With two days of long meetings, and forced fraternization, coming to a close, my boss rose from his seat at the table. The waning moments of this business trip, he said, were to be spent talking amongst ourselves, as requested by one of my co-workers. As the door closed behind him, 14 of us looked around the table at each other quizzically. The coworker in question stood up and declared this a time to air our grievances with one another.

In my previous post, I discussed choosing to hide in my room and watch the Kill la Kill OVA instead of making an effort to know my coworkers better. I don’t regret that decision, because it was it’s own relaxing experience, but I cannot wholly defend it as something I should have done. When various coworkers began to stand up one by one and truly express their opinions without corporate sugarcoating, I had an epiphany. After speaking with a few of them following this portion of the business trip, I know many of my peers did as well.

The third episode of Amagi Brilliant Park portrays Seiya Kanie’s first attempt at wrangling the lazy and hapless members of the dilapidated amusement park. His suggestions are all valid from a business sense, but are met with opposition from the existing cast of characters, all of whom are stuck in their respective ruts. In particular, Amagi Brilliant Park’s most well-known mascot Moffle is resistant to every idea that Kanie brings to the table, never making an attempt to understand Kanie’s thought processes.

The two come to an uneasy understanding after Kanie posts a video of Moffle beating up customers that goes viral. With clever editing, Moffle is made to look like the hero in the fight, and the traffic brings viewers to an advertisement for the park itself. When asked how many visitors the videos will bring in, Kanie admits that it will likely be very few, but emphasizes that one more visitor is better than no new visitors.

This marks the beginning of an uneasy truce between the mascot and Kanie. The two may never like each other, but following this episode, they can at least understand where the other is coming from.

When I watched this episode of Amagi Brilliant Park, I was immediately reminded of that business trip roundtable, which quickly devolved into a shouting match, expletives included. We all exited the meeting room knowing that we had all been scared for our jobs this year, that times had been tough for everyone, that we hadn’t meant to ignore one another, that we all had our own fears. I still may not like, or agree, with many of my coworkers, but I can now better understand where they are coming from, and respect them for it.