I’ve got trouble with “Jerk”
Comedy. That is, comedy predicated on all the main characters being
not just crazy or foolish but outright terrible people. A jerk can
be funny used in the right way at the right time, but they often
don’t hold up as main characters or whole casts.
I’ve also got trouble with Isekai. I
used to think that, as a genre, it was perhaps overly maligned; the
basic conceit of travel from the mundane world to one of fantastical
remoteness is the backbone of countless works of literature, many of
which (like “Alice in Wonderland” or “The Chronicles of
Narnia”) are considered classics. That was before I realized just
how prolific the genre really is in anime, just how reprocessed and
regurgitated its tropes are, and just how frustrating it is when you
find yourself trapped between the failure state in which the world
revolves utterly around the main character’s quest and the one in
which you would much rather have a native character who was germane
to the setting instead. There is such a thing as good Isekai, but
Sturgeon’s Law really does apply.
So why do I enjoy KonoSuba so darn
much?
The basic plot of KonoSuba is simple,
because it is every Isekai plot. Say it with me, the main character
dies, but through some twist of fate is reincarnated in a fantasy
world that seems to run on RPG mechanics where they have some amazing
power and must defeat a vile force of darkness.
There are just a few problems. First,
Kazuma (the main character of KonoSuba) died in a miserable and
embarrassing way and as a NEET with basically no skills, not typical
protagonist fare. Second, he didn’t get a typical overpowered cheat
– out of pure spite, he dragged Aqua (goddess of water and overseer
of his reincarnation deal) into the fantasy world with him instead.
And third, he’s got a long way to go before he can dream of defeating
anything.
Kazuma tries to form a party as part of
becoming a respectable adventurer, but Aqua (incarnated as a powerful
Archpriest, crippled by her narrow skill set and blinding idiocy)
insists they only acquire members of other ‘advanced classes’ like
her own. Their posting naturally attracts very little, but they do
get two bites they’re more or less strongarmed into taking: Megumin,
who is capable of casting the ultra-powerful magic Explosion but
thanks to her build can only do it once a day and can’t move after
blowing her wad; and Darkness, a Crusader (armored knight-type) who
can’t hit the broad side of a barn with her sword and has a
masochistic streak a mile wide. Together, they set off on adventures
to… mostly just stay out of debt. Defeating the Demon King is kind
of a long-term guideline
When life gives you lemons…
Aqua is funny, though. She’s
self-absorbed, vain, and prideful, but she’s also a lackwit, a
crybaby, and catnip to the undead. She’s annoying as sin to the
other characters, but usually in a way that leaves her capering
entertaining to watch, rather than annoying the audience too. When
she gets into trouble, which is often enough thanks to this being a
comedy, you kind of know that she’s just getting what she deserves
and can point and laugh at her misfortune.
Megumin is funny too. She’s a
theatrical chuunibyou – yes, the term does apply despite the fact
she actually has magical powers, her mannerisms are just that
over-the-top – energetic, monomaniacal, and rarely capable of
understanding the consequences of her actions. Her earnest
enthusiasm gives her a measure of charm
And you know what, Darkness is pretty
funny. Her sick obsession with what she’ll suffer at the hands of
any given foe is gleefully disturbing, and the other characters
typically have all the right reactions to her antics, depending on
just how well they know her when she eagerly puts her body on the
line. Even undead monstrosities may find themselves creeped out by
her antics.
And, wonder of wonders, Kazuma is
actually pretty funny as well. He’s a prototypical jerk character;
give him an inch and he’ll take a mile, squandering pretty much any
good will he may have earned . He acts on basically every selfish
impulse, and thinks basically every horrible thing about the people
around him, even if those are sometimes deserved. He has his noble
moments, which certainly help the character be more watchable than a
lot of jerks; Kazuma is on the dark side of the everyman, in that
he’s usually an alright dude at least with what he’ll say to your
face, but is just a bit too easily ruled by his negative tendencies.
In this universe, though… what happens, happens to spite Kazuma.
When he behaves badly, he typically gets his comeuppance and when he
acts in a particularly noble fashion… he typically gets his
comeuppance tenfold for anything he got away with since the last time
he did a legitimate good deed.
It wasn’t easy to get me to laugh at
these characters. I have what I feel is a genuinely low tolerance
for following unlikable jerks, the kind that are all too often smugly
dominant in their cruelty. KonoSuba manages because there are two
differences. The first is that the characters all get at least as
good as they give, and are the objects of the comedy as well as the
subjects. The second is that the characters (even Kazuma) are more
likable and enjoyable. I’d probably want to strangle any one of them
if I had to spend a whole day with them (with the possible exception
of Megumin), but for half an hour (or even a couple hours binge
watching a season)? They’re fun and personable rather than nasty and
offputting.
It’s… strangely familiar. Back in
the misty past of the internet, there was a webcomic called 8-bit
Theater that I had a similar reaction to. The characters were more
involved in comedic sociopathy than they were likable, but they were
also a ragtag party of misfits including a mage who could only cast
one huge boom per day (at first), a dimwitted fighter, and a munchkin
aware of the system and trying to game it. It wasn’t perfect, but
the whole world was rotten and insane enough (especially insane) that
it was another of the rare times I found a jerk comedy funny.
In both cases, but more importantly in
KonoSuba, our heroes, or what pass for heroes these days, bounce from
objective to objective without their eyes on any greater goal,
managing to stumble and blunder their way through a main plot that
more competent and dedicated heroes would actually be trying to
solve. Between things that have real effects on their world they
deal with debt, the crooked justice system, and otherwise just try to
enjoy themselves. A lot of the entertainment is in the lateral
thinking they need in order to actually solve any problems at all
with the arsenal of failure they represent, and the various ways in
which things go utterly pear-shaped thanks to the same. A typical
episode consists of one or more of the party members getting an idea
(often a way to make money), attempting an unusual method to achieve
it, and then having to scramble to work with what their hubris got
them into.
Along the way, believe it or not, they
have actually managed to engage with something resembling a plot.
The KonoSuba cast has defeated three of the Demon King’s lieutenants,
and a fourth is surprisingly neither malicious or harmful. The
Dullahan they were forced to face because Megumin kept using his
abandoned-looking castle as a practice target for her Explosion magic
on off days. The torrent of water used to obliterate him racked up
an overwhelming repair bill. Another, a body-snatching demon mask,
they had to take on since he had taken up residence in a dungeon they
had previously cleared out and the government insisted they go in to
pay their debts and clear their names. The third defeated henchman,
a rather nasty slime, was the most deliberate – he tried to ruin
Aqua’s mortal followers by polluting their hot springs and at least
Aqua had a proactive desire to stop that… but the party still got
chased by an angry mob themselves and ended up ruining the hot spring
business anyway. Even though the battle there is the closest
KonoSuba comes to being a legit action show rather than a comedy, it
still slips in its fair share of humorous trouble, just as with all
the previous big fights.
Most of the episodes do really tie into
the episode that came before and the one that comes next. A couple
are truly adventure of the week, but more have relevance to the lives
of these crazy characters, which is something you want to see more
of. I kept watching because I enjoyed the people, and wanted to see
them squirm a little more.
On the whole, KonoSuba rates an A-. It
does some things that are really very hard for a comedy to do, but
there are some awkward or hard to watch moments that tarnish the
shine just a little. All the same, I think I’d recommend it if it
sounds like something you’d enjoy, and arguably even more if it
sounds to you (like it did to me) like something you wouldn’t enjoy.
Perhaps we’ll share a pleasant surprise on that score.