Minor Spoiler Ahead (￣ ￣|||)
Note: TLDR at the very bottom.
Story - 8.5
The Isekai genre is overrun with generic fantasy adventure-themed stories but every now and then we got a gem like Meikyuu Black Company.
The story starts with Ninomiya, who is living a comfortable life after managing to become a top brass in our real world got teleported to a fantasy industrial era world and become a corporate slave at a company. Ninomiya after living a comfortable life is not happy with the result and plan to get out of the corporate slave life.
Meikyuu Black Company is an exaggerated satire comedy about corporative culture, corporate slavery, bad working condition, company that treat their workers as just expandable resources, unpaid overtime, etc... Just name any bad thing about corporate life and it is likely to be in there.
The anime uses some business terminology but do not worry, they are mostly surface-level usage which most young adults should be able to understand.
The comedy is really similar to Combat Agent Six or Konosuba with Ninomiya having the same vibe as Combat Agent Six or Kazuma where Ninomiya plays dirty, comes up with really questionable plans, or gets rich quick tactics.
I got a good laugh out of the anime and a lot of things they make jokes about are spot on in corporate life and modern capitalism. The downside would be that the comedy reaches its height pretty fast and just flat out from there. Some jokes and comedy do get repetitive too.
The plot jumps around from time to time. E.g. A new episode story starts in the middle of nowhere and I have to check if I miss anything in the previous episode. Despise this problem, the overarching story is still about Ninomiya trying to get his arse out of corporate hell with his trusted friends.
Character - 6.5
The highlight of Meikyuu Black Company is Ninomiya. The rest of the characters are mostly supporting or plot devices even though they are all likeable. Ninomiya mostly carries this anime. His personality and action are what make this anime better.
Ninomiya is the total opposite of most Isekai main characters. He is selfish, clever, manipulative, satirical, overconfident but also has contracting personalities such as being fair to his friends, being dumb, being thoughtful, and also charismatic.
A lot of comedy happens thanks to him. Throughout the story, he has tried different plans, ventures, and scams to get out of his corporate slavery life along with his friends with varying degrees of success and failure.
As for other characters, we have Wanibe who is a really likeable guy who is loyal to Ninomiya. A loli dungeon boss call Rim who have a bottomless pit in her stomach. A hero name Shia is loyal to the corporate and Renga is a mage from the future but also a trap.
All the characters mentioned are likeable and add to the fun and comedy of the anime but Ninomiya is the one who shines above everyone else.
Art & Animation - 6.5
The character art does look unique with the use of heavy lines and bright colour but I can’t help but find the character art to be sloppy in multiple scenes. There are also a few characters where I find the character's face proportion to be quite weird. One thing the character does excel in is at making funny and exaggerated faces.
I dig the background art though, they look like they are sketched and coloured in and have a good amount of texture detail to them, making the bad living condition of the corporate drone that much believable. (e.g. the building walls are not just single colour perfect-looking walls, they got scratches and stain-like texture on them too)
Animation-wise, it is very average. Some characters' movements in some scenes are not as fluid and the CG are not as good either.
Despite the average art & animation quality, it does manage to set the atmosphere of the anime to be suitable with the theme the story is set to achieve.
Sound - 7
The opening song sound cool and upbeat. The ending song is quite chill and easy going. Both of them sound nice and have a good ring to them. Might be a playlist worthy for some audiences.
The voice acting for Ninomiya is absolutely godlike. The voice is so suitable for his overconfident and scheming personality. All the other cast also have a voice that fits the character's personality.
The background OST suits the theme and helps create the atmosphere of the scene. Some of them sound unique and have a nice ring to them but are the type that will be forgotten you finished watching the anime. Sound effects are also fitting for the scenes and I don't notice any scenes that should have some sound effects but are missing.
TLDR:
A refreshing Isekai anime tackling corporate slavery and modern capitalism in a parody and satirical manner which is bound to give you some good laughs.