Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!
Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!

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I picked it up after watching the anime and I was surprised at how funny this is even knowing what's going to happen. I won't take your time to explain what this story is about as i'm sure you already know the anime or you can read about this anywhere else.

So if you are wondering if you should read this I would say absolutely go for it. The writing is lighthearted and funny, and, what surprised me the most, it keeps pace and originality the whole way through.

There has not been a single chapter that bored me. I remember at some point probably around vol ... 5 or so I was laughing my ass off and thinking "ok now this will get repetitive and jokes will start to get old" because I just couldn't fathom how the author could keep up with ideas coming. And boy was I wrong. Then the castle arc started and I was mindblown. The tricks the characters use, the ways they blow through obstacles and the crazy situations they get themselves in. It's just absolutely brilliant.

Sure there is not some deep plot twists or big romance dramas or meaningful philosophy. It's just pure genius, absurd fun, and pure adventure. And everything is written and developed perfectly from start to finish.

This is peak D&Desque adventure comedy 10/10

A very solid story that will make you laugh and entertain but not much more.

Konosuba is, for the most part, a very well written comedy. It does not take itself seriously in the slightest which allows itself to put it's funniest characters in any situation imaginable. The comedy itself does not stand alone however, there are plenty of bits of world building, character progression arcs. What jokes could become mundane in a lesser work are exponentially better because of the tight character writing, any old joke is naturally phased out with an in universe explanation, the relationships of the characters change so the jokes. ... No core jokes or any writing trope used gets old.
Rhe cast is very likeable, the volume to volume plot is mostly just placing the already good cast in a whacky place. Side characters introduced all have a purpose and are rarely if ever forgot about.
With all that being said you won't get much more out of it. You'll laugh, but there are no real deeper meanings in it, it was written to entice in the short term, not to develop a long-standing plot. Meaning once you have finished you're not really left with anything other than thinking " that was fun, next!" Almost zero point in re-reading it. I enjoyed my time reading, but gun to my head I could not recall much of anything in the big picture. No settings, nor major plots, no major villains. They feel well written enough in it's volume but once you look back you cannot describe those environments at all. It is a popcorn action flick, the ride is wild at all times then it is over. Overall I would like to be left with at least something more than " that was good" Konosuba just never seemed to go beyond that.
I would recommend reading this.

KonoSuba is a perfect case of the writer trying to have her cake and eat it too.


The initial volumes seem to be a parody of the many fantasy settings and harems found in other LNs. And it was done pretty well. The protagonist and his companions each had a distinct personality, and the hijinks they got up to could be pretty funny, even though I think their full effect is felt much better through animation.


However, in the later volumes, the novel falls prey to the tropes and cliches it was initially parodying. That too in a pretty blatant way, though the serial nature of the ... novel might be to blame for that.


For example, at the end of one of the volumes, one of the female characters comes up to the main character Kazuma, and tells him she wants to have his kids. Now, this is pretty clearly a 'tease', a hook to get the reader to buy the next volume.


It reads like the author knows exactly what she is doing, and is making use of it to get more male readers. There are three types of stories: stories the author thinks would be good and able to stand on their own (see: Les Miserables), stories the author writes as a form of wish fulfillment for themselves (see: Mikael Blomkovist in the Millennium trilogy), and stories the author writes as a form of wish fulfillment for the readers (see: 50 shades of Grey). Most stories are a combination of these three (as are the aforementioned books). KonoSuba is clearly leaning towards the third one, and I think that is a shame. It cannot really effectively parody what it itself has become.


Still, it has its moments I suppose. Don't let this review dissuade you from reading it, just know what you're getting into, and don't set your expectations too high. Nothing wrong with waiting for the upcoming anime, having read the LN and having watched the season already out, I have to say the anime is better, or rather, Konosuba's premise, characters and jokes transfer over to anime much better.