Welcome to the Black Magic Company, Franz!
"You see, black magic revolves around the concept of sacrifice. Black magic is the type of magic that's accompanied by pain. A black mage that's indifferent to this pain will surely meet their ruin. At the same time, companies that ignore the suffering of their employees will surely be crushed. Without a doubt they will perish."
— President Cercer
Franz is a young mage graduating magic school. He is a prodigy, combining natural talent with a drive to excel, good study habits, and diligent practice. Unfortunately, he immediately seizes up around people, so he flunks every job interview and is passed over dozens of times in favor of less talented applicants. Not a single white magic company will take him.
He has no choice but to turn to black magic, the dangerous and disgusting other side of the magic world. However, the first company he applies to turns out to be surprisingly respectful—black magic has such a terrible reputation that they can't afford to be exclusionary and exploitative like the white magic companies. Not only do they quickly see past his poor interview skills to the genius within, but he starts with a generous salary, training, and benefits. He is treated as a human being with a valued skillset, rather than another cog in the machine.
Also, he summons a succubus to be his familiar/girlfriend, so that's nice.
The Perks of Working in the Black Magic Industry is a calm, relaxed story about corporate culture and workers' rights, which just so happens to take place in a fantasy world where magic is a standardized industry. The manga is written by Kisetsu Morita and illustrated by Kouki Izumi, and it began serialization in Manga Up! in 2017. Its full title in Japanese is Wakamono no Kuro Mahoubanare ga Shinkoku desu ga, Shuushoku shite Mitara Taiguu Iishi, Shachou mo Tsukaima mo Kawaikute Saikou desu!, which translates to "Though Young People Recoil from Entering the Black Magic Industry, I Found Its Treatment of Employees Quite Good When I Entered It, and the President and Familiar are Cute too so Everything is Awesome!"
Associated Tropes:
- Abusive Workplace: White magic companies are run in an extremely unethical manner, with the management being abusive and corrupt, workers being forced to work overtime, unpaid, disciplined for calling in sick, and even sued if they quit.
- An Aesop: Many characters, especially Cercer, president of Necrogrant Black Magic Company, repeatedly hammer in how bad it is to have oppressive worker policies, and a business model that works its employees to death in return for some short-term gain in self-proclaimed "customer service" or "the betterment of the company."
- All Women Are Lustful: Franz's female co-workers come onto him, not the other way around, and he's often left stunned as to why they want sex with him so much.
- Artistic License – Economics: Zigzagged. Chapter 21 has a social-welfare reformer raise taxes, which somehow triggers deflation and sends the cost of goods through the floor, but on the back end goes Reality Is Unrealistic when showing that raising taxes doesn't always guarantee a rise in revenue.
- Back from the Brink: Technically, Necrogrant Black Magic Company went over the cliff some time ago, and is hanging on to life by a rope, hence the desperate need for new talent. Under Cercer's management, Necrogrant is making a comeback, slowly, but surely.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Might as well be the motto of Necrogrant Black Magic Company, since most of its employees are sweet and helpful people, but are also very skilled at what they do, so if they find out you're either a corrupt or unethical business, or a conman taking advantage of others, you're in for either a beating or a Mind Rape.
- Black Comedy Rape:
- Though it's off-screen. Franz shows up for his graduation ceremony, recently hired by Necrogrant with Serlia as his familiar. Already treated dismissively by his class for months, they are even more obnoxious in response to hearing he got a job offer, at all. After Serlia verbally roasts them by showing that his job is vastly better than theirs, Drok shows up, accuses them both of lying, and demands a duel. End result: Serlia summons a Lovecraftian horror "that which can not be named", after which the manga pulls away to the outside of the duel arena, tentacles swarming out over the rim, and by the time the camera comes back to the scene, all the obnoxious students are on the ground, in various states of undress, and there's slimy liquid everywhere. It's hilarious, and Serlia's "My God, What Have I Done?" face, when she realizes she went overboard in protecting Franz and her honor, completely sells it.
- An evil white mage and his employer are soundly defeated and sent to prison together. The evil white mage is completely fine with this, because as a Depraved Bisexual, his employer is also "his type". The scene changes as the employer starts screaming.
- Crazy Enough to Work: Franz manages to discourage Crunia from drowning herself in the swamp by jumping in himself. Death by drowning is actually one of the most painful and drawn out ways you could die and the terror of watching someone else just trying to struggle to stay afloat terrifies Crunia from the idea enough for Franz to talk her out of it.
- Dark Is Not Evil:
- Lacking prospects and needing a job, Franz signs on to a black-magic company. To date, it's the friendliest and most ethical working environment in the whole series: Franz's wages are double what they would be in a white magic job, work is safe and steady, there's no mandatory overtime, management (i.e, Cercer) is nothing but supportive, and his co-workers tend to be attractive women.
- Details regarding the setting's magic system itself are sparse, but there is a recurring trend of black magic requiring something from the caster. Franz's first thoughts gravitate toward human sacrifice, but what's been depicted on-panel for modern black magic does not go anywhere near that far. note
- Did Not Think This Through: Whoever published the most recent edition of "Fundamentals of Black Magic" made it too user-friendly. Not only is it written like a child's picture book, with very easy to understand illustrations that even a small child can grasp, but one of the very first spells covered is how to summon Satan! or his adorable little sister known as "Indescribable Nightmare Ancestor"! Along with the words "Do it! Now's your chance!" Of course, Franz follows the instructions, and FLASH, there she is.
- Everybody Has Lots of Sex: You better believe it!
- Exact Words: The contents of Nightmare Marey's summoning contract require her to destroy something. When Franz accidentally summons her and has nothing in mind to destroy, she agrees to help him look for something to fulfill the contract. While looking however, they find that there's an epidemic of overworked workers, including Crunia, who nearly got worked to death by her new job. Outraged by this, Franz angrily declares that such companies should be "destroyed". Marey is happy to oblige by helping Necrogrant expose the corrupt companies to the public and proper authorities.
- Faceless Mooks: In general, when there are antagonistic groups, like bandits or corrupt managers, they are illustrated either wearing masks or as literally faceless individuals.
- Fanservice: Franz's first familiar and coworker is a succubus, and it gets raunchier from there.
- Hellhound: Cercer is a cerberus, though this just means she looks like a cute girl with canine ears and tail.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Black Magic has a very bad reputation, in large part because white magic slanders it. As can quickly be seen, Necrogrant Black Magic Company is, by far, the friendlier and more ethical place to work, not to mention having the most perks.
- Hot in Human Form: Mortley Orqueste V, The Owl-Knowing One familiar of Farfistanya, turns out to be capable of turning into a smoking hot woman if she wants to.
- Idol Singer: In chapter 28, Lydia decides to do some self-discovery, with her settling on being an idol after getting scouted. She doesn't actually succeed in the chapter due to the people that scouted her only doing so in order to attempt a Casting Couch situation. However, while the fact she was only scouted in an attempt to molest her made her disheartened, she doesn't let that discourage her from trying to legitimately become an idol anyway.
- Inherent in the System: At Thief's Bridge Street, the underworld has integrated itself into society so thoroughly that for all intents and purposes, they have usurped the government in that region. Because they've inserted themselves into every strategic point, getting rid of them would cause the area to economically collapse, only for another gang to eventually takeover the power vacuum.
- Inhumanable Alien Rights: The setting has many fantasy races who are treated as people, but the undead are an exception. This allows the necromancer Vanita to use undead as slave labor. Eventually, the law is changed and Vanita does a Heel–Face Turn, employing the undead honestly.
- Light Is Good: While the practitioners of light magic themselves are usually rather corrupt and unethical, light magic itself is fully good, with any attempt to directly use it for evil purposes backfiring on the user, as shown when a light-magic user in Ch.28 attempted to bind some demons in order to molest them.
- Light Is Not Good: As can be inferred from chapter 1 onward, white magic companies are run in an extremely unethical manner, with the management being abusive and corrupt, workers being forced to work overtime, unpaid, disciplined for calling in sick, and even sued if they quit. Despite this being highly illegal, the workers in question are so ground down, they don't have the energy or desire to sue for their rights. Franz has to call upon supernatural aid to make this stop.
- Loophole Abuse: The arc starting from Chapter 26 deals with a black mage named Vanita Zeal using necromancy as a cost-free source of labor for mass-production of cheap items, with her using purple magic to keep them from mentally defying her, the fact the undead don't have rights and making sure to take the corpses from unmarked graves with unknown families, allowing her to legally get away with it despite the moral bankruptcy. The arc is resolved by way of Franz and Co. using their own Loophole Abuse, with the initial plan being to get one of the zombies to admit their abusive treatment, while the actual way they succeed is by Cercer simply releasing the zombies from their various bindings, allowing them to retaliate against Vanita and free themselves.
- No Antagonist: The story's conflict comes from Franz trying to find his niche in life, and doing well at his job, not from Franz fighting enemies or scoundrels, for the most part. The closest it comes to having major antagonists is an occasional Arc Villain, but those only show up and are dealt with in their specific arcs, with there being no overall Big Bad, or even a Greater-Scope Villain, with the only thing that comes close to counting as such being the overarching reality of corrupt businesses.
- Oddly Small Organization: Necrogrant Black Magic Company has less than three-dozen employees in total. Cercer admits that black magic as a whole is in something of a sunset period.
- Officially Shortened Title: Not even taking into account the size of the Japanese title, the English translation for the name is a full 34 words in length. The official English release shortened the title to The Perks of Working in the Black Magic Industry.
- Porn with Plot: The artist and author go out of their way to give Franz every excuse possible to have sex with his very attractive female co-workers, starting with the fact that Franz' first familiar and co-worker is a succubus that really loves her job, but the story is engaging and heartwarming with a solid premise, pointing out the many, many flaws in Japan's workaholic culture, and the fact schools pointedly do not teach the basics one needs to successfully pass an interview; thus, many talented individuals fall by the wayside, while Professional Butt-Kisser applicants, who are much less qualified, wind up getting the desired job.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The black-magic company Franz works for does things totally backwards. They hire people and then try to find them a fitting job. Surprisingly, this actually works out pretty damn well.
- Samus Is a Girl: Farfistanya's owl familiar, Mortley Orqueste the Fifth turns out to be female when she shows off her human form while on a hot spring to Franz.
- Sex Is Good: All the onscreen sex is wholesome, heartwarming, healthy, happy, and completely adorable.
- Smite Evil: The Holy Blast spell, as the incantation for it states, is meant to "bring down the hammer on evil". When Franz ends up in a Beam-O-War with this spell against an evil white mage, it seems that Franz, who, while talented in magic in general, only dabbles in white magic, will be overpowered by the more experienced white mage, only for the latter's spell to rebound on him once he makes his evil intentions clear.
- Succubi and Incubi: Serlia and the other succubi, and also the incubi.
- Sugar Bowl: Life is actually pretty sweet in this story. Though serious subjects like suicide are covered, that tends to be rare.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Despite the fact they're all just as intelligent as when they were alive, the undead don't have legal rights, since the law counts them as just as dead as the corpses they used to be.
- World of Technicolor Hair: Unsurprisingly for a fantasy world, many characters have bright hair colors without anyone bringing it up.
- Yin-Yang Bomb: Black magic usually requires a sacrifice to pay for the spell. A common way to pay the price is by offering up the lives of animals. One of the company researchers, Gudamal, has been searching for a workaround. Franz suggests using white magic as the substitute. After creating a magic circle combining the two arts, the project finally succeeds.
