'Aggretsuko' – Netflix

Hands up if you hate your job. Look around – you’re not alone. Eighty-five percent of workers worldwide admit to hating their jobs when surveyed anonymously, according to a Gallup poll released last summer. That’s an awful lot of people. But even people with what seems to be the perfect job get totally frazzled sometimes. I’m sure even Cadbury’s chocolate taster, Dublin’s chief kitten cuddler and Chris Pratt’s hot yoga instructor have bad days too. So despite Netflix’s new cartoon Aggretsuko being subtitled Japanese anime, this rage is entirely universal.
Retsuko is an adorable kawaii red panda from the people at Sanrio who most famously brought you Hello Kitty. I kid you not. This fluffy female is far more realistic than any mascot I’ve seen before. She’s really struggling. When she gets her first office job aged 20 she’s filled with joy and purpose, strutting her stuff in corporate Japan. Cut to five long years later and she’s stuck in a thankless job, a slave to the wage. She hates her stupid, lazy, gossipy colleagues, really hates her misogynistic boss Director Ton (literally and figuratively a pig) and I bet she hates herself too, for still being single, and not being the big success she always though she would be. This is the internalised hatred of working women who have been set impossibly high standards by society. Whoah – this shit is deep for a super-cute animated red panda.
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'Somebody Feed Phil' – Netflix

Phil is friendly. Phil is kind. Phil is funny. But those qualities count for very little over at foodie magazine Eater where Somebody Feed Phil, the Netflix travel documentary eating its way around the globe was cruelly slated as “too cute”, “annoying” and having “no discernible point of view”. Conde Nast Traveler is much kinder, praising the positivity and optimism wrapped up in each delicious bite. So, which one is it? Sweet or sour?
This new to Netflix series is fronted by a gangly beaming Phil Rosenthal, a television writer and producer, best known as the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond. He had a similar show called I’ll Have What Phil’s Having on PBS in America, but this is the first time an international audience has seen his culinary adventures.
And what a road trip he’s on. In six hour-long episodes he covers Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon) Bangkok, Tel Aviv, Lisbon, New Orleans and Mexico City. I’m immediately jealous of his experiences and his air miles. He begins in the exotic east, but this isn’t just an American on a gap year, as he’s keen to promote food closer to home too, understanding that not everyone can afford international travel. Each episode also runs the full gamut of food available for the budget conscious backpackers and the money-is-no-object crowd. We seem him try street food out in the road on plastic chairs, befriend old ladies in shopping mall cafes, try all sorts of strange things in cafeterias off the beaten track and other hole-in-the-wall cafes where you’d need a local guide just to find the place.
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'The Lava Field'

This is a super-short Icelandic drama series a friend pointed out to me, and wondered why I hadn’t watched it yet. Fortunately it’s on UK Netflix, and so short you could watch the lot in an afternoon.
Welcome to The Lava Field (the original Icelandic title is Hraunið. In suitable Scandi-noir fashion it grabs the attention straight away with swift shotgun action. This version of the mysterious island is filled with extremely neat well-lit houses, beautiful boxes, like candles against the black bubbly lava field backdrop. The vast majority of the shots are bright and wide; you need to watch it wearing sunglasses. The brightness is throughout – both interiors and exteriors. I suppose Iceland has a complicated relationship with daylight and the sun, in a country where it doesn’t set for four weeks in the summer.
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