KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!
| Episode Count | 31 + Movie (10 in Season 1) |
| Season | Winter 2016 |
| Genres | Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy |
| Source Material | Light Novel |
| Rating | TBD |
| Streaming | TBD |
If you're tired of the run of a mill Isekai then it's time for you to experience the Always Sunny of Isekais.
Kazuma died an absolutely embarrassing death and the goddess Aqua has tasked him with slaying the demon king of another world. She says he can take any one thing with him and he decides the mouthy goddess deserves to be taken down a peg or two so he chooses her. The two of them become adventurers and form a party with a masochist noblewoman and a little mage girl with severe delusions of grandeur. They take on quests to earn enough money to live the good life and become the cause and solutions to all of the kingdom's problems.
This group of idiots is such a delight to watch. Their schemes to avoid doing any real work are constantly failing and their fortunes fluctuate on the daily as they find themselves wrapped up in one troublesome situation after another. It can be gut busting hilarious and there's never a dull moment. While the novel and manga are already fantastic, the animation director Takaomi Kanasaki really brought these goof balls to life with exaggerated body movements and facial expressions.
- Sketch
Isekai has become something of a bad word among anime fans. Every season there's at BARE MINIMUM FIVE NEW SHOWS, PROBABLY MORE, that all have the same premise: guy or girl dies in our world (how and why varies) and wakes up in a high fantasy world. Sometimes they reincarnate as a baby, usually they're just plopped into a field or wake up in an inn. OPTIONAL: God will appear and say sorry about you dying, it was a mistake trust me, and God gives you an overpowered ability in the high fantasy world to compensate. Bonus points if the hero's eventual party feels more like the hero's harem.
So many of these shows get pumped out year after year, season after season, that they blend together like slop. Most of them claim to have their own gimmick to stand out (the stupidest one might be "Reborn as a Vending Machine", soon to have a third season) but at this point the only way to stand out is to have good writing.
It's debatable when this story concept became its own subgenre of fantasy. When it happened with light novels, someone else could say better than I ever can. But in anime, I think this started with Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o! (meaning God's Bleassing on This Wonderful World!), shortened by everyone to KonoSuba.
Fortunately I can skip the plot summary. Everything I said in the first paragraph is what KonoSuba is about (to fill in some blanks: guy, dies by truck*, plopped into a field*). Two things make KonoSuba stand out. The first is that when God asks our protagonist to pick something to take to the fantasy world, he picks God. She doesn't take it well, and both of them quickly regret this choice. The second is that his party/harem are psychopaths. The goddess is worthless, the crusader is a glutton for punishment, and the only spell the mage knows is a powerful nuke attack that works but she can only use once a day.
It's ironic that a comedic parody of isekai is what likely had a domino effect on the anime industry. But that also fits in with something that would happen in KonoSuba so checks out.
- 0215MADman
*close enough