Outside of Inuyasha and .hack//sign, I haven’t really been a big isekai person. An episode of Problem Children here and other things there, but nothing really to grab my attention.
Until now. Amidst a YouTube hole, I found the Mother’s Basement channel and it’s vid, “The Best Worst Girls”.
Not to mention the occasional post on r/awwnime got me interested. So after hitting up Crunchyroll, I decide to binge the series over a couple weeks. My limited viewings of isekai anime would have the had the parody elements go over my head, but what’s left is a solid comedy that stands on its own for anyone with even basic knowledge of RPGs (and might even give insight to them as well).
Konosuba kicks off when shut-in gamer Kazuma Satou gets killed pushing a girl out of the tractor and ends up in the afterlife ran by a goddess named Aqua. Aqua offers him to be either reincarnated back to Japan or a sent to a quest to kill the Devil King with a special ability or item of his choice. Kazuma chooses the latter option but after Aqua mocks him after the embarrassing way that he died, he chooses her as his special item to get back at her. Once in the new world, Kazuma finds out the hard way that adventuring isn’t easy, especially after Aqua proves to be a lazy drunk just wants to learn magic tricks. Afterwards they gain two new members to the party: Megumin, a otherkin mage who knows one high-level spell and only one high-level and Darkness, a crusader who’s more of masochist than a warrior. Two 10-episode seasons show their level grinding as they go from a group of misfits adventuring in debt to slightly less impoverished and somewhat more competent misfits making their way through a dangerous world.
In terms of favorite characters, it’s a tie between Kazuma and Megumin. Kazuma is a pretty genre-savvy lead not mention him being the antithesis of most harem leads is a nice change of pace. It also helps that his “harem” is less than ideal. Megumin outside of her of her explosion fetish is a sweetie pie.
Overall, I want this anime dubbed now. I think one could broaden the audience of this show and could be a solid comedy member of the Toonami lineup.