The Happiness Patrol (Season 8)

The eighth season of the British-Japanese dystopic steampunk anime series *The Happiness Patrol* aired from October 23, 2019 to March 4, 2020 in a variety of regions, notably TV Tokyo in Japan, BBC One in the United Kingdom, and NBC in the United States. The season was written and directed by the series' creator, Jay Stevenson, and produced by J-Animations. The soundtrack was composed by Susumu Hirasawa, Shiro Sagisu, and Joe Hisaishi, and features insert songs from a variety of Japanese and Western artists, including L'Arc-en-Ciel, Spitz, The Pillows, Shikao Suga, and Suede. The eighth season's opening theme is "One Me Two Hearts" by Hitorie, and its ending theme is "Honey" by L'Arc~en~Ciel.

*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 eighth series continues to follow the Happiness Patrol's uprising against the government, which is becoming more popular with citizens after the terrorist acts ceased. The group decide to target and expose members of the secret police in order to avoid having their plans to stage a coup be discovered by the government. Other acts, such as vandalism via forced removal of the wake-up guns, gather immense support. By the end of the season, the secret police has been dissolved, the wake-up guns have been removed, and the uprising has become a threat to the government. In the season finale, Mister announces that the social ranking system will be scrapped, and that the army are going to be ordered to kill anybody involved in the uprising.

The season was announced in December 2016, during the airing of the fifth season. The series' voice cast reprise their roles, including Jason Bateman as Zell, Thandiwe Newton as Eleanor, Alison Brie as Jess, Nicole Kidman as Jara-Kan and Keith Silverstein as Mister. The series aired on Wednesdays at 11 p.m. and consisted of 20 episodes.

The eighth season of *The Happiness Patrol* received mixed reviews from critics upon release. Many criticised the story as feeling like a retread of previous seasons, stating the secret police were overused as antagonists, as well as ineffective due to lacking a central character in the organisation. Criticism was also drawn to the seemingly non-existent consequences of the group's actions in season 7, feeling that they should have been punished for the dangerous deeds they carried out. The character's received criticism for seeming apathetic towards the revolution and felt that the series hadn't done enough by season 8 to connect the remaining cast to the uprising, with many of the member's motives being unknown or not expanded upon. The series' animation was highly praised, regarded as the best animation in a J-Animations series at that point. The art direction received similar acclaim, with the season's colour palette becoming more distorted as it went on, done in order to represent the distortion of society. The voice cast received positive reviews. The season was nominated for a variety of awards at the 2020 Anime Awards. Since airing, the series has been viewed in a more positive light: criticisms towards the characters remained, but the plot found more appreciation as a return to the formula from season 3, 4 and 5.

The ratings for the eighth season averaged at 55 million viewer sper episode. The series was collected into two 10-episode DVD and Blu-Ray volumes. In 2023, the season was released internationally on Netflix for streaming, as did the rest of the series. A ninth season began airing in October 2020.