The Happiness Patrol (Season 6)

The sixth season of the British-Japanese dystopic steampunk anime series *The Happiness Patrol* aired from October 25, 2017 to March 7, 2018 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, Suede, and Boards of Canada. The sixth season's opening theme is "Kiri" by Monoral, and its ending theme is "Nightswimming" by R.E.M.

*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 sixth season of the show follows the now reunited Happiness Patrol as they discover that the government, led by Mister, has been tampering with the points system in order to eliminate those who actively oppose the government without making themselves look tyrannical. The secret police are revealed to have been reporting on who has said rebellious things, and the person then has their points tampered with. The series concludes with one of the Happiness Patrol members, Zack, being executed after all of his points were deleted 3 days before the execution ceremony.

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 sixth season of *The Happiness Patrol* received acclaim from critics. Many noted the season had found a balance between the suspenseful and action-packed fifth season, and the slower and more emotional fourth season. The series' story focus was praised, cited to add more villainy to the government beyond their misguided attempts to decrease overpopulation, and the point rigging was seen as a natural escalation from the "government's previous head-turning deeds", setting them up as a true villainous power. The focus on the series' characters received praise: Zack's point deletion in the final 3 episodes of the series completely changed the protagonist from Zell to Zack, which viewers found refreshing and served to represent the society presented in *The Happiness Patrol* as unpredictable. The series was criticised for its uneven plot distribution between its ensemble cast, with characters like Jara-Kan and Jess having considerably smaller roles compared to previous seasons. The season's soundtrack received praise, although its use of insert songs was said to feel "more uninspired than in previous seasons". The animation and art direction of the season, especially regarding the use of CRT, VHS and CCTV camera effects, were the subject of praise. The season was nominated for a variety of awards at the 2018 International Anime Awards, including Anime of the Year, although it lost out to fellow J-Animations series *Chequered Flag*.

*The Happiness Patrol*'s sixth season received high viewing figures, although it was a drop from the previous season, averaging around 65 million viewers per 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 seventh season began airing in October 2018.