"Pokémon Concierge" and Work Culture
Hustle Culture and Inner Childs
Work-Life-Balance
Haru (Rena Nounen) is having the shittiest week of her life. She gets dumped, loses a big contract at work, is having an overall lousy and tired time of it— so she runs away.
This is the good kind of running. This is the one where you realize you have been suffering, and you allow yourself to leave.
But Haru probably felt like it was the bad kind. The kind that makes you abandon everything you’ve done for fear of failure or continuing mediocrity.
So what better place to run to than Pokémon Resort?
Because troubles disappear here and how can you have a long face when there are adorable Pokémon gallivanting around and having the time of their lives?!
But honestly, Haru’s plight hits a little too close to home. What are we here for? Why are we working so so hard to meet a deadline or a quota, only for the anxiety to complete and then start again for another project?
Haru is absolutely disenchanted with life and finds this job at a Pokémon Resort, but tries to bring all that baggage and statistical work flow into this new one.
That’s not how it works.
As much as this resort is a vacation place for Pokémon, it is a healing place for people as well.
Are you happy?
Are you having fun?
Can you make others feel how you feel?
A far cry from Haru’s analytical job from the opening, this resort throws all those expectations off the boat and watches it sink to the bottom of the ocean.
It’s more about the vibe here.
It’s a nice vibe.
It’s relaxing and hopeful and inspired. It is a safe space to be yourself and make others feel just as good.
This show is absolutely about taking that idea of being an adult and working till the day you die, and rejecting it for the life that is now, for the life we can enjoy here.
It takes Haru a long while to realize that her performance isn’t based on numbers and her happiness is more important than a job. And it’s beautifully told because Pokémon are so easy to believe in. If you can see a Pikachu regain its spark, then why the heck can’t you?
The Inner Child in Pokémon
For many people, Pokémon is their childhoods. It was one of their first brushes with Nintendo, it was a supremely fulfilling game on our handheld devices that continues to grace our television screens and newer consoles.
Pokémon is absolutely a metaphor for childhood. That innocence as a youth, that exploratory nature and the vigorous adventure that comes with no responsibilities.
These tiny creatures have held our hands throughout our childhood, and here they are yet again to support us as adults.
We all grow up.
We see the world with jaded eyes and the Pokémon? God bless their soul, but they stay the same. For better or for worse. A stable rock to return to or an annoying signpost that refuses to update with the times. Pokémon is a pillar of the gaming and animated community and now it recognizes their demographic has changed.
It has expanded.
The generation that grew up with it has continued to love their adorably fluffy creatures with much the same zeal but with much more money. And now we have different problems from when we were children, minding open water and grassy hills, to us as adults, worrying about tax season and if inflation will take another beloved dollar menu away.
That child is still within us and is the one that asks to see the newest Pokémon movie or to buy the plush when we go to the store. That child is the one that needs to be fed to feel safe, and this story for adults manages to share a heart with how we feel on the inside and how we look on the outside.
Day by Day
The feels. This show was terribly short, but that makes it an easy watch.
The problems are basic but noteworthy and the animation style itself is top-notch stop-motion with an emphasis on clay and that funky felt thing.
Haru is us.
We are Haru.
We are adults with inner children wanting to break free from the mold society has put us in. To dream and love as we did when were children, and to finally realize that life is only as hard as we make it.
So we should choose love. We should choose happiness. We should choose the things that bring us joy.
Haru’s name means spring. And that, my friends, is a new beginning.
So if you feel stuck or stopped or stilted. Remember:
You can always begin again.