Do you happen to be an adult who enjoys anime? Are you also being ground up in the meat grinder of late stage capitalism that takes all your effort and turns it into cash for someone else? Adulthood sure isn’t as great as it looked when you were a kid, right?
While escapism through anime is the reason isekai is so popular right now, sometimes the best remedy for the sheer pain of reality is relatability.
Anime that shows you, an overworked adult, other overworked adults who are also being burnt out. Sometimes, they might help you find some inspiration or, at least, helpful coping mechanisms. Sometimes, it’s just nice to be able to commiserate with someone, even if they are a fictional character.
If you are looking for anime where the main character has been burnt out by overwork, then give these anime recommendations a try.
Anime About Adults Burnt Out By Overwork
Zom 100 – Bucket List of the Dead
Zom 100 says the quiet part out loud when it comes to a lot of modern feelings about a pending apocalypse – Oh, well at least I don’t have to go to work anymore!
In fact, that is the entire premise of this zombie apocalypse series. The main character is entirely burned up by an exploitative company to the point where he considers hopping in front of a train in order to not have to go to work. However, one day, he wakes up to a full-on zombie apocalypse where he realizes, with great glee, that he can finally live freely.
Zom 100 is partially a zombie apocalypse survival anime, but it is one where the main characters prioritize having fun and doing everything they wanted to do as an adult now that they have the time and energy for it.
The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today
There are a few series on this list that are best described as “overwork iyashikei, or “healing,” anime. They are meant to be very cute, have zero drama, and be things that stressed out adult audiences watch to feel a little bit healed by the cute shenanigans.
The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today follows an office lady who brings home a small kitten in a snow storm one day. Over the years, this cat actually grows up to be larger than expected – more the size of bear than a cat. Furthermore, the cat truly is masterful as he starts doing the cooking, cleaning, and shopping for the less-than-responsible office lady who is constantly burnt out by her work.
The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today is overwork iyashikei, but sometimes the human main character is a little too relatable, like when she sobs, clinging to her cat at the front door, and telling him how much she doesn’t want to go to work that day.
Meddlesome Kitsune Senko-san
Meddlesome Kitsune Senko-san is the overwork iyashikei that knows what overworked salarymen really want – someone soft to stroke their hair when they come home.
The series follows your standard ground up Japanese salaryman who one day comes home to an ancient fox spirit that declares that she is going to take care of him – and that’s what she does. She cooks, she cleans, she gives him all the attention he needs without having the time to go out to woo someone to give it to him.
Miss Shachiku and the Little Baby Ghost
This overwork iyashikei anime doesn’t have a ancient spirit or a gigantic cat taking care of an overworked office lady, but rather a child ghost.
Initially, the ghost haunts her office and takes up trying to scare an office lady out of the office as she gets caught up in constant overtime. Realizing that she isn’t actually scared by any of her attempts, she starts to do nice things like bringing her food and making sure she is taken care of.
Eventually, it progresses to the ghost going to live with the office lady as she starts to find a better work/life balance.
While being taken care of by a child ghost is kind of innately sad, this series emphasizes cuteness over any sort of drama. We don’t do drama in iyashikei.
Aggressive Retsuko
Aggressive Retsuko, or Aggretsuko as it is frequently shortened to, is a Sanrio mascot anime where a super-cute red panda character deals with misogyny, unreasonable workplace expectations, and a whole array of obnoxious co-workers. She copes with this by banging out screeching death metal karaoke.
While it’s a comedy anime, Aggretsuko doesn’t actually have a very positive message overall. As it features short-form episodes, it just shows you how stressful and unpleasant office work is, and the only way to deal with it is to find a coping mechanism and endure.
Recovery of an MMO Junkie
You look at those high-level corporate businesswomen and think they look so fulfilled by their high pressure job, but in reality, they are just as stressed out as everyone else. Recovery of an MMO Junkie is about one high-level successful businesswoman who saves up enough to quit her job, drop off the face of the Earth, and become a shut-in who plays MMOs all day.
She is living the dream and happy to no longer have to deal with the stress, but also realizes that her social skills diminish when she doesn’t have to use them everyday anymore.
The plot of the series proper is about her cross-playing a male character on her MMO, unknowingly meeting a colleague who admired her from the past who is also cross-playing a female character on that same MMO, and growing closer in-game and, again unknowingly, in-person.
The series is a romantic comedy that is admittedly more targeted at gamers than burnt out non-gaming office workers.
Black Lagoon
As Black Lagoon is most well known as an anime about a group of mercenaries who take a wide array of morally dubious jobs just to make money, it doesn’t – at a glance – seem applicable. However, the arguably main character of the series starts the series as a salaryman.
He travels for his job and toils endlessly to bring his bosses glory. On one trip, he gets kidnapped and learns just how disposable his life is to the corporation that employs him when they are willing to let his kidnappers kill them rather than give them what they want.
While his company eventually negotiates for his life, after learning the truth and experiencing the thrills of a less-than-legal profession, he joins the mercenaries that were previously holding him captive as a member.
ReLife
Unlike other series on this list, ReLife isn’t actually about a main character that was overworked into the ground, but rather he is sort of the victim of a co-worker that was.
What that means is he was involved with a traumatic incident with a co-worker that left him riddled with too much anxiety to work an office job. After quitting a job so suddenly, the company blacklisted him, forcing him to become a shut-in NEET.
The plot of ReLife is about him being approached by a company that rehabilitates NEETs like him by giving them a pill that lets them look younger and makes arrangements for them to enjoy a year of high school.
The theory is that by enjoying a year of youth again will rehabilitate his social skills and self confidence, and it does, though not without some stumbles.
Life Lessons With Uramichi Oniisan
Don’t be fooled by those happy smiles, you have to look into those dead, soulless eyes. Uramichi Oniisan is a comedy anime about adults who are realizing that adulthood is not quite as dazzling as it looked when they were younger. In fact, it isn’t dazzling at all – it is where dreams go to die.
The comedy in this series comes from the main character working on a cute show for children and you, the audience, enjoying his inner monologue about how much he hates his job, these kids, everyone around him, and his life. There are also a variety of side characters that also find adulthood disappointing in various ways.
Needless to say, it is more of a dark comedy.
Shirobako
Shirobako is a realistic glimpse into the life of someone who works in the anime industry creating anime. It does a good job balancing the character fulfilling her dreams of doing so while also showing some of the harsher realities and more stressful expectations that come from doing so.
However, Shirobako was made before it started to become more common knowledge of how wildly overworked animators actually are. So sometimes I often wonder how the story of Shirobako would be presented if the story were made today. Would it still have that element of being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed even in times of crunch, or would it show burnt up individuals like Zom 100?
Police in a Pod
It doesn’t matter what country you do it in, if you are a police officer, you are going to catch a lot of criticism from the public.
Police in a Pod is about about a woman who didn’t have some grand dream of being a police officer. She merely wanted a stable job and, after failing every other civil service exam, could only get accepted into the police academy.
The series starts with her considering calling it quits due to the constant criticism by disgruntled citizens. However, she gets inspired by her new partner.
While Police in a Pod is often pretty comedic, it doesn’t shy away from getting serious when it comes to the dark realities of police work. It’s a dangerous and often thankless job, but a necessary one.
I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level
The isekai genre is filled with overworked protagonists that die and are rewarded with a new life in a fantasy world. Throw a rock, and you’ll hit three. So why, out of all the isekai anime I could have bloated up this list with, did I pick this rather cute slice of life isekai?
300 Slimes is about a woman killed by overwork and so burnt out by it that when reincarnated as an immortal being she doesn’t even want to go on adventures. She just wants to, very relatably, sit around her house. So that’s what she does, only going out to kill slimes to pay for food and other necessities.
Isekai is escapism and this one is too. 300 Slimes is a pleasant series about avoiding adventure and just having a good time with new friends.
My New Boss is Goofy
I feel like the longer things go on, the more work iyashikei anime we will see.
My New Boss is Goofy follows a guy who quit his previous job due to a boss so abusive that he gave him ulcers and PTSD. His new boss initially seems like a serious guy, but he is pleasantly surprised to find that he is kind as well as kind of adorably air-headed.
Do you know more anime about overworked protagonists burnt out by the grind? Let fans know in the comments section below.
