Merry Month of Manga: THE DUNGEON OF BLACK COMPANY

 Today's review exists because someone said "you know what a dungeon-crawling fantasy needs?  CAPITALISM!"

THE DUNGEON OF BLACK COMPANY (Meikyu Black Company), by Youhei Yasumura.  First published in 2016 and first published in 2018.

PLOT:

After years of investing in stocks and real estate, Kinji was ready to rake in his fortune and lead a solitary yet hedonistic life.  Then a portal drops him into another world full of demihumans, and after a scam gone awry Kinji finds himself massively in debt to a mining conglomerate powered by slave labor.  Determined to rebuild his life, Kinji is willing to do anything to make money and get ahead, even if that means finding hidden portals, taking a dragon as a companion, or convincing a horde of giant ants to go on strike.

STORY:

I can see what The Dungeon of Black Company is trying to do.  It's right there in the name - it's mean to be a critique of corporate culture in general and black companies in particular, a system where common workers are worked to death (figuratively and literally) for the sake of profit.  Tying that to a dungeon-crawling fantasy makes a lot of sense and lets Yasamura get away with some savage satire of corporate doublespeak.  There's just one problem: I can't fucking stand Kinji.

Right from the start, Kinji makes a bad impression.  You know he's an asshole when you learn that he made his money as a landlord and through stocks, mocking other people going to work from the window of his penthhouse.  It's hard not to see his situation as cosmic justice for his previous life of sloth and avarice, especially when his complaints are less about the system and more about him being forced to work like a plebian.  It's not helped by the fact that he spends roughly 2/3rds of the volume exploiting others at any given opportunity.

It's only towards the end of the volume that he demonstrates something other than selfishness and greed.  He takes his limited resources, his intelligence, his simmering rage at the corporate system, and his silver tongue to do something clever and dismantle an exploitative system.  After all, true justice isn't just mocking your oppressors or exploiting them for your own gain, but destroying the systems they use to oppress others.

ART:

Yasamura's art is a little more mature than I'm using to seeing in these sorts of titles.  It's not just that the character look older than average (save for the human form of the dragon...more on that later), it's that the art is a little more refined and polished.  There are actual backgrounds, some decent shadows, and he gets lots of use out of Kinji's awkward grimaces and smug grins.

If there's a failing, it's that even in a series that doesn't revolve around a harem (at least so far) there's still some needless fanservice.  There are maybe half a dozen female characters in the entire book, but they all have skintight costumes.  Even their bodies seem ready to burst through the frame.  The exception is the dragon girl Kinji takes in.  Her human form is that of a young girl, one who is usually nude save for a few conveniently placed scales.  Sometimes I truly wish that modern fantasy mangaka had the courage to let their stories stand on their own without sex appeal, especially ones like this that aren't based on a light novel.

RATING:

The Dungeon of Black Company has a great conceit, but how much you enjoy this will depend on your tolerance for Kinji.  Maybe he'll get better in later volumes, but he was so obnoxious here that I had no desire to find out if that was so.

This series is published by Seven Seas.  This series is ongoing in Japan with 6 volumes available.  5 volumes have been published and are currently in print.