I'm not always fond of anime that calls me out as a fan, Comic Party and Welcome to the NHK come to mind, I've heard similar cases with Watamote and Uncle from Another World felt like a personal attack.
But Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan absolutely nailed the experience I'm going through in my 30s work life, the timing of this anime's release 2021, the worst year of my life and many others, it went from calling me out to helping me understand my over complicated mental state in this current era. The only other show that came out where I was the target audience age not including pre-school shows I grew up with is Regular Show back in my twenties.
This S-Tier analysis will go through Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan and why it's such an essential anime for otaku of my age group.
The Premise Only Works as an Anime
The basic premise sees presenters of a popular children's show often drop how hard life really is with the core of it coming from Uramichi and Utano when triggered. A western version would push into darker territory, Japan doesn't really have swear words in their lexicon so everything Uramichi slips out is dark but never crosses red lines and keeps the kids who appear on the show blissfully ignorant, it helps Uramichi's case that some of the lessons he is giving are genuinely good and that he does care about his job even if his team does push him closer to snapping.
Has a Very Accurate Portrayal of Autism
Iketeru Daga, the singer of the group has clear autism, the spectrum is so vast that no two people are exactly the same but there are over lapping traits, for Iketeru he needs direction to do a performance, he can't read the room, he is crazy talented to the point where he is considered a savant, in fact he needs protecting as he is incredibly easy to take advantage of, Kumatani doing so frequently to protect his innocence as well as from older married women.
Utano Tadano is a Clever Reference to it's Voice Artist
Nana Mizuki voices the wedding obsessed Utano who has failed at every music career route possible, Nana Mizuki is not only an idol herself but didn't marry until she turned 40, so perfect casting.
The Dub Just Makes it Better
We have our fair share of versions of Life Lesson's premise, the big one being the Office in both UK and the US, in anime terms, it also feeds off the Aggretsuko anime's mantra, in fact this kind of satire is extremely popular in anime right now as having a voice in an environment that is becoming more and more socially unacceptable, an anime like Life Lessons can be an eye opener.
Uramichi is in constant burnout, clearly manufactured by a tough childhood.
Iketeru can only operate on orders in a world where he is constantly blissfully ignorant.
Utano wonders if her best years are really behind her even if she is in the best position to get out of it.
Kumatani may stay quiet but he doesn't tolerate cruelty and lost a high paying job for punching out his jerk ass boss.
Usahara blows his money on gambling and booze so much that he could be broke at any point but doesn't stop out of his own insecurities, he also has a bad habit of irritating his co-workers.
The director is a man child with increasingly absurd ideas.
And to point out one more character, Kikaku the merch leader is one bad day away from pulling a full Joker arc.
Quite a high number of people have been these characters at some point and on the surface at least, they still manage to cobble together a functional successful children's show, not just that, it's a parody of a real Japanese Children's Show.
