English Dub Review: The Dungeon of Black Company “Fun at the Corporate Training Trip”

Overview

Shia, a modern Hero employed by Raiza‘ha Corporation, locates a Philosopher’s stone in a dungeon and is asked to join Exploration Group 3. On an island containing a corporate training center where Kinji and Wanibe are forced to endure brutal physical exercise, psychological abuse, and magical brainwashing to increase loyalty to Raiza‘ha company. Kinji snaps Wanibe out of being brainwashed and reveals he knew about the brainwashing the whole time and used mind-altering plants to resist and plan his calculated revenge…


Our Take

At this point, Kinji comes across as a likable scoundrel as this whole scenario showed somebody worse than him which I didn’t expect would be an accomplishment. That island’s working conditions were very terrible and weren’t very subtle with its “Corporate Slave” jokes with most of the abusive slave drivers being disgusting Pig-like creatures.

Shia’s introduction was fine I guess, she seems like a cute and interesting character. I like the energy she brings to the already entertaining cast, but she’s barely in this episode until near the end. I hope this changes later on with an episode focused on her if they expect audiences to be emotionally invested in her character.

Overall, this was a decent episode despite the not-so-subtle undertones with its portrayal of corporate slaves, but I hope this isn’t a representation of Japanese society as a whole. While a good portion of the proceedings felt like a re-run of the “brainwashing” subplot from the first episode which hurt the pacing a bit. At the very least, it had a bit of a satisfying end to that particular subplot. And despite the underhanded methods that Kinji used to make Shia part of his team, I’m looking forward to more of her in the future episodes.