Retsuko

How she appeared in A Terrible Fortress

### Date of birth

2 April 1991 (based on her canonical age, which is 25, and the start of the franchise itself which was 2 April 2016)

## Physical description

### Gender

Female

***Retsucus Iaponica*** (Japanese: 烈子 *retsuko*, Aschsene Chinese: 姜榮坦 *jiang rong tan*, English: ***Retsuko Japonica***; literally ***Japanese Retsuko***) is a *Sanrio* anthropomorphic red panda character in the Assets with Liabilities family of shows. She is usually depicted as the Queen of the Union, most of the time higher in rank than Carmen herself but is definitely lower than Matt.

## Info

She is a red panda with mostly orange complexion, simple eyes and large outlines. She is one of the only characters wherein a solid outline is a required design aspect, such as the objects including Constantia, although she has an anthropomorphic form factor. Even though she has the highest rank in Aschsenland, Retsuko is mostly depicted with her common work uniform found in the original series, possibly as an emphasis to her service to the working class, but with a Soviet уша́нка (ushanka) topped with an almost-plain red and yellow crown. As a further distinction to her original character in *Aggretsuko*, she also wears black-framed eyeglasses.

Her background music is the North Korean *Aegukka* (achimeun pinnara i kangsan), usually to show her dominance (as this music is usually used as a meme similar to the state anthem of the Russian Federation usually to depict a nation's dominance (in this context, communism) over the world), although this is usually replaced by either *Kimigayo* (the Japanese national anthem to indicate her origin), *L'Internationale* (*The Internationale*, to show the nation's centre-left ideals), *Chollima on the Wing* (천리마 달린다, chŏllima tallinta, to still reference North Korea and to reference the communist movement in Aschsenland) or *Gott Erhalte Kaiser Franz* (technically *Das Deutscher Lied*, but only the UCSSBR's anthem's *melody* is based on this composition by Haydn) to avoid compromises online related to North Korea. The probable only time that *Aegukka* is heard as a background music is in *A Terrible Fortress*, wherein she is seen announcing her reign replacing Carmen as leader through an online livestream.

Her TTS voice is Nanami or Xiaoxiao, depending on the language she speaks in.

## Coverage

### *A Terrible Fortress*

Retsuko makes her debut in this episode, wherein she is seen giving a livestream via Instagram (as a reference to her usage of it in the Netflix adaptation) about her replacing Carmen as the supreme leader or generalissimo of Aschsenland and its parent union the Union of Carmelite Socialist South Britannic Republics (Latin: *Unio de Carmelitus Socialista autem Respublicae Britannica Meridianae*). Pencil is seen watching this livestream along with Match, and they were disgusted, as 'the nation's becoming increasingly furry as we know it'. Nonetheless, as this is indeed *the* Retsuko, lots of people hearted the live video and as soon as the stream ended, although they were in the middle of the currently-empty AschseneCompact condo tower, Pencil and Match heard the cheers of people from far away, as well as the national anthem, which is basically *das* *Deutschlandlied* but with different lyrics. Alongside that, Pencil and Match are Conservatives, which made their relationship with the Communist Parliament weaken further.

## Trivia

* As some sort of fan service, in this series, Retsuko is married to Haida, another character from *Aggretsuko*.
* Contrary to her original Sanrio design, Retsuko's proportions in AwL are more humanlike, probably to avoid height variation to further avoid production hurdles.
* Retsuko was originally planned to be the Prime Minister of Aschsenland, with Carmen as President, but this was changed early in development.
* Retsuko gets mad (but not to the point of wherein she would commit death metal) whenever she hears Provisional Korean *Aegukga*. This references the loss of the Japanese Empire to the Allied Forces during the Second World War which forced them to pull out of the Korean peninsula and shift its administration to the Soviet Union and the United States.
	+ Since Provisional Korean *Aegukga*'s melody was literally *Auld Lang Syne* (until 1930 wherein this was replaced with a unique melody) she would also act up whenever she hears *Auld Lang Syne*. This unfortunately includes New Year's Eve parties.
		- To counter this problem, whenever she is present in New Year's Eve parties, the guests of whatever party she may be, including Matt himself, if present, are then forced to sing Auld Lang in the melody of the South Korean *Aegukga* (donghae mulgwa baekdusani mareugo daltorok; which is probably from Ahn Eak-tai (An Ik-tae)'s composition named *Korean Fantasy* (한국환상곡; hanguk hwansanggok; *Symphonic Fantasy 1: Korea*)) since they have the same syllables. This sounded weird nonetheless, as Korean guests would sing *Aegukga* instead and others just aren't used to singing Auld Lang in this melody; however, as for the natives, they would sing *the* Song. Of course, except the Party.
			* However, weirdly enough, Retsuko calms down with the South Korean *Aegukga*. She thinks that this version's melody is 'soothing'.
* Retsuko absolutely loathes Conservatives, partly because of her experience being a worker in *Aggretsuko*.
	+ In fact, she is actually pushing for Aschsenland Incorporated to be fully out of Matt's hands and to the Party's hands. She is the only one to do so, and the other members of the Party voted to let Ax. Inc. still be Matt's, since it's also technically owned by the government as Matt is involved with the government.
* Retsuko often comments about being 'stabbed with a cutter by a stalker' for almost being killed in *Aggretsuko* by the same circumstances. This references assassination attempts on world leaders becoming rampant.
	+ This made her as insecure as the Kim leaders of North Korea as she tried to secretly strengthen the military without concern for the people. However, this procedure is understandable by pessimist views, considering her trauma in the past of almost meeting her creator due to a hater; unlike Kim Ilsung and his son Kim Jongil and his son Kim Jongun wherein they just seek to remain in power.
* Her favourite song other than death metal is *Chollima on the Wing* (천리마 달린다, chŏllima tallinta). Sometimes she is seen singing the song in most episodes, usually as a random character. This is unusual, as she is only fluent in English and Japanese, and this song seems to be learnt by her by phonetic approximations in Japanese, yet she sings it perfectly. (In production, the original Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble song is used. No mods were made.)