English Dub Review: The Dungeon of Black Company “An Un-ANT-icipated Encounter”

Overview

Kinji and Wanibe are transferred to a dangerous exploration team. Wanibe is injured so Kinji is forced to do his share of the work while also having his pay reduced. This leaves him with no money as he must still feed Remu. A swarm of monster ants overruns the mine and to survive, Kinji uses a transformation potion to turn himself, an elite warrior, and an equipment manager into ants but ends up trapped when their boss seals the mine.

Kinji realizes while transformed he can understand the ant’s language and introduces the concept of workers’ rights to the worker ants, forming a union to demand the Ant Queen treat them better. It is revealed the Ant Queen decided to expand her colony into the mine after a substantial change Kinji previously made within the Dungeon itself…



Our Take

This episode was much better than the first one, but not quite as perfect. It was more than just about Kinji though. At most, it took such an uncomfortably weird direction that felt like far-right propaganda, which is a bizarre position to find yourself in as you’re complaining about being exploited slave labor. It seems to really want to capture the work environment and world-building of this show yet the use of modern industrial Architecture in this fantasy universe really confuses me a bit.

Around 10 minutes into the episode, it was obvious that forming a “union” within the ant colony was going to be the running ‘gag’ of the episode’s duration, all the while waiting for a punchline that simply literally never comes. Is that supposed to be the joke? That we reach the end of things and then a not-so-subtle form of plot convenience literally drops on their proverbial laps? It’s weak as far as jokes go, but not unusual… except that it’s essentially the only joke for easily half the episode.

Overall the dynamic of this show is oddly all over the place with its tonal shift or whatever anti-corporate message it’s trying to convey but this could attribute to the fact that this isn’t your by-the-numbers normal Isekai, which is the only appealing thing this show has going for it to make sense of its wackiness. If Kinji wasn’t already a multimillionaire in our world with those skills and scheming/cunning nature I would say he would become one easily…