KonoSuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World! – 03 – Signs Point to Maybe

For an academy formally known as the “Red Prison”, it sure is laid back! For the second episode in a row there are no real classes; the adults are all out hunting monsters, so it’s free study time at the library. Yunyun is super excited to make two new friends in Funifura and Dodonko, who even do her hair! But when a spider taunts Megumin, she leaps on Yunyun, steals a hair tie to sling at the haughty arachnid.

The vibes are ruined for good when village NEET Bukkorori teleports in—an impressive display of magic by a deeply unimpressive man. He notes how he used to check out the same books as Soketto back in the day, and one of the three locations he can teleport to is the front of her house. The students are so disgusted that they bury him with books, to which I say: What the heck did the books do to deserve such shabby treatment?!

Inexplicably, both Megumin and Yunyun allow themselves to be roped into Bukkorori’s pathetic attempt to court Soketto, first by watching her sweep her front yard from a tree, then becoming invisible and sneaking up on her while she’s training in the forest. For her part, Soketto regards Bukkorori’s behavior as a sign that he hates her. When a pack of “One-Punch Bears” arrives, he uses a flashy Inferno spell to dispatch them in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, Soketto ends up caught up in the flames, which is … suboptimal.

When Soketto hears that Bukkorori wanted a reading (she’s a fortune teller) she decides to give him a freebie, since she technically saved her life (she’s still alive; the bears are not). He asks about who his future romantic partner might be, and she fires up her crystal ball…only no one appears. She apologizes for the somber result and says her fortunes aren’t always accurate. Left unsaid is that there actually was someone in the ball … Soketto’s own reflection.

While he’s problematic on a number of levels, Soketto still considers him “interesting” to the point where she might not immediately turn him down were he to express the desire to grab a cup of chuunibyou coffee some time … but I seriously doubt he’ll ever do any such thing. For one thing, NEETs can’t afford fancy coffee!

During another free study period, Yunyun and Megumin chat about her own romantic futures. Yunyun wants a quiet boring guy who listens; Megumin expects she’ll be too busy exploding things but won’t rule out falling for a peerless hero in a future adventuring party. When the students are ordered to go home in pairs due to monster sightings, Yunyun starts to ask Megumin, but Dodonko and Funifura invite her instead.

Megumin starts walking home on her own, but Yunyun chases after her. She may be Megumin’s self-appointed rival, but she still wants to walk home with her and get something to eat on the way. For that reason, Yunyun will surely embrace the value of truces, during which she can set aside their “rivalry” and revel in their friendship.

KonoSuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World! – 02 – Augmentation Surge

After picking out a new dagger for Yunyun and failing to get her to see how quickly she can stab between her fingers, Megumin returns home to find that the slightly feral Konekko has caught a black cat “for dinner.” Yes, the origin story of Chomusuke is she rescued her from a little sister who wanted to eat her.

The still-unnamed black cat, whom Megumin assigns as her familiar, is an instant hit with her classmates, pretty much making her super-popular by extension. When the teach denies her a familiar (after all, she can’t even use magic yet), Megumin makes up a colorful enough chuunibyou story that he lets her keep the cat in class after all.

But today’s class is special: the teacher asks the students to meet him out in the woods, where they’ll choose from a selection of very large (but also oddly light) weapons and level up quickly in a traditional Crimson Demon “Augmentation Surge”. Megumin is the first to try to slay a weak-looking lizard already encased in ice, but it ends up being a tougher customer that she initially thought. No matter; she ends up the victor in the end.

When a much larger monster appears in the form of a vicious gargoyle, the students freak out and make a run for it. The gargoyle is blasted by one Bukkorori, son of the village cobbler who dug a pitfall in order to ensnare Soketto, the fairest of the Crimson Demons. He creeps out the girls so much they refuse to help him get out of the hole he dug.

More gargoyles come to life and attack the town, which is utterly destroyed not by them, but the completely over-the-top attacks of their teacher and headmaster, along with four local businesspeople. But as powerful as their magic is, Megumin just isn’t quite as impressed as she was by the Explosion user she met years ago.

In a world where Crimson Demons can completely level their village and rebuild it back good as new in one day, how radical is she really for wanting to master Explosion magic? I’d say not really! Rather, she’s a quintessential Crimson Demon, risking it all to be as big, bad, and inspiring as possible. Still, she has a long way to go.

KonoSuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World! – 01 (First Impressions) – The Eleven

After the KonoSuba Movie expanded on the origin of Megumin’s chuunibyou style, this third full season of the series takes us back to before she met Kazuma, Aqua, and Darkness, and before she mastered her beloved Explosion magic. One day she witnessed it being used by a beautiful mage to destroy a giant monster in one fell swoop.

From that moment, Megumin decided that’s the kind of mage she wants to be. In the meantime, she lives a simple but carefree life in the village of Crimson Demons, catching crawfish with her little sister and #1 Fan Konekko by her side.

Megumin’s first encounter with Yunyun is when she notices a “hungry look” in her face while passing her near a sunflower patch. Megumin shoves a crawfish in that hungry face, even though Yunyun insists that’s not what she meant. Megumin didn’t know it yet, but she’d just met her top rival.

Megumin’s family is by no means rich, but it’s a house full of warmth and love. When they make a big payday off their magical wares at a far-flung bazaar, her folks make a huge feast, and then present Megumin with a new uniform for attending magic academy. Watching their daughter strike poses in her new cloak brings no shortage of joy to their hearts.

The academy for Crimson Demons known as the Red Prison, features a class of eleven, which may be magically auspicious, but also means there’s an odd girl out: Yunyun, whose name no one can quite remember. Despite being the village chief’s daughter she has very little presence. But she still makes a strong impression by declaring Megumin her rival. Megumin is happy to be challenged.

When Megumin notices it’s missing from the textbook and asks her professor Pucchin about Explosion magic, he tells her and the class that they should avoid studying it, as it’s a kind of “joke magic” with limited applications. Everyone in class assumes Megumin is joking and laughs…except Yunyun, who can tell Explosion magic is important to her rival.

In the Red Prison equivalent of P.E., Pucchin tells the students that the most important part of magical combat for Crimson Demons is looking cool. Thus, their answers to his questions are scored not just by their factual content, but the style with which it is delivered. With everyone else paired up, Yunyun ends up with Pucchin, who shows little patience for her hesitation in trying to look cool, saying it’s embarrassing.

That may not be a common Crimson Demon sentiment, but Megumin pretends to be ill and sits out the rest of class so that Yunyun can get paired with her partner, Arue, who is actually better than the teacher at getting her to come out of her shell. Then Rain falls, the headmaster’s ambulatory tulips scatter, and the students get drenched in mud tracking them down. Once that’s done, Yunyun tells Megumin that whether Explosion magic is a joke depends on who is wielding it.

Megumin’s response is to tell Yunyun not to get too friendly with her rival, bringing a smile to Yunyun’s face. Later, at sunset, Megumin again remembers the day a mage fired off an Explosion spell that changed her life. She can’t cast it yet, but I’m looking forward to watching Megumin, Yunyun, and their nine classmates becoming the best damn Crimson Demon mages they can be!

After this first episode, I’m more confident that spinning off the series with Megumin was the right move. I’ve always been a fan of her energy and charisma, and was always impressed she actually managed to master such a ridiculous spell (though not without passing out after using it).

Takahashi Rie and Toyosaki Aki bring out a winning chemistry between Megumin and Yunyun, as we saw their unspoken friendship begin with little gestures of kindness and caring. It’s not often laugh-out-loud hilarious, but it is sweet, charming, and KonoSuba through and through.