"Looking down on the populace is a right only reserved for the victor."
— Kinji Ninomiya
The Dungeon of Black Company is a manga series by Yohei Yasumura that began in 2016. The series is about Kinji Ninomiya, a NEET who managed to work the real-estate market to amass enough money to afford a penthouse lifestyle without ever having to work a regular job. Naturally, this does not last.
His gloating about his lavish lifestyle is cut short when a portal opens up beneath his feet and whisks him away to another world. Shortly afterwards he is forcibly conscripted into working for a mining company extracting crystals from an old dungeon. Pissed-off about his new lot in life and desperate to get back to a life of luxury he end ups conducting dangerous exploration missions in the dungeon to gather more crystals and forms an adventuring party, the titular Black Company.
The manga was adapted into an anime by Silver Link and began airing on July 9, 2021.
This manga provides examples of the following:
- Asshole Victim: Kinji is a Jerkass at the best of times so if anything bad happens to him he usually deserved it like when his co-workers beat the crap out of him for abusing a mind control spell on them.
- Bad Boss: There are several examples in the series, including Kinji. To provide an example of just how bad a boss Kinji is, he finds a magic staff that mind-controls people and the first thing he does is enslave the rest of the work crew and work them almost to death. Though before the staff's powers wore off, he was considering a more stable means of using it without overworking them.
- That said, he is a Benevolent Boss to those who work directly with him.
- Beast Man: About half the crew Kinji ends up on is comprised of people like this, including his right-hand man Wanibe.
- Big Eater: Rim is an adorable dragon girl who is frequently hungry and will eat just about anything.
- Brainwashed: Kinji does this to the rest of his crew. Naturally, once the spell wears off and the magic staff he used to do it breaks, they immediately turn around and beat the crap out of him.
- But Now I Must Go: Hilariously subverted. After taking over as CEO of Raiza'ha, it seemed that Kinji was prepared to return to Japan, given how Wanibe noticed his strange behavior. However, at his going away party, it is revealed that he was actually preparing to go to other countries in the world to take over their dungeons and expand the Black Company's power.
- The Cameo: The commercial for the Dead Cow nutritional drink in Episode 9 has, of all things, Eagle Talon promoting it in their anime style.
- Character Development: Kinji goes from a self-centered Bad Boss to a more altruistic and helpful Benevolent Boss.
- Crazy-Prepared: When Kinji gets arrested, it is soon revealed he left an emergency manual for the Black Company for his inner circle to follow. Not only does it have instructions for them to follow in order to arrange for his freedom, but also the ways in which to get him voted as the CEO of Raiza'ha.
- Cute Monster Girl: There are several examples throughout the series such as Belza and Rim.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Kinji encounters an oddly young priestess named Ranga, while in an alternate future world from the one he was originally transported to. A good grope between the legs has him confirm that Ranga is actually a feminine male, who earned the title because he was the only one in town with magical power.
- Human Resources: One of Kinji's get rich quick schemes involved creating a farm to harvest monster parts without killing them.
- Little Bit Beastly: Multiple examples exist in the series with one of the main ones being Rim, a dragon girl who serves as the Kinji's bodyguard and enforcer under the promise of food.
- Magitek: The fantasy world Kinji ended up in has undergone an industrial revolution and needs magic crystals to power some of its more advanced technology. Hence why they are mining old dungeons.
- Manipulative Bitch: Playing on her "Well Done, Son" Guy issues, Belza is able to convince Shia to testify against Kinji in order to get him arrested.
- Maou the Demon King: Majin the Demon Lord, who is Rim’s twin sister. It is also revealed that she's the one who summoned Kinji from Japan.
- MegaCorp: Kinji ends up working for one after he gets dumped in his new world called the Raiza'ha Mining Corporation. It has a capital of 1.3 billion gold and over 30,000 employees and is centered around the industrialization of demonite crystals including the logistics, sales, research, development of said crystals in addition to the exploration and mining of demonite-rich dungeons.
- In Episode 11, Kinji creates his own company that utterly destroys the Raiza'ha Mining Corporation in a little over three months.
- NEET: Kinji, the story opens up about him bragging about managing to find a way to avoid becoming another office drone. He takes advantage of the international stock market and real estate and easily made enough cash for his own high-rise apartment. When he loses everything after being transported to another world and forced into menial labor, he spends most of the story finding a way to escape and return to this lifestyle.
- No OSHA Compliance: The Raiza'ha Mining Corporation is not very concerned with the safety of its employees and will happily sacrifice them in the name of profit. Kinji is even less concerned with the well-being of the workers he is put in charge of. At first.
- 12-Episode Anime: The anime adaptation ran for 12 episodes during the Summer of 2021.
- Trapped in Another World: Kinji getting yanked out of present-day Earth to his new fantasy realm kicks off the story. It later happens to him again when he gets yanked into a Bad Future version of the world.
