KonoSuba

About

Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o! (この素晴らしい世界に祝福を!, literally "Give Blessings on This Wonderful World!), more commonly known by its abbreviated title of KonoSuba, is a web novel by Natsume Akatsuki, later released in print form and adapted into both manga and an anime series produced by Studio DEEN.^[1]

Premise

KonoSuba is in the "Isekai" or "Other World" genre of light novels similar to popular series like Sword Art Online or Re:Zero. However, KonoSuba's popularity stems from its distinctively comedic approach and the subject matter borders on parody of this genre.

The plot begins as follows: cynical shut-in Satou Kazuma is killed and finds himself brought to a goddess named Aqua. She presents him with the opportunity to begin life anew in a fantasy world, and grants him the choice of one item he may take with him on his journey. Kazuma promptly chooses to bend the rules and chooses Aqua herself as his "item of choice". Thus, the two are transported to another world and commence their quest to defeat the Demon King.

From left to right: Darkness, Kazuma, Aqua, Megumin.

Eventually Kazuma and his "useless goddess" are joined by Darkness, an extremely masochistic Paladin with a penchant for pain, and Megumin, an arrogant mage who can only cast her one known spell once a day. At this point, a traditional role-playing-game party of Knight, Thief, Mage and Healer is formed, and so the fail-laden adventure of Kazuma and company begins.

History

KonoSuba began life as a web novel published online from December 2012. It was reworked into a light novel from October 2013.

The series' popularity saw large escalation with the airing of the animated adaptation in January 2016, with western fandom viewing the series on streaming websites such as Crunchyroll.^[2]

Reception

The series has a light-hearted nature, and as such, was well-received by anime fans tired of the traditionally more grim or "edgy" entries in the Other World genre. Anime review and news website Anime News Network found the series' second episode (which features Megumin's introduction) to be "the funniest episode of anime seen since Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun."^[3]

However, as a Studio DEEN show, the animation style is occasionally mocked by viewers for its quality.^[4]

Online Presence

The series has fandom entries on sites such as reddit. Megumin has her own subreddit at r/Megumin, in accordance with her memetic popularity (discussed below), with over 4,000 subscribers.^[5] Bizarrely, this dwarfs the size of r/Konosuba at around 2,000 subs.^[6] Tumblr also sees some fandom presence.^[7]

Fan art is prominent on sites such as Pixiv, where "この素晴らしい世界に祝福を!" (full Japanese title) has over 3,000 results.^[8] Megumin alone (めぐみん) returns around 2,800 results.^[9] On DeviantArt, searches for "konosuba" return over 1,000 results.^[10]

Related Memes

Megumin

One of the regular cast, Megumin is a rookie mage who is a mockery of the "chuunibyou" or "edgy middle schooler" character archetype. She is popular among series viewers for her bizarre and over-the-top behaviour.

Megumin is so memetastic that she is often referred to by fans as "Megumeme".^[11][12]

"Megumin Monday" is a series of Megumin-themed threads posted on 4chan's /a/ (anime & manga) board, particularly popular during the series' air years of 2016/17.^[13]

EXPLOSION

The sole spell in Megumeme's arsenal, which she can only cast once a day. Cast with an overly-long incantation punctuated by an Engrish pronunciation of the word "explosion", the spell is a common "mark-out" moment for many fans. "EXPLOSION" is commonly spammed in the comments sections for KonoSuba-related material online.

WAGA NA WA MEGUMIN

Megumin's haughty way of introducing herself when she first appears. Although the line simply translates to "my name is Megumin", it is an old-fashioned way of saying so in Japanese, with connotations of arrogance, and as such reflects Megumin's hammy and chuuni-like demeanour. Like "EXPLOSION", it is often seen as a kind of roleplay-shitposting in online comments.

A button for "Waga na wa Megumin" has been added to MyInstants.com.^[14]

Smug Megumin Face

A particularly prominent example of the Smug Anime Face, commonly used on boards like /a/.^[15]

Search Interest

References