The Happiness Patrol

***The Happiness Patrol*** is a British-Japanese dystopic steampunk anime series created, written and directed by Jay Stevenson, and produced by J-Animations. The series aired from October 2012 until February 2022 on numerous channels in a variety of countries, including TV Tokyo in Japan, BBC One in the United Kingdom and NBC in the USA, amongst others. The series spanned 10 seasons and 200 episodes, airing on Wednesdays. The series has been collected into 20 DVD and Blu-ray volumes, each containing 10 episodes. As of 2023, it streams digitally internationally on Netflix.

*The Happiness Patrol* takes place in a dystopic society where industrialisation has turned planet Earth into an entirely man-made industrial site, wrought with pollution, overpopulation and crime. The government responsible for this are overthrown in a coup in the events leading up to the series, and the new government's solution to the issue is to reduce overpopulation. A social ranking system is introduced in which every citizen is given a card with their total social point score: the higher the score, the more access and therefore freedom one has. Every three months, the bottom 1 billion in the ranking system are executed. The eponymous "Happiness Patrol" are a group of young adults who accept commissions from customers in exchange for points to secure their safety.

At the time of the series' production, J-Animations received criticism for its productions being male-dominated. Thus, the cast for *The Happiness Patrol* is diverse and features voice talents from numerous actors including Yuri Lowenthal, Jason Bateman, Thandiwe Newton, Nicole Kidman and Alison Brie. The high-profile cast attracted controversy, with many accusing J-Animations of hiring Hollywood actors to promote the series, however this subsided upon the show's airing when the voice cast were the subject of praise.

Throughout its run, *The Happiness Patrol* has remained a polarizing series for critics. From the offset, the animation, art direction, writing, soundtrack, voice performances and concept were heavily praised, but the plot was initially scrutinized as feeling "under-developed" and "impersonal". The show's 3rd season attracted a lot of critical adoration, most notably in its second half, when the series began focusing on more heartfelt and emotional storylines as supposed to the dark and gory plots of the earlier seasons. From seasons 4 through to 6, the show received critical acclaim: reviewers retrospectively have called this the golden era of *The Happiness Patrol*. The following seasons (7-9) received a lot of mixed reviews from critics, who not only deemed them inferior to the previous seasons, but also felt the production quality and writing had gone down, and the plot had become cliché. The show's final season, airing from 2021 to 2022, received positive reviews, and many believed it was a return to form.

Commercially, *The Happiness Patrol* could not compete with the popularity of its fellow flagship series *Elixir*. Despite this, the show gathered a large following and averaged over 60 million viewers per episode worldwide, a particularly high number for a show with mature themes even with the advantage of simultaneous dubbing and airing. It has been the recipient of numerous awards, as has its voice cast.

## Seasons

* Season 1 (2012-2013)
* Season 2 (2013-2014)
* Season 3 (2014-2015)
* Season 4 (2015-2016)
* Season 5 (2016-2017)
* Season 6 (2017-2018)
* Season 7 (2018-2019)
* Season 8 (2019-2020)
* Season 9 (2020-2021)
* Season 10 (2021-2022)