Office Lady

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Office Lady is a Gratuitous English Japanese term—often abbreviated "OL"—for a low-level female employee in a corporate setting. Although she may have higher aspirations, the sexist atmosphere of the usual Japanese corporation frequently conspires to keep her fetching tea, fending off sexual harassment, and forever clinging to the bottom rung of the office ladder. The Western equivalent would be the "glass ceiling". Traditionally, the "office flower" was selected for being attractive and gracious to clients, and expected to only work for a few years (just long enough to meet a nice young executive to marry), so it was not considered a "real" career. Some companies actually have OLs on separate career tracks than the real employees—and give female hires a choice which track they want to be on.

Generally treated as the expected employment path for a respectable young woman, Office Ladies are often used as shorthand for an employed, responsible adult woman (in contrast to the teenagers who populate most manga). In works for teenagers, the Cool Big Sis or the one taking care of her younger siblings is likely to be an OL, while in Josei (women's manga), it's a likely career for The Protagonist. In Seinen (men's manga) there is also often a titillating aspect to OL characters, since OLs are traditionally supposed to be good-looking, attentive to men and unmarried, so it's a likely choice for Ms. Fanservice or the Love Interest.

Office Lady characters played straight are a bit more common in dorama (Japanese "soap operas") than they are in anime, although Punch Clock Villains and female Mooks are sometimes depicted this way.

In Speculative Fiction Series, OL characters are frequently employed as Bridge Bunnies.

If OLs are in a particularly violent anime, regardless of their allegiance, don't expect them to live long.

Compare Girl Friday and Plucky Office Girl.

Examples of Office Lady include:

Anime and Manga

  • Ebichu's owner ('the Mistress') in Ebichu Minds The House is unnamed, but otherwise refered to as O.L. in source material. She's also her "boyfriend"'s Chew Toy.
  • In Midori no Hibi, Seiji's sister Rin dresses like an Office Lady, although she leads a biker gang. God help the poor fool who tries to pinch her butt!
  • The Punch Clock Villains in All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku aren't office ladies, but at least one of them thinks they are:

Arisa: We office ladies can get really stressed out, you know.
Kyouko: Where do you get off calling us office ladies?
Arisa: Simple, we're the Secretarial Department's Flying Column, which abbreviates down to O.L.
Kyouko: Just how do those words abbreviate into O.L.?
Arisa: I guess they don't.

  • Kaneru from Doujin Work is a rather bored Office Lady who only finds joy in making Doujinshi, even though she claims to be the owner of a tea salon.
  • Wendy in the Read or Die OVA seems to be an OL, although this changes when she appears in the Read or Dream TV.
  • In Tramps Like Us, career woman Sumire is envied by her OL coworkers.
  • Izumi in Android Announcer Maico 2010.
  • Found in Hotaru no Hikari
  • Butterflies, Flowers: The heroine, Choko.
  • In Liar Game, one of the players who makes it to the fourth round is Mika Mikamoto, who goes by the nickname of "Office Lady". She's a follower of Harimoto's cult and thus one of his loyal minions.
  • The Girls Love Manga Ebisu-san and Hotei-san has its two principal main characters as office ladies.
  • The duties of Mai from Ghost Hunt when Naru doesn't have a case are similar to that of an office lady. She even comments that her pay is roughly equivalent to what an office lady makes - which is really generous for an after-school part-time job.
  • Linna Yamazaki in Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 (not to be confused with the OVA version of her character, who was an aerobics instructor and later a stockbroker.)
  • The very unusual Gundam spinoff manga Gunnota no Onna combines this with Gender Flip, starring a female Char named Gunnota who tries to hide her Otaku tendencies while being in a Love Triangle with Fem!M'Quve and Man!Kycilia.

Fan Works

  • More than a few Ranma ½ Continuation Fics cynically show the intelligent and ambitious Nabiki Tendo in her twenties trapped as an OL, unable to shatter the Glass Ceiling that keeps her from advancing to where she feels she belongs.

Literature

  • An interesting take on the trope in the allegedly autobiographical novel Fear And Trembling: Westerner Amelie Nothomb moves to Tokyo and takes a job as an OL in a large Japanese company, but finds herself completely out of her depth in the harsh corporate environment and makes blunder upon blunder.

Live-Action TV

  • Kamen Rider 555 features the creepy Smart Lady, representative of the Smart Brain company run by the villains. She never has a name beyond that and her role seems to be to cheerfully welcome guests and cheerfully threaten Orphenochs who turn down the Monster of the Week gig.
  • Shomu Ni is a Work Com centered around a group of office ladies designated to do the company's menial tasks, but the natures of these girls lead them into situations that result in them getting tangled up in much bigger plots.

Video Games

  • One level in Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan has Sachiko, the overworked secretary. She is forever being bullied by a group of three other office ladies. The cheerleaders help to get her work done so she can go to the company's anniversary dance and win over the company president's son.
  • Two OLs meet a very disgusting end in one of the Bible Black shorts, by way of cleverly-applied shotgun.
  • Appears as a trainer class in Pokémon Black and White.
  • Gaia Online{'}}s Meredith, a cute, young, redheaded bank teller who in the old days taught new users how to set up trades and transactions.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Office_Lady?oldid=2027403"