story. She is surprisingly okay with this because she's actually finding her workplace to be very fulfilling (more on this later), but her heartbreak over the betrayal allows her to consider an older man she befriends near her work place.
The romance is interconnected with the other major plot of the story—Momoko's relationship with her coworkers. They are all vastly eccentric people with various odd behaviors that make Momoko want to quit. One guy even has a backstory for why he strips down whenever he's stressed (yeah, yeah.). It feels like the conflict set-up here (Momoko filing her resignation letter) is very drawn-out, and had the romance not existed, I probably would have found it very tiring that it takes so long for this subplot to be resolved.
Perhaps I'm being a little critical. Youko made it abundantly clearly in her notes that this was all based off personal experience. In that case, I should forgive slight discrepancies in theme. However, I would argue that a story, even one that is semi-biographical (while fictional in execution), should still leave the reader with an understanding of what part of the author's heart we are left with by the end. A truly emotional piece still needs a storytelling format that gives us a takeaway. I did not feel that there was a takeaway with this manga.
[WHAT WENT WRONG?](####)
I think my issue with this manga is that, for all of it's fun characters and engaging romance, I can't tell why the author decided to frame this manga as a piece contemplating the struggles of being a laborer in today's society. I understand that Momoko, like all adults, goes through a lot of wild and wacky things, and hey, maybe that's the point after all. Maybe the point is that being an adult is weird, and there is no clear understanding of the way things will go and what will happen to you in the future.
In that case, I don't understand why we are introduced to Momoko's desire to be an illustrator. This is brought up several times in the manga too, and I am left confused as to why the culmination of the plot is... that Momoko is happier with a boyfriend she loves and her coworker friends besides her? The theme doesn't even seem to be that "as long as you have people you love, all is good" because Momoko defies this constantly through the apathy she showcases through her job. The last chapter of the manga just restates the fact that Momoko has never liked this job, and she is miserable working unless a specific set of requirements has been made. Maybe it's just me, but I feel vaguely miserable knowing that Momoko spends most of the manga holding down her dream, which is only sort-of discussed in the last chapter.
With a story like Aggretsuko, we understand why it was made. Aggretsuko is a form of entertainment that's akin to a punching-bag—we feel bad for Retsuko because we've been in her situation before, and we sympathize with her methods of stress-relief because we all probably do something similar to escape the hellscape capitalist environment we're in. Watching someone else go through our struggles allows us to feel like we can let out our frustrations too.
3AM Dangerous Zone really has a lot going for it. The characters are fun, the plot moves along at a nice pace, and the author has a beautiful art style and draws each individual with personality and allure. I just wish the manga had been framed in a slightly different context. Because without that tiny drawback, everything about this manga is a representation of the sincerity that makes the josei genre so beautiful.