English Dub Review: Africa Salaryman “Africa Job Search”

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Toucan and Lizard feel bad for all the new job applicants because Big Cat is conducting the interviews. Even though he’s a pretty nice guy, he’s got that big, scary lion face and those sharp, terrifying lion teeth. Any bird that interviews with him reverts to their fight or flight instincts by propelling themselves out the window and flying away. The land animals, unfortunately, have to endure the entire meeting where they discover just how boring Big Cat is.

The next day, the big board meeting begins and subsequently never ends. And, holy crap is the content dry as the Mojave. President Turtle, Big Cat, Lizard, and the executives—a bison, sheep, otter, and owl—discuss cost-saving methods. However, they’re really bad at it, and keep circling back to the Deadly Hamster’s sunflower seed supply they keep stored on the roof. Hamster doesn’t want to talk about it, he gets to it somehow despite not being able to fly, but he won’t reveal how.

Toucan was lucky enough to miss the meeting because he got hit by a car and almost died. Actually, he did die for a little bit. As he lay bleeding—in a hole his frail body somehow made in the concrete—his soul has whisked away to a calming field. Paradise?

There he meets three angels (2^nd Class) who all claim to be God and desperately want to earn points for bringing Toucan back to life. Oh, and the angels are also Toucans. To determine who gets the honor of reviving Toucan, the angels hold an even more boring meeting. This prompts Toucan to get the Heaven out of there.

With blood gushing from every orifice, Toucan barges into the meeting and rattles off a number of money-saving ideas—some bad, some good. Plus, he makes it clear that he doesn’t give a damn about the Lethal Hamster’s seed stash.

In the next segment, a caracal cat is getting ready for a job interview. He’s the best candidate in a field of losers and believes he has the position on lockdown. However, after a series of unfortunate events, he gets distracted by a group of hoodlum teens whaling on an old turtle. The caracal doesn’t want to get involved, but he inevitably gets angry and attempts to save the turtle. This leads to the thugs—whose members include a particularly sociopathic Toucan—beating up on the caracal. Luckily, they’re both saved when a young, yet intimidating lion shows up.

This is when we learn Africa Salaryman “Inceptioned” us, and the whole scene was a story the caracal was telling at that same boring meeting. And that’s how he and Big Cat were hired at President Turtle’s awful company. And, of course, Toucan had been one of the bullies, because he’s always been an asshole.

 

Our Take

In the end, it felt like I was in a really boring business meeting for twenty-four minutes. And we’re not talking “it’s so funny because it’s true” territory. This meeting was worse than any actual work meeting because there wasn’t any lukewarm coffee or stale pastries.

I’d be interested in seeing more of Caracal mixed in with the main trio. He’s a solid character because he isn’t a total dick like Toucan, and he’s not passive-aggressive like Lizard. I think he and Big Cat could get involved in some interesting capers being the two main cats of the office.

I’m forced to double down on believing that Lethal Hamster is a figment of Toucan’s imagination. This episode offers further proof of my theory. Even though the little guy is sitting at the boardroom table—for a short while before eerily disappearing—nobody addresses him directly. And then there’s the whole business about him having access to the sunflower seeds on the roof even though he can’t fly. Well, do you know who can fly? Toucan can. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was using his delusion to have access to free snacks on the company dime.

The best scene today involved Toucan—which I acknowledge begrudgingly. Even though this was the second episode out of five that involved a version of Toucan’s untimely death, I thoroughly enjoyed the “three angels” schtick. While I personally never plan on dying, I hope that if I do, there’ll be three Toucans waiting for me in the Elysian Fields arguing over who gets to extend my life for another hundred years. Wait? Did I just eat a huge handful of mushrooms or is Africa Salaryman an actual show on Funimation?

Anyway; another week, another sub-par episode. This program has the potential to take this strange concept to weird and enjoyable places, but at this point in the series, they’ve missed the mark most of the time. We need another jungle exploration episode, stat!