English Dub Review: Africa Salaryman “Africa Company Trip”

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Welcome to the world of continuity on Africa Salaryman. Last time, Toucan begged and bargained his way into the company’s Hawaiian business trip, and in this episode, they actually go. Of course, the aloof Toucan almost misses the flight because he got drunk at a hostess club the night before. Lizard also almost misses the flight, but that’s because Toucan doodled all over his passport photo.

Once in Hawaii, the crew: Big Cat, Lizard, Toucan, Caracal, Lethal Hamster, Honeyguide, and the surprisingly immortal Honey Badger, are greeted by their tour guide. This guide has a name, but keeping with Salaryman’s simplistic nomenclature system, I’m just going to call him Goose. You know, like in Top Gun, except he doesn’t die midway through the movie (my apologies for that 23-year-old spoiler).

Anyway, it’s revealed that Toucan and Goose were chums back in grammar school. Well, “chums” is a relative term. Toucan, predictably, was awful to poor Goose, forcing him to eat month-old bread and embarrassing him in front of his bunny-girl crush. However, over a round of drinks, Goose claims those troubling memories are long in the past. Yeah, that’s the ticket—completely forgotten about.

After even more drinks, Goose tells Toucan about a hidden treasure deep in the recesses of King Kamekameha’s ‘Iolani Palace. This may sound like a bunch of hot air, but keep in mind that Goose is a terrible tour guide with a surprising amount of knowledge pertaining to Hawaii’s founder. Anyway, Toucan believes him so they head to the palace late at night and take out the Rhino guards with a couple of smoke bombs.

Once inside, Goose unveils a secret staircase that leads to a legit treasure room. We’re talking Scrooge McDuck levels of wealth strewn about and not meticulously organized inside a money bin. The piéce de résistance is located in a cage toward the back of the room—a solid gold turtle statue that mustn’t be confused for a representation of the actual King Kamehameha who commissioned a testudinal model to pose for the statue.

Before Toucan can get his grubby little hands on the tortoise, Goose handcuffs him to the cage. He never forgave the dopey bird for making his school days a living hell. He plans to leave Toucan to die since Goose is the only person in the living world who knows about this secret room. However, Toucan has one final trick up his sleeve—a deus ex machina bundle of dynamite. Without giving Goose even a moment to beg for his life, Toucan lights the fuse and blows the palace sky high.

They survive but are immediately arrested and detained in a Hawaiian prison.

 

Our Take

Any The Wind in the Willows fans out there? If I’m not mistaken, Africa Salaryman is mirroring aspects of that classic Kenneth Grahame novel. And it’s not just because both stories revolve around anthropomorphic animals. The novel begins as a lazy little tale about a mole and a rat who rendezvous in the marshes and form a friendship. Over the next few chapters, the story evolves into a “wild ride” of a narrative completely devoted to the eccentric Mr. Toad. This show started as a tale about a hard-working lion but is now a vehicle for Toucan and his crazy antics.

In my last review, I mentioned this program’s terrible dependence on non-funny running gags. The tired gag I was referring to last time was Lizard getting his tail ripped off over and over again. And while Mr. Lizard did get his tail pulled off in the final minutes of the episode, that wasn’t even this week’s most egregious folly. This time around, they relied too heavily on Honey Badger’s ability to die and come back to life—because he’s fearless, and therefore immortal.

I blame myself, really. If only I hadn’t enjoyed the character so much. It was hard not to because he gave the office some much-needed balance—way more than that idiot prankster, Honeyguide, who’s simply dreadful. But alas, now my good man, Honey Badger, is doomed to live a tedious McCormick-esque existence, straddling the realms of life and death, and irrationally falling from ridiculous distances with no prior explanation. Sigh…

What did everybody think about Goose? He’s not completely annoying, right? I’m thinking that it’s damn near the time for Toucan to have a rival who can actually keep up with his level of crazy. Caracal, the HR man, is supposed to keep the employees in check, but he’s as useless as a jerrycan in a Tesla. But Goose, he’s got potential. Sorry, he also has a real name—Nene. In college, one of my roommates used that word to describe her private parts. Yes, this was a full-grown, adult woman. We only shared a house for a little over a semester. Plus, our landlord’s son had a strange obsession with her and used to follow her around the property. But that’s a tale for another day.