English Dub Review: Africa Salaryman “Africa Post-Vacation”

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The main three are back at work, but boy are they underequipped for their old routines. Lizard can’t log in, Big Cat has completely forgotten Excel, and Toucan is simply useless. It’s as if the Hawaiian trip caused them to lose their years of corporate knowledge—because tropical retreats are better, so much better…

The trio chalks up their inactivity to jet lag and being old. President Turtle, the oldest of the lot, isn’t buying their crap for a second. He may be elderly, but not so much that he’s forgotten how to kick ass. And that’s exactly what he does to Lizard before forcing Toucan and him to work unpaid overtime. He’s a bastard, folks!

The turtle’s tyranny doesn’t end there because later that day he gets fed up with all the trash in the office and buys a robot vacuum. It doesn’t come out of the custodial budget, though. He docks everybody’s pay in order to own this creepy bug-looking device. It cleans alright, but it also thinks (knows?) Toucan is trash and tries to devour him. Big Cat body-slams and destroys the vacuum out of solidarity, and the turtle demands to be reimbursed.

Now that we’re back to non-linear storytelling, Lizard and Toucan find themselves on a date that the bird set up through his club connections. The first girl, a parakeet, is becoming enough for either suitor, but they’re both slightly repulsed by the giant orangutan woman. Instead of dealing with it like an adult, Toucan uses a Stand borrowed from Dio the vampire to momentarily stop time. Unable to come to a compromise, the gentlemen fake a work emergency and are out of them before the ending of “Last Train Home.”

Next, that dastardly turtle boss decides to throw an annual company sports day. The workers actually enjoy the festivities, marking this one of very few good ideas from the mind of President Turtle. However, it’s not enjoyable enough to sacrifice a vacation day and all the workers demand to be compensated.

The newest employee is a crane from Japan who dresses and behaves like a ninja. His antics are wacky as he camouflages himself around the office and attacks co-workers with his ninja skills. He’s also a super bad influence on Toucan who really gets a kick out of Crane’s misbehaving at work. Next thing you know, Toucan’s sleeping on the job and getting up to all sorts of buffoonery.

The episode ends amidst a late-night round of mandatory overtime. It’s not as bad as you might expect, but Big Cat’s eyes get super large and freaky in the dark. Toucan and Lizard are troubled but are too frightened to say anything.

 

Our Take

Finally, we’re back in the office setting. With that, we’re treated to some nice short vignettes that were lacking in the past few long-form episodes. We got to see Big Cat desperately craving a smoke, and tucking his overheated ass into a laundromat’s washing machine.

The best short, however, had to be when the trio was reminiscing about “working” at McDonald’s. Lizard had the experience you’d expect. He was flipping burgers, running the register, and dealing with difficult customers who demanded bizarre crap like avocado on their burgers. Come on, mate! McDonald’s obviously doesn’t serve anything healthy, even their salads have more calories than a Big Mac! Big Cat, on the other hand, was meant to hunt down the food, but being a pacifist he refused. Not a long tenure for him. And finally, the processors mistook Toucan for a chicken and tried to make him into a box of nuggets. How he escaped wound up on the cutting room floor.

It’s conspiracy time again! For weeks, I’ve had the theory that Lethal Hamster only exists in Toucan’s head. Why? First of all, he’s a sociopath, so why wouldn’t he imagine a sociopathic little buddy? Secondly, he gets extremely bored at work, so he has to dream up this creature to entertain him. Notice how sparse the hamster was in Hawaii when Toucan had something to occupy his time. And finally, Toucan needs a scapegoat, and I can’t think of a better one than a hamster with two sharp knives.

In this episode, it would seem that my theory is false because Lethal Hamster literally stabs Lizard in the head. It’s looking pretty bad, right? No! First off, Lizard was already caught in a trap set by either Toucan or Crane. So he was already injured when Hamster started gouging his brain. The small moans Lizard made while being stabbed didn’t match the fervor in which the hamster had thrust. Therefore, it’s more likely Lizard was reacting to the existing pain in a minor way as opposed to underreacting to such forceful trauma.

We may disagree—and I’m fairly certain most viewers take Lethal Hamster at face value—but I’m certain my theory still has legs.

To be continued.