By Adam Sarsfield
Konosuba has been rated M for Mature for having explicit language, sexual themes, and sexualized imagery. If you are uncomfortable with any of the items listed, be wary or don’t watch this anime.
Kazuma Satou is your average introverted 17 year old shut-in who rarely leaves his room for anything besides school. After going out to pick up a new videogame to play, Kazuma attempts to save a girl who is going to be hit by a tractor, but unfortunately dies in the rescue. When Kazuma awakens sitting in front of the goddess of guiding people to the afterlife, Aqua, he is given two options. Our protagonist can either choose to enter heaven but never be allowed to use the internet again, or he can choose to go to a fantasy world with the task of defeating the “Demon King,” the most powerful enemy around. After choosing the fantasy RPG-like world, Kazuma is allowed to take one of anything into the world – with no limits on his choices. After some long time pondering, Kazuma decides to take the goddess Aqua herself as his companion. Both Kazuma and Aqua are dropped into the fantasy world in a town called Axel with no gear besides the clothes on them. After some complaining from Aqua, the duo set off to start a quest to earn money. In this world, everyone has a class that affects what skills they can learn and how powerful the skills can be. Kazuma chooses the base class adventurer while Aqua chooses the class Arch Priest. Following the completion of a number of quests, the pair take some time to relax and learn side skills. Some weeks later, the duo is approached by a young Arch Wizard named Megumin who specializes in explosion magic. Her explosion magic is very powerful, but a major drawback is that Megumin can’t move after using a spell and has to be carried by someone else. After leveling up some more, the group meets a powerful Crusader named Darkness and agrees to take her into their party because no one else will. Darkness is quite powerful and can take a lot of hits, but unfortunately she is very clumsy, so many of her attacks don’t hit their mark. Kazuma and Megumin are often out of tasks to do, so they venture out to train their skills. They locate a huge deserted castle and decide that it is worthy to use as a testing ground for Megumin’s explosive spells. Following months and months of daily explosive spells being used on the castle, an undead being known as a Dullahan is seen at the front gates of the town. He demands to see the unruly brat that has been casting explosions on his castle. Outraged, he sends his spell, “Premonition of Death”, towards Megumin as retribution for all the damage and annoying explosions she’s caused. However, before the spell can hit it’s target, Darkness steps in front of it and takes the entire spell on her own. The Dullahan’s spell of “Premonition of Death” is a curse that kills the receiving party within a week and can only be stopped by divine powers. Satisfied that he still cursed someone to die, the Dullahan leaves with a mighty yell.
Konosuba is in the Comedy, Isekai, Sword and Sorcery genres and lives up to all of those throughout the anime. Isekai is a Japanese genre that is, to put simply, the process of the main character starting the anime by being transported to a new or different world than their own. Some other popular Isekai animes are No Game No Life, Re:zero, and “That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime.”
Speaking from my own personal experience Konosuba made me laugh a couple of times per episode. I also enjoyed that there was no filler even going so far as introducing entire characters in less than a minute with some light backstory. I would personally recommend this anime to anyone who wants a light-hearted show to watch in their free time.