「社畜の世界へようこそ」 (Shachiku no Sekai e Youkoso)
“Welcome to the World of Corporate Slaves”

With summer now fully in swing it’s time to get down and dirty into this season’s main anime offerings – and what better way than literally going for broke with Meikyuu Black Company? Sure it’s yet another isekai that leans hard into alternate world parody, but given what’s currently on display I think I can overlook such minor details.

Much as delved into with the RC Preview, Meikyuu is effectively this season’s isekai parody. Main man Kinji (Konishi Katsuyuki) is a professed NEET wholly obsessed with never working, but naturally gets sent to fantasyland central because reasons. Of course everything is not as it seems there, with Meikyuu’s twist being Kinji falling into the grasp of a shady mining corporation whose sole purpose is working its employees to death in search of ever greater profits. Yeah, probably a little too on the nose if we’re being honest (black companies have really started dominating isekai premises of late), but no denying the uniqueness factor at play. Won’t have to worry about saving the world here when it’s all about Kinji first saving himself.

Outside of premise shenanigans, where things pick up is in terms of characters. Right now there’s not too much to say: Kinji perfectly pulls off the opportunistic sloth who’ll go to any lengths to get ahead while his unwilling compatriot Wanibe (Shimono Hiro) plays the straight man who gets the short end of the stick (tail?) far more than he probably deserves. Tack on dragon acquisition Rimu (Kuno Misaki) who’s solely concerned will filling her tummy on demand and I have to admit I laughed more than I expected to. There’s a lot of good potential chemistry to be had with this cast (particularly when factoring in the pervasive corporate aesthetic), and while it remains to be seen how well the actual story will play out, I don’t think it’s a stretch to expect plenty of raucous hilarity and even more ridiculous developments as things progress.

Although unlikely Meikyuu Black Company will be topping the anime charts this season, you definitely won’t have to look further than this for a good bit of summer alternate world comedy.

9 Comments

    1. To be fair after initial premise it’s not really going to be following the isekai script. This one will be slapstick comedy through and through, it’s just a question of how well it performs with that.

  1. So…was the intention to make the main character as unlikable as possible? If so, they did their job…way too well. I hate this guy. I hated every second of this. Next

    hjerry
    1. Yeah, you’re not alone in that feeling. I was actually hoping he’d
      get eaten in the end, but no such luck…

      I’ll give it the 3-episode rule treatment, but my expectations are
      really, really low…

      mac65
  2. Pretty damn funny first episode, looking forward to the next one.
    Kinji is so full of himself, but at the end he got punished for it. And just look at Rimu’s emotionless expression. That blu-ray tease though, but I figure that there’s probably nothing to see.

    boingman

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