PyPyraXadon
September 24, 2021
Mixed FeelingsWell-written
Ah, capitalism. The main driving force that keeps the world’s engine running as society drives itself into the ground for the sake of making a quick buck at the cost of both its workers who make pitiful wages and the environment who suffers long-term damage as a result of our glorious industrial and globalization age. Too much? Well if this show wasn’t something of a meta-commentary itself, I wouldn’t be making an existential crisis opening paragraph now would I? Story: Kinji Ninomiya is a self-made man who at the ripe age of 25 has managed to create a small real estate empire powerful enough to be self-sustainingand give him the dream that many people who work want to achieve: to not have to work. But because this is an isekai series, a random hole opens up in the ground and he’s unfortunately sucked into a fantasy world where society has moved past medieval adventurers defeating the Dark Lord, and towards a form of modern industrialism where he works as the lowest rung on the ladder in a mining company meant to make quotas for an even larger corporation that fully intends to take over the world through the most effective means we have available: by monopolizing the market and enslaving the population through economic means. Ninomiya’s goal? To reclaim the kind of influence that he had before in this new world and do what the corporations are trying to do before them.
And if that didn’t sell you on the idea that this series is actually a gag isekai that commentates on the social structure of our capitalist society and how it squeezes out every drop of both the lives and wallets of the consuming working class, then I don’t know what else will. Meikyuu Black Company practically only has one theme/joke that it’s going to talk about, and that’s jokes about how everything will always lead back to money and capitalism. And that corporations will exploit you through any means necessary. It’s a very heavy-handed theme and the amount of subtlety this show has about it is about as subtle as the wage disparity between a billionaire CEO and a white collar worker. Which is something you’d think the show gets kind of stale on because the existential dread of a capitalist society can only be told so many times, but surprisingly enough the worldbuilding carries it pretty well. Throughout the twelve episode run, you get to see many different ways corporations fuck people over, whether that be because of debt loans, damage costs, or corporate buyouts, while simultaneously watching Ninomiya attempt to build success up in a similarly cutthroat way with similar yet different tactics that create what we in the market like to call ‘competition’.
Which honestly when it comes to this aspect of the story, is surprisingly well done despite the leaps of logic and numerous timeskips in order to both save time and skip over the boring parts of building infrastructure and connections with other groups or companies. As for the actual story though…that’s where things start to fall apart a little bit.
Because the entire show is built on Ninomiya’s schemes, the show has a pretty cut and dry formula of storytelling where Ninomiya gets an idea, executes on it, and it can either succeed or fail before the next scheme is done. It’s not a very compelling story formula because it gets kind of samey with time, and watching the guy maniacally laugh at his new get rich quick scheme gets dull since it’s happened a multitude of times before. Not only that, but in spite of the worldbuilding being mostly solid on account of the show revealing how different parts of this corporate isekai world functions, it also has a problem with revealing or showing off things and then not really building up on them. Whenever the show skips over infrastructure building in a sometimes mystery amount of time passing, the show the does a coin flip on whether or not Ninomiya wins or loses. In either scenario, a lot of what was built prior just kind of disappears from the series, and it’s not great cause in a way it feels like nothing has consequences and expected consequences like being financially destitute don’t really occur. On top of that, the show kind of switches genre halfway through which, while making sense in context, still feels wonky and not really a great mesh with the rest of the vibe that the show went for.
In the end, Meikyuu Black Company is a mostly repetitive story that’s held together by the societal concept that brings us all together: money. The show honestly doesn’t have that many redeeming qualities beyond just constantly making commentary at how corporations aren’t your friend and that worker exploitation is the norm. But for what it’s worth, the show does that part of the story really, really good. It’s a shame the story doesn’t have much else to offer beyond that, but I guess you gotta stick to your isekai gimmick, eh?
Characters:
Ruthless, cutthroat, narcissistic with just a hint of god/superiority complex. Yep, that’s Ninomiya. I mean that’s just him in a nutshell, and not much really changes in him as a character. Due to a combination of ego and the drive to excel in business, Ninomiya is one of the most active protagonists in an isekai story that I’ve ever seen, and he gets a lot of credit from me for being an active player in the story rather than being given the keys to destiny. His anti-hero like qualities certainly don’t detract from that either as everything he does is selfish to the core with only a few minor stints in compassion and empathy on the rare occasion he tries to help someone other than himself. Unfortunately this all means that he’s quite a shallow character as well. Oddly enough, Ninomiya relies on the rest of the main cast in order to bring him down from his lofty pedestal since he doesn’t have many character qualities aside from being a dickhead fueled by money, power, and spite. He’s interesting sure, but on his own, he’s a roof without any supporting columns.
The two members of his party that I want to focus on are Rim and Wanibe, the two starting characters he gets in the first episode of the show who provide very contrasting parts for his character. Whereas Ninomiya has lofty and eccentric goals, Wanibe is more grounded, desiring only stability and often questions Ninomiya’s character as a result of watching Ninomiya practice his villain laugh on more than a few occasions. He’s a great contrast for his compatriot, and provides a key secondary perspective that the show desperately needs. Rim on the other hand is either a deus ex machina or a handicap depending on the scene context, as she’s not only the dungeon’s strongest monster, but is also gluttonous to the point of actively sabotaging Ninomiya in order to sustain her appetite. There’s a neat bit of character development for her later on in the series, but it’s neither enough to separate her from the ‘hungry child’ trope nor is it enough to develop her in a significantly meaningful way.
Shia and Ranga are the last two additions to the party who really don’t have that much involvement in the series beyond being the token pair of tits and the token surprise that I guess every isekai needs to some extent. Yes there’s some character to them, but the wasted potential that they ended up having feels like the show just wanted to fill up the party but didn’t want to do anything beyond stock tropes in order to save costs and brainpower, so we’re stuck with these two. Shia honestly could’ve been more than she actually ended up being and that’s a shame cause the series ended up both not needing what she was offering as a character and forced the scraps of a romantic subplot on her that really didn’t need to be a thing; stop forcing romantic subplots onto characters that don’t need them.
Side characters are an interesting group, as they consist of corporate overlords, a few dungeon monsters, a few adventurers, a few NPCs, a lot of corporate workers, and whatever the hell that gun is supposed to be. They’re mostly just parts of the worldbuilding, and while yes the antagonistic force is omniprevalent in the series, they’re mostly a passive part of the series until the very last part of the show where they also don’t do anything. Which I guess makes sense since those at the top would do anything to make sure that they don’t need to take an active part of the whole process, i.e. the entire story.
Aesthetics:
Silver Link certainly didn’t…pull their a-game this time, so there’s not really a lot I can really say about how Meikyuu Black Company looks. The action and effects aren’t really the best, and the overall look of the show is, while stylized, not all that impressive to look at. The few upsides I will give the show are in its closeups department because to a certain extent, it feels like you can see every one of Ninomiya’s pores with how often they do closeups of the guy’s face. It’s objectively ugly the way they frame him, and it’s something that helps sell that ‘he’s honestly more of a bad guy’ vibe that he has throughout the whole show.
Aside from that, the show employs a few instances of 3D models, present especially in the dungeon ants, as well as a surprising amount of equal opportunity fanservice given how not are the female characters stripped down to their bare essentials (because I guess that’s a required thing for the plot), Ninomiya and the rest of the guys get the same treatment too. The only real qualm I have about the art is the way the mouths are drawn cause they’re drawn in this downward pointing triangle style that looks a bit awkward and too sharp for my liking. Definitely a stylistic choice (like how they do the hair shine on Shia), but is definitely not one of the more appealing aspects of the art I feel.
HOWL BE QUIET’s “Shimi” is a song that while has a unique hook, isn’t particularly something that I’m too attached to as a song. It certainly has some memorability to it due to its guitar riffs and vocals, but aside from that doesn’t really stand out I feel. Certainly fits for the vibe of the series to a certain extent, and for that I feel like it’s a net positive. On the flipside, Humbreaders’s “World is Mine” isn’t really that interesting to me and just kind of sounds like a generic ending song. A point that’s not helped by the fact that the latter half of the series uses a 3D model of Rim and her sister as dancing models instead of the first half’s stylistic drawing of all of the main party members in a jeep. It’s a downgrade in visuals for sure, and while I don’t think the song is bad, I don’t think it’s memorable enough to get anything more than passing marks.
Final Thoughts:
Given how every isekai these days has to have a gimmick whether or not that be the protagonist being remade into an NPC, the protagonist being reborn as a baby, the protagonist being reborn as a hot spring, or the protagonist bringing his mom to his fantasy world, at some point we were going to reach a breaking point where the protagonist gets brought to a world where the economic system is scarily reminiscent of his own society with all of the practices, malpractices, and customs understood in the market system. Which I guess could be considered a natural evolution, but I feel like that’s more like digimon rules than pokemon rules if we’re arguing semantics.
For what its worth, I found the capitalist side of things a lot funnier than it had any right to be, and the show does not pull any punches in that regard. Every episode partakes in some kind of company malpractice with unionization, competition, and pulling bullshit out of your ass as the main reasons why this plot seems to go somewhere. It’s fun seeing how much the show pokes at our obviously dystopian and economy-fueled society but that’s about as much as the show really offers. In the end, Ninomiya is just the mouthpiece that drives the show forward, and all of his schemes either end up being success stories that don’t really last all that long, or failures that he moves on from with very little consequence. The gimmick/joke of the show is pretty much the main reason to watch the show, and while I don’t see that as a bad thing, there’s not really anything else compelling about the show and I’m a little sad the show is so one-note.
Still, it’s a recommendation if you want to laugh and then have an existential crisis over the state of our society and how it’s really run. I’d file this one as a fun watch/fun experience without expecting too much more out of it aside from that. A bit more than what was presented would be nice, but given the current isekai market and how isekai with gimmicks are a dime a dozen and have a turnover rate substantial enough to make a quick buck time and time again before discarding the old for the new, I think it’s safe to say that we weren’t really gonna be getting anything more than what was shown on the box. Aw well. I wonder if there were any Japanese salarymen who laughed while watching this show before crying in existential dread because of how close it hits to home given their life situation of endless work and labor for a wage. That’d be a nice statistic to see.
