Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!: Kurenai Densetsu Episode 1 Discussion

With this movie, I hope more people realize that Konosuba was never intended as a parody of the genre in the first place — and if it was, it dropped any such pretension by the second season. Self-awareness doesn't necessarily means parody. This is the point where the story definitely breaks with the sheer lunacy of the first ~three novels and assumes a far more standard progression. As far as it is capable of, at least.

Still, that so many people see the franchise as a parody tells a lot about the genre. The only isekai that everyone agrees it's good is the one that doesn't really take itself seriously.

@Satyr_icon do define the differences between parody and being 'self aware' in Konosuba's context if you're willing to set the distinction

@GreatAide Konosuba is pretty self-aware in the sense that it pokes fun on a few aspects of the isekai genre and doesn't take itself too seriously, and even real life itself (like religion) but it doesn't really do that much to set it apart from other works.

Like, how is it different from other isekai?
-The main characters seems useless at first, but they're in fact just specialised and broken like in any other isekai.
-There's a lot of comedy, but JRPGs from where isekai take their inspiration have never been strangers to comedy and goofy moments involving their otherwise stoic and heroic characters.
-The story? Is just another typical isekai, zero to hero, defeat the demon king story, just imitating it doesn't make it a parody since that's a trope and not specific of any work.
-Fanservice? A lot, and while Kazuma doesn't have every female character fawning over him like in other works, he's still constantly surrounded by women. There's even a pretty normal romance arc later in the story.

It's made to not be taken as seriously, but it's still as isekai as isekai goes. And the two books that take place after the movie, which is where I stopped reading at the time, just do more and more to cement that.

I changed my mind a bit since writing that, I can see why people see it as a parody, but I still don't think Konosuba parodic elements are as strong as people make them out to be. It's not as bad as the slime isekai, but it's nothing like One Punch Man. I think Isekai Ojisan did a much better job at being a parody of the isekai genre. I see Konosuba more as a comedy than really a parody.

It's like Monogatari, which claims to be very self-aware about its harem tropes but doesn't really do much to subvert them. A lot of people claim Monogatari can't be a harem because Araragi gets a girlfriend from the get-go, but it doesn't matter because he still flirts with every single female in the show, even his sisters. It's like tht with Konosuba.

@Satyr_icon

i see i see. I'm definitely on the same page with you on that Konosuba is 100% an isekai anime, and one that definitely self-serves itself with isekai anime's most common tropes. It doesn't exactly outline any kind of underlying theme or satirically delivered message, and it's trashily absurd for the sake of being trashily absurd (which as far as I'm concerned makes it entertaining)

I guess I'm wondering if Konosuba should be disqualified from the 'parody' label because it doesn't have a more encompassing deconstructive/subversive approach to its genre. If I go off of a Google-search's definition of the word 'parody', a parody just entails "an imitation of the style of a...genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect". Is Konosuba not enough of a imitation to be considered a parody? Or maybe we can rank all works on a 'parody' spectrum, and some anime (like OPM, as you've said) might be more of a parody of their respective genres than others.



who in hell