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Japanese netizens rewrite fairy tales in modern corporate situations so real they make us weep

In this modern age and day, most of us spend our days running the rat race and getting worn down by work and school, which is probably why some of us fantasize about the happy endings of fairy tales to get away from real life for a while. But then reality slaps us in the face and reminds us that the birds and mice aren’t going to help you with your chores even if you can sing like Celine Dion, Prince Charming is not coming to whisk you away from your office desk, and your bills aren’t going to vanish even if you fall into a deep, deep sleep.

If the heroes and heroines in fairy tales existed in modern-day and had to work like the rest of us, would their stories still be filled with all that magical glitz and romance? Perhaps not. Japanese Twitter users have been re-interpreting some fairy tales from a corporate perspective, which was supposed to be a creative and entertaining activity, but the new tales were so close to home they couldn’t even laugh over them.

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Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki comments that the concept of kids maturing through adventures is “a lie”

At an event held to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Japanese author Rieko Nakagawa’s worldwide best seller Guri to Gura (or Guri and Gura in English), friend and fellow artist Hayao Miyazaki has gone on record to say that – unlike in many of the animated features he has created to date – children do not simply head out on adventures and come back smarter and more mature, calling the idea “a lie”.

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