Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!

The best way to describe Konosuba is one trick pony. If the comedy doesn't do it for you, you will probably hate this show. Now occasionally it was funny, but the repetitive nature of Konosuba will wear you down and it's not like anything about the humor changes, just the situation. Admittedly, it was only funny during certain situations which is a problem for Konosuba stemming from it's foundation. Without anything to build on, the show can appear bland at times without the comedy. Unfortunately, there’s no backbone to the story. The show takes an episodic approach for a simple underlying theme of friendship andwackiness. Now Konosuba has some charm to it, each character meshes and the setting is somewhat diverse, but it’s hard to immerse oneself into the world. When everything comes off as a joke, it’s hard to be impressed by the somewhat clever storytelling. Right off the bat from the first 10 minutes of the first episode, I knew this show would be a joke in itself, but scary thing is it could’ve been okay. The biggest problem with Konosuba is the same thing that can make it good. It suffers from a prison school like parody skit based “comedic” heavy trope. Episodic nature of the story may also hinder anyone from getting attached to the setting and conflict. The characters have flare to them. A bright spot in this show are the characters, which have personality and their own charm. When I said the characters mesh, they have a decent chemistry together and isn’t as stagnant, especially with the 1:3 ratio of boy to girl. Interactions aren’t focused on blushing, touchy, teasing blah blah that many shows suffer from. It’s not cringy to watch like some shows, but the characters are lacking in resolve. Their half hearted at best and unlikable, especially aqua. It’s a shame because they suffer from the episodic sequence and storytelling. Their not as impactful as they could be, even if it is all a joke. Also pacing hurts the show by having awful side characters that leave a lot to be desired. Animation and sound are pretty cool, a lot of vibrant colors that match the mood in a given scene and the color palette of each character fits who they are, whatever that means. Sound is good too, not as upbeat as I would like in a fantasy but its relaxing. Also adds to the comedy. Konosuba was a weird show to watch and especially critique. I can’t tell if I like it or not; it has no hook but it keeps me hooked, it’s not funny but it’s funny, and characters are so dissatisfying but real. I was hoping in the back of my mind that it would become a harem, perhaps indirectly, but it’s better how it was than if it was a harem. The foundation of the show is comedy and that makes or breaks it. I believe it’s both its strong and weak points, but for those who are into occasionally funny innuendos, look no further as this is an above average comedy, however a below average piece of fiction. Eye of the beholder is subject to subjectiveness.

I've always been a firm believer of the idea that you should never judge an anime by its cover alone. There are good and bad examples of series from every single genre after all, and you can never know for sure which side any one specific anime will fall on before you watch it. That being said, you can still normally make some sort of very rough premature estimation for what an anime will be like, and the vast majority of the time you'll probably be right. It's exceedingly rare for an anime to completely blow away whatever initial expectations you may have had onit, and deliver something truly memorable seemingly out of thin air. KonoSuba however is one of those cases. The idea of having a shut-in otaku being transported into an RPG-like fantasy world for some convenient reason and immediately ending up with some sort of semi-sexualized female entourage upon arrival is not exactly an original concept at this point. Ever since the enormous financial success of Sword Art Online there has been an absolute surge of new anime following roughly the same idea. But there is one thing which makes KonoSuba a totally different experience from any of the others, and that is that this is nothing more than a parody. There is no cheesy drama, cheap writing or needless clichés; hell there's barely even any story progression at all. KonoSuba is a 100% pure comedy, nothing more, nothing less. But it's a really damn funny one at that. For one, the defining trait of all the female main characters of this anime is that they're all utterly useless. Firstly there's Aqua, a supposed "goddess" but essentially the only thing she's good at is party tricks, and her IQ is on about the level of a goldfish. Secondly, there's best girl of the season Megumin, a chuuni archwizard who has a diehard obsession with explosion magic, and operates on a 24 hour cooldown since it takes all her physical energy to cast even a single spell. And lastly we have "Darkness", a righteous knight incapable of even hitting anyone in battle. On the other hand she's very good at tanking as she's also a hardcore masochist who fantasizes about being kidnapped and sexually abused by her demonic enemies on the battlefield. Uhm… yeah. The real icing on the cake though is probably the MC himself. Kazuma is far from your ordinary MMO anime lead, nor your typical harem protagonist for that matter. First of all he's actually pretty weak in terms of fighting prowess, and actually feels like the average NEET he's supposed to be. But also the way he talks and acts around the girls from his party is just hilarious. His general mindset would be something along the lines of "ahh~ I'm surrounded by morons, someone please shoot me". He serves both as the tsukkomi to all the stupid shit the girls are doing all the time, as well as the one who has to clean up the mess they make. He can be a bit abusive every once in a while, but most of the time it's perfectly warranted, and even when it's not it's still done in a very light-hearted and comedic fashion. I've seen some people try to overanalyze this anime and look for deeper political messages and stuff, but I implore you to *please* don't do that. Like really, what's the point? This is a pure comedy anime and not something which should be taken seriously whatsoever. Let's leave it that way, shall we? In any case, there's not really a whole lot to say about the plot other than that it follows Kazuma and his party's daily lives as they struggle to get enough money to get food on the table and a better place to sleep than in the stables. However, with constant mishaps along their way, often cause by some rather idiotic things done by certain party members, this turns out to be a lot easier said than done. You won't be seeing any epic boss fights or life-or-death drama in this RPG; just a bunch of weirdos making fools out of themselves in low-level quests. But honestly... I vastly prefer it this way. Now if there is anything to really complain about in this anime then it's quite clearly the animation. Saying that this is a low budget production would be an understatement. The character designs actually look pretty terrible a lot of the time, with awkward facial structures and hilarious derp faces. However... this actually isn't always a bad thing. A lot of comedic moments are actually *enhanced* by this. Like the reaction faces to certain gags just come across as even funnier than if they had been drawn properly, and since KonoSuba is purely a comedy anime it's actually not really a problem if you look at it that way. Of course this excuse isn't always applicable though, as the bad character designs are often prevalent during non-comedic moments as well, and in that case there's no upside to it anymore. So it depends on how you look at it. Interestingly enough though, the backgrounds, and not to mention the special effects for Megumin's spells, actually look really good. It's really just the character designs that are broken. Sadly, KonoSuba is only a 10-episode anime, which is probably further evidence of the very limited budget the studio had to work with. However, those were 10 damn good episodes so I can't really feel too disappointed about it. Also despite the low budget, this has been by far the most successful show of Winter 2016 financially speaking, with the light novel's sales having absolutely skyrocketed ever since the anime began airing. And the results speak for themselves, as a second season has already been greenlit, so there's plenty more goodness to come in due time. Maybe they'll even have a proper budget this time around. It's been quite some time since I saw an anime as jam-packed with entertainment value as KonoSuba has been, and even longer since I saw a better comedy. And given that it didn't even look like a gag show to begin with, that's really saying something. But maybe that'll help serve as a subtle reminder that judging an anime by its cover is in fact never a good thing to do. You never know what you might miss out on.

"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.

WELCOME TO KONOSUBA'S RIFT This review will be rigged with League of Legends references. If you don't get it, you obviously need to start playing the game right now. And no there's no spoiler. Konosuba > DotA 2 *Grabs boobs*. At a quick glance, Konosuba might be as average as any other RPG harem where the MC is Faker playing against a bunch of Crowns and Kuros, where all he has to do is perform a barrel roll on stage then proceed to win Worlds. Three times. WRONG. It's far from that yet it was so good that I would consider this anime to be THE anime ofthe season. How? (MF support duh) After 10 episodes directed by Mr. Michael Bay, our party of Bronze V garbage feeders still hasn't managed to get out of the ghetto ass town made for noobs and losers, let alone destroying the enemy Nexus. Basically, the plot moved SLOWER THAN THE FUCKING CLOCK WHEN I'M AT WORK. At the very least, they did manage to slay a super fed Mordekaiser (but he did nothing wrong ;_;), farm that clueless Tahm Kench over and over and survive a debacle of One-for-all Renekton gank. 30 SECONDS UNTIL MAIN CHARACTERS SPAWN The art was bright and colorful, reflecting the overall mellow mood. the background and water art were especially beautiful that they gave me eyegasm. The skin, textures and animation is fairly good, but at times they were sloppy like a bunch of chimpanzees were substituted in to take charge of production. The soundtracks and OP/ED songs were okay, fairly relaxing, mellow which captured the overall silly and light-hearted nature of the series but not that impressive (to me at least). It would've been better if the troll music from Random LoL Moments on Youtube were used. On the other hand, the voice acting was superb which greatly contributed to the comedy and overall enjoyment of the series. Kazuma's "Hai, Kazuma desu", Aqua's cries and rants were so hilarious I can't even. What made Konosuba highly enjoyable was the team of 5 totally dysfunctional, insufferable trash players and the comedy that resulted from their inability to cooperate, which led to their flaming one another and getting utterly raped by whatever's going on around them. Konosuba makes fun of the RPG genre and its cliches in general instead of following them, leaving a stronger impression on me, the viewer who's obviously tired of SAO, Log Horizons and such. Furthermore, no anime would be complete without this most fundamental rule: Cute girls. Konosuba's cast of girls (and Kazuma) were cute, yes, they're even highly distinctive and did not fall into apparent tropes that are so overused nowadays, making them relatively fresh. "Baa.......kaaaa Ta...taaa......taric-kun, it's not like I wanted to go bot lane with you or anything... Don't misunderstand" - Tsundere Ezreal. "I'm sorry Lux-chan, I, Taric, Ezreal-tan's eternal lover will be the only one allowed to go bot lane with him" *Swings hammer* - *Rainbow splatters* - Yandere Taric No, no, we don't need any of that, get outta here. MAIN CHARACTERS HAVE SPAWNED - The adc: Satou Kazuma, leader, our hella weak dickwad of an adc compared to Jesus-kun of the RPG world Kirito, but he's got the brain and he actually fights smart despite his auto-flaming. His cynical and realist attitude separated him from our usual never-give-up nakama-powered MCs, which might as well make him the best MC of the season. He's the only adc to not dive into the middle of the enemy team, as rare as it sounds. He's surrounded by idiots and the way he deals with them is uber hilarious, reminds me of how I deal with my own League party. You did not realize that the adc is a melee, and you're not going to question it. Move on FIRST BLOOD - The Mid Laner, One Explosion Girl a.k.a Michael Bay's waifu: She's basically Ziggs but with only the Ult, thus she's literally useless after using it, requiring someone to carry her (literally and figuratively) else she'll feed the enemy team's Tahm Kench and Mordekaiser. She is, of course, flamed by Kazuma throughout the series. She's cute, yeah, but she's not like your average moeblob. She's got explosive personalities, explosive ambitions and explosive love for explosions. Hue ENEMY DOUBLE KILL - The Top Laner, a.k.a MasoLeona: What's better than a tank? A MASOCHISTIC TANK!!!!!!! She's tankier than Rammus, Malphite, and Alistar w/ full tank build combined but her aim is worse than mine in the morning trying to piss while blinded by the Satan God Teemo (he's the real Demon King they have to kill). Needlessly to say, she joyously took all the aggro and flaming like a real M. Scenes where she verbally "abused" the honorable Dullahan were priceless. Poor Dully. If only she could aim her E properly... Who even plays Leona top nowadays? This is like fucking Dyrus trolling every game when he's streaming after having retired from TSM. ENEMY TRIPLE KILL - The Support, Best Girl (sorry Michael Bay fans): Basically your toxic feeder Nami with legs building ap instead of support items while going around trash talking to people and fucking shit up with wataah. She's super derp, always trying to ragequit, feeds Tahm Kench furiously and is constantly flamed by Kazuma but that's where the fun comes from. She just needs a hug and I wanna give her a big hug so badly because she was forced to play support by Kazuma, it's not her fault guys!!! ENEMY QUADRA KILL - The Jungler, Wizzlestick (because ap jungler w/ drain, but then again it's a contradiction because she is... well... thick, while Fiddlestick is... well... a stick): The one who is super fed but only came to gank like twice during the entire anime but who cares? She's kind and cute af, and she destroys the enemy when it matters most. Unfortunately the support absolutely hates her guts because she's not playing a meta champ, but this is the only time when not everyone blamed the jungler for their misery. If only she ganked lane more often, she'd be a best girl contender. Let's be honest that she's only here because I don't want to have a team of 4 when implementing League of Legends in my review. ENEMY PENTAKILL Everyone is 1/10 fed and 9/10 feeder, however due to the circumstances they have to stick together because 4 is always better than 1 (5 if the Jungler actually showed up). This is where Konosuba is most different and in a good way, the characters slowly get stronger, better at teamwork, more sympathetic and understanding of one another over, (still weak in the end), not shitting out powers and eternal bonds of friendship all of a sudden. Nobody gets ult from Level 1 guys... OUR TURRET HAS BEEN DESTROYED I could relate to Kazuma so well, being a decent League player who prefers to stick to a group of average feeders and make them better, rather than joining a bunch of diamonds because then victory doesn't feels like a true accomplishment, and there's no fun curb-stomping the enemy team all the time. Believe me, I raged hard the night I wrote this review because we played like retards lol. OUR INHIBITOR HAS BEEN DESTROYED After successfully defending the base from Super Siege Minion spawned by Warlord's Banner of Command, our gang must head into the counteroffensive to be brought by season 2. But until then, let's just say that season 1 was exhilarating to watch. I especially appreciated the silly comedy, the anti-harem and anti-OP MC themes from the series. Michael Bay would be so proud of Megumin and Konosuba, someone needs to show him this series please. DEFEAT.... barely avoided.

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