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For five months in 2016, I had an office job, and though I felt little of the kind of simmering negativity or existential dread one often sees in pop culture portrayals toward it while I was in it, in retrospect I can plainly see it was one of the worst jobs I ever had. I didn’t fully comprehend what I was doing or accomplishing, no one had time to break it down for me in a way that made sense to me, and I never figured out how to navigate the murky waters of office politics. Getting let go a week after Christmas turned out to be a huge relief, even as it meant job hunting again. I worked at Target for eight years prior to the office gig, and I would gladly return to retail at the drop of a hat before I tried to figure out office dynamics ever again.

Even at awful jobs, I’ve rarely been able to muster up true anger, and when I did, it didn’t look anything like Aggretsuko. Basically, Aggretsuko is to death metal as Office Space was to hip-hop. During the day, Retsuko the red panda works in the accounting department at a trading firm, and at night she goes to a karaoke bar and vents her rage about her awful boss by screaming death metal into a microphone. Most anime I find to be “anime funny”; Aggretsuko is “funny funny”, and it’s got a really strong female empowerment arc to boot. At ten episodes of 15 minutes apiece, it’s an easy binge, and a worthwhile one.

Swedish meatballs evidently aren’t as Swedish as we all thought. Fine by me: I’m all for proper attribution, and if Sweden’s social media intern can cop to a centuries-old act of cultural appropriation, I don’t think it should be too hard for the rest of us. However, some folks aren’t taking it so well.

https://twitter.com/CONNORisSWEET/status/993491741373272064

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