Reviews

Mar 16, 2016
Maz
"I'm an advocate of true gender equality, a guy who has no problem with doling out a drop kick to a female opponent. Don't think I'll go easy on you!" -Kazuma Satou

Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! KonoSuba. God's Blessing On This Wonderful World. An anime that has taken so many people by surprise, at how tear-inducingly hilarious and amazing this turned out to be. After an insipid and uninspired first episode, I was not the least bit interested in this. I had thought this was going to turn out to be just another one of those generic fantasy series that comes out every season, with no particular defining quality or trait. Just another one of those anime whose only remotely memorable feature was the length of the name - and it isn't even that long by LN standards. Nothing interesting at all.

Boy, I've never been so wrong. I'm so glad I don't drop things after a single episode, because I would have missed out on the absolute gem that KonoSuba turned out to be. The second episode took me completely by surprise. By the time it finished, I found myself questioning whether this was the same anime whose first episode I had watched a week prior. The hilarity came out of nowhere. The last thing I was expecting was for a single episode to completely revert my initially negative impression.

But anyway, enough with my monologuing. KonoSuba's premise is a simple one - after a very eccentric and ridiculous death, Kazuma Satou finds himself before the self-proclaimed Goddess Aqua, with the option to pass on to the afterlife, or be reborn into a new world where his mission would be to defeat Demon King in order to return back to his old life. He's also given one wish to be granted by Aqua in order to aid him in his endeavours.
This is where we begin to see the way in which KonoSuba breaks away from the mould. Kazuma's brilliant idea is to wish for the Goddess Aqua herself to accompany him - why stick to a singular wish, when he could simply take the wish-granter herself along with hiim? This more practical manner of thinking begets hilarity after hilarity as the anime goes on.

The story is a simple one. Defeat the Demon King, and go home. That's it. There's no grand, overlying scheme; no complex themes one has to scrutinise in detail in order to understand what's going on; nothing more than the simple premise for which everything takes place. This works in the anime's favour, because having such a loose goal means they can pretty much do anything they want inbetween, so long as it in some way takes them even a little closer towards the ultimate defeat of the Demon King.
As the episodes go by, more characters are gradually introduced. In order to kill the Demon King, Kazuma and Aqua need a stronger and bigger party. This leads to them encountering Megumin and Darkness. From here on out, their adventurers and encounters are nothing short of zany, bizarre and ridiculous. Aqua the Goddess, Megumin the ArchWizard and Darkness the Crusader - all of these are exceptional people, holding classes and abilities which the common person could only dream of having. But despite their apparent prowess, it would not be possible to have a more dysfunctional party.

Characters.
It is these characters and their interactions which make this such an amazing comedy. Kazuma is the glue that holds everything together. It is his cynical, practical and down-to-earth mentality that acts as the wall to the antics of the rest of his party. Without him, they would all fall apart; if not for him then achieving anything would be impossible thanks to their ridiculous flaws and inability to do anything without hazard. His reactions to all the misfortunes that befall him thanks to them never fail to entertain.

Aqua possesses no qualities one would expect of a Goddess. She is selfish. She is greedy. She's a gold-digger. She is lazy. She is demanding. Her first concern is herself; she has no other concerns. She can use a few anti-Undead spells, but is otherwise nearly useless in combat. She also has a knack of making everything worse, causing unnecessary damage and shifting all of the debt she incurs onto Kazuma.
Megumin suffers from a mild dose of chuunibyou, and excels in one partcular magic - explosions. She lives and breathes for them. She knows no other magic, as she does not believe any other magic to be needed. So long as she can blow something up, nothing else matters. This sounds good on paper, but she's only capable of casting one explosion before fainting from exhaustion.
Darkness is the Crusader - the beefy tank that takes the enemies' attention and soaks up the damage. She wields a massive sword capable of cleaving men in two... That is, assuming she can hit them. Her accuracy is shoddy if one were to describe it generously. Furthermore, she's a hardcore masochist. She loves being abused. Being pinned down and attacked - be it by friend or foe - is her creme de la creme.

When it comes to taking on quests, the 3 main girls are nothing short of useless - a fact Kazuma never fails to mention. His comments, interjections and general abuse hit them all right where it hurts. He never fails to remind Aqua she's a useless Goddess. He desperately tries to encourage Megumin to learn other magic. He's genuinely disturbed by Darkness' fetish. These problem-riddled girls provide an endless well of entertainment as Kazuma tries his utmost to simply get by each day without falling into debt and despair.

Art & Animation.
The art and animation is the worst aspect of this series. The art is quite plain and sometimes off. The eyes of the character seem a little too spaced apart. Whilst not being bad, the art really could do with some improvement. The animation is occasionally wonky, too. This was especially prevalent in one particular episode where boob-physics were quite...Fascinating, shall we say.
However, this was never able to detract from my enjoyment because I was too busy wiping the tears induced from laughing out of my eyes to care about the art. I'll also point out that Megumin's explosion sequence in particular actually looked really good. It is apparent a lot of effort was put into that; considering how frequently we saw her explosions this was a massive boon.

Conclusion.
KonoSuba - God's Blessing On This Wonderful World - was most certainly a blessing. This subverted every single opinion and impression I initially had. It very quickly - nay, INSTANTLY - rose to the position of my favourite anime from the Winter 2016 season. This is hands down one of the funniest anime I've ever had the fortune of watching. Kazuma is one of those rare male MCs who actually manages to steal the spotlight from his harem. His reactions, his methods of coping, everything he does makes this anime better. Without him acting as the sole voice of reason, those girls would have destroyed themselves. The contrast between his rationality and their insanity made for never-ending hilarity.

Should you watch this? Abso-fucking-lutely! Comedy is entirely subjective. Not everyone will like it; that's only natural. But give this 3-4 episodes before deciding. Wait until all the characters are introduced, because they all bring a different dynamic to the table. Their sole similarity is their uselessness. If you still find yourself unamused, then that's a shame. But otherwise, you're in for one Hell of a ride.
The one and only problem with KonoSuba is that it's only 10 episodes long. Aside from this crime against humanity? KonoSuba has ran away with my expectations. I loved it. Hopefully you will too.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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