KonoSuba is a Japanese light novel series written by Natsume Akatsuki. The series has received four spinoff light novels and a manga adaptation.
- 1Light novels
KonoSuba is another popular light novel that began on Shōsetsuka ni Narō.Natsume Akatsuki wrote under the pen name Jitakukeibihei and worked on KonoSuba for a year before revising the story for Kadokawa Shoten.The web novel and light novel follows the same story until volume 6, which is when Akatsuki starts to make major changes to the events. My Useless Goddess! (あぁ、駄女神(だめがみ)さま, Aa, Damegami-sama!) is the first volume in the KonoSuba light novel series. Game loving shut-in Kazuma Satou's life as a young schoolboy in Japan abruptly comes to an early end.or at least it was supposed to. When he opens his eyes, though, he sees a.
Light novels[edit]
KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World![edit]
No. | Title | Japanese release | English release | |
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1 | Oh! My Useless Goddess! Aa, Damegami-sama (あぁ、駄女神さま) | October 1, 2013[1] ISBN978-4-04-101020-4 | February 21, 2017[2] ISBN978-0-31-655337-7 | |
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After meeting an untimely death, Kazuma Satō is greeted by the goddess Aqua who offers to send him to a reality with MMORPG elements to battle the Devil King there. Given the choice of anything to arm himself with, Kazuma chooses Aqua herself and the two are teleported to a town called Axel, where they recruit two other party members, Megumin and Darkness. As the party complete quests to earn money for their daily life, their actions anger one of the Devil King's generals, Dullahan, who attacks the town but is thwarted by Kazuma and Aqua's efforts. | ||||
2 | Love, Witches & Other Delusions! Chūnibyō demo Majo ga Shitai! (中二病でも魔女がしたい!) | December 1, 2013[3] ISBN978-4-04-101110-2 | April 18, 2017[4] ISBN978-0-31-646870-1 | |
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The volume covers the party's daily life: Kazuma is killed while on a quest hunting snow fairies and is revived by Aqua; Kazuma and Dust swap parties for a day, with the former successfully completing his quest and the latter's ending in disaster; Kazuma and Aqua explore a dungeon and help an old couple pass into the afterlife; Kazuma visits Wiz and takes a request to exorcise a mansion, their success allows the party to use the mansion as a home; and Kazuma hires a succubus to induce a nocturnal emission but fails due to Aqua's barrier. When a mobile fortress, the Destroyer, threatens Axel, Kazuma leads his party to counter the attack, only to inadvertently destroy a noble's house, landing him with a warrant for his arrest. | ||||
3 | You're Being Summoned, Darkness Yondemasu yo, Dakunesu-san. (よんでますよ、ダクネスさん。) | March 1, 2014[5] ISBN978-4-04-101242-0 | August 22, 2017[6] ISBN978-0-31-646873-2 | |
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The noble rigs the trial and condemns Kazuma to death. Darkness is forced to reveal her noble roots as the noble Lalatina to postpone the execution; in return, Lalatina is pressured into marrying the noble's son. The noble's son turns out to be a perfect gentleman so Kazuma and Aqua attempt to make the marriage meeting a success to prevent Lalatina's sadomasochistic dream from coming true; instead, Lalatina counters by convincing people that Kazuma is her lover. Meanwhile, the court prosecutor accuses Kazuma for summoning monsters in the old couple's dungeon. Realizing the court may find Aqua's magic in the dungeon and use it as false evidence, the party enter the dungeon and defeat the Devil King's general, Vanir. Vindicated of his crimes, Vanir proposes a business deal with Kazuma. | ||||
4 | You Good-for-Nothing Quartet Namakura Karutetto (鈍ら四重奏) | May 1, 2014[7] ISBN978-4-04-101570-4 | December 12, 2017[8] ISBN978-0-31-646876-3 | |
In return for patenting technological knowledge Kazuma has of Japan, Vanir offers him a large amount of money after production. Feeling set for life, Kazuma's party and Wiz visit the hot springs in Alcanretia, a town which serves as a base for the infamous Axis Church, an aggressive and disillusioned cult that reveres Aqua. There, they encounter the Devil King's general, Hans, who attempts to poison the hot springs to destroy the town's source of income. With Aqua's insistence, the party kills Hans and return to Axel. | ||||
5 | Let's Go, Crimson Magic of Explosion! Bakuretsu Kōma ni Rettsu & Gō (爆裂紅魔にレッツ&ゴー!!) | September 1, 2014[9] ISBN978-4-04-101571-1 | April 24, 2018[10] ISBN978-0-31-646878-7 | |
The party learn from Yunyun that the Crimson Demon village is under attack by Devil King general Sylvia. On Megumin's request, the party follow Yunyun to the village. There, Kazuma makes advances towards Megumin and learns that a Japanese man created the Crimson Demons, along with weaponry to counter the Devil King's attacks. Sylvia attacks the village, but is defeated with a gun left behind by the Japanese man. Returning home, Kazuma receives a letter from a princess who wishes to meet him. | ||||
6 | The Princess of the Six Flowers Rokka no Ōjo (六花の王女) | March 1, 2015[11] ISBN978-4-04-102267-2 | August 21, 2018[12] ISBN978-0-31-646880-0 | |
As word of their victories against the Devil King spreads, Kazuma eagerly seizes upon an audience with the Crown. With the King called away by the endless war, they are received by the insatiably curious princess Iris. In the capital, they find the nobility in uproar as the empire's wealth vanishes into the clutches of the Chivalrous Thief. Though he catches the thief, Kazuma reluctantly admits failure when he discovers the culprit is none other than Chris, who is attempting to steal a holy body-swapping relic before it is used for malicious intent. His shame is only compounded when he is slain during a routine skirmish with the Devil King's army. Disgraced and exiled, Kazuma is forced to infiltrate the royal castle alongside Chris, though without his party, when a conspiracy to impersonate the royal family is uncovered... | ||||
7 | 10 Millions Bride Okusenman no Hanayome (億千万の花嫁) | September 1, 2015[13] ISBN978-4-04-103539-9 | December 11, 2018[14] ISBN978-0-31-646882-4 | |
Lord Dustiness falls ill and, in order to save the family from debts, Darkness agrees to marry the landlord Alderp Alexei Barnes and quit the adventurer life. Kazuma and the group rescue Darkness from the wedding, while Aqua manages to heal Lord Dustiness, whose illness is revealed to be a demon's curse. Vanir discovers Alderp had made a pact with a demon named Maxwell in order to curse Lord Dustiness and had defrauded everyone with the demon's help. Vanir reminds Maxwell that he is owed payment for the pact, so Maxwell drags Alderp to Hell to collect it. For the rest of the people, it appears Alderp had fled because of shame. | ||||
8 | Axis Cult vs Eris Cult Akushizu Kyōdan vs Erisu Kyōdan (アクシズ教団VSエリス教団) | January 1, 2016[15] ISBN978-4-04-103540-5 | April 23, 2019[16] ISBN978-0-31-646885-5 | |
Aqua gets jealous of the Eris Festival that will happen in Axel, so she decides to host an Aqua Festival. Kazuma figures out the thief Chris is the goddess Eris in disguise and they team up to try to steal and seal a holy relic, the Sacred Armor Aigis, but they fail in the first attempt. Kazuma ends up having to help create stalls for the Aqua Festival and her cultists. As Kazuma and Chris discover that Aigis has a conscience and is a pervert, they convince the organizers to hold a Beauty Contest on the last day of the festival in order to lure the armor. The Sacred Armor is attracted by the event but refuses to surrender because the girls aren't attractive enough for it. Chris drops the disguise and joins the contest as Goddess Eris, and the crowd goes unruly because of the divine appearance. Aigis accepts that Eris is beautiful enough, lets her wear the armor, and helps her get away from the crowd. | ||||
9 | The Crimson Fate Kurenai no Shukumei (紅の宿命) | July 1, 2016[17] ISBN978-4-04-103954-0 | August 20, 2019[18] ISBN978-1-97-538503-3 | |
Kazuma and his group become aware of an evil goddess and Devil King general named Wolbach. The party goes to a fortress located on the frontlines, which is being attacked by Wolbach with guerrilla attacks via explosion magic and teleportation, to gain enough fame and recognition to legitimately visit Iris. Megumin, Kazuma, and Yunyun retaliate against Wolbach, who is revealed to be the mentor who taught Megumin of Explosion magic. | ||||
10 | Gamble Scramble! Gyanburu Sukeranburu! (ギャンブル・スクランブル!) | November 1, 2016[19] ISBN978-4-04-104992-1 | -- | |
Upon receiving a letter from the capital regarding Iris' marriage meeting in the neighboring nation of Elroad, Kazuma acts as her bodyguard for the meeting. On their arrival, Kazuma finds out that the true motive behind the Iris' meeting was to secure defense funding from Elroad, which was to be used in the war effort against the Devil King. To secure the funds, Kazuma and Iris resort to gambling as Elroad's prince is hesitant to provide financial support for suspicious reasons. | ||||
11 | The Archwizard's Sister Dai Mahoutsukai no Imouto (大魔法使いの妹) | May 1, 2017[20] ISBN978-4-04-104993-8 | -- | |
When his party returns to Axel, Kazuma elects to stay with Iris, but is quickly teleported back home at the demands of Iris' guards. Upon returning, Kazuma discovers he is locked out of his mansion by Aqua, who is unhappy with his decision to remain in the capital; with Megumin's help (and the assistance of the police), he successfully reclaims the mansion. Megumin's sister Komekko eventually arrives in Axel to escape the Devil King, where she provides moral support to Kazuma's party and the city's adventurers. | ||||
12 | Lullaby of a Female Knight Onna Kishi no Rarabai (女騎士のララバイ) | July 24, 2017[21] ISBN978-4-04-105005-7 | -- | |
13 | A Challenge to the Lich Ritchī e no Chōsen-jō (リッチーへの挑戦状) | December 1, 2017[22] ISBN978-4-04-106109-1 | -- | |
14 | The Crimson Demon's Trial Kouma no Shiren (紅魔の試練) | July 1, 2018[23] ISBN978-4-04-106111-4 | -- | |
15 | Cult Syndrome Jakyō Shindorōmu (邪教シンドローム) | November 1, 2018[24] ISBN978-4-04-107554-8 | -- |
Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Bakuen o![edit]
No. | Title | Japanese release | English release |
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1 | Megumin's Turn Megumin no Tān (めぐみんのターン) | July 1, 2014[25] ISBN978-4-04-101866-8 | June 18, 2019[26] ISBN978-1-97-535764-1 |
Set two years before the beginning of the main series, this novel follows Megumin and Yunyun's time as students in the Crimson Demon village's high school. As a child, Megumin is saved from a black beast by a big-breasted woman using Explosion magic, who inspires her to learn the spell. The beast is shrunken by the woman and becomes a small cat, which is later adopted by Megumin and nicknamed Chomusuke. In school, Megumin and Yunyun are repeatedly competing with one another to be the best student, with the former hoping to raise enough Skill Points to learn Explosion magic. | |||
2 | YunYun's Turn YunYun no Tān (ゆんゆんのターン) | December 1, 2014[27] ISBN978-4-04-102438-6 | September 17, 2019[28] ISBN978-1-97-530597-0 |
After graduating, Megumin attempts to raise money to visit Alcanretia and meet the woman who saved her as a child. With enough funding, she is able to travel to Alcanretia, but fails to find the woman, who is reportedly in the city of Axel. Along with Yunyun, she battles Anis, a demon seeking to retake Chomusuke for a woman named Wolbach. | |||
3 | The Strongest Pair's Turn! Futari wa Saikyō! no Tān (ふたりは最強!のターン) | June 1, 2015[29] ISBN978-4-04-103100-1 | -- |
In Axel, Megumin and Yunyun attempt to join parties, but Megumin's high-powered Explosion spell proves to be too overwhelming for her party members, while Yunyun's shyness scares off potential suitors. The two eventually partner together and fight Hoost, another demon hoping to take back Chomusuke. After parting ways, Megumin meets Kazuma and Aqua. |
Zoku: Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Bakuen o![edit]
No. | Title | Japanese release date | Japanese ISBN |
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1 | We, Megumin's Thieves Warera, Megumin Tōzokudan (我ら、めぐみん盗賊団) | December 28, 2016[30] | ISBN978-4-04-104991-4 |
This novel is set between the ninth and tenth novels of the main series. Inspired by the acts of the Chivalrous Thief, Megumin forms a thieving party with Yunyun and Iris. Later, Kazuma's party visits the home of the Tennessee family, a rival of the Dustinesses and led by a woman named Carleen. Suspicious about the monsters surrounding the estate, Kazuma, Chris, and Megumin infiltrate and confront Carleen, hoping to steal her divine weapon used to summon said monsters. |
Kono Kamen no Akuma ni Sōdan o![edit]
No. | Title | Japanese release date | Japanese ISBN |
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1 | Consulting with This Masked Devil! Kono Kamen no Akuma ni Sōdan wo! (この仮面の悪魔に相談を!) | April 1, 2016[31] | ISBN978-4-04-104293-9 |
Consulting with This Masked Devil! is set between the eighth and ninth novels of the main series, and features a series of vignettes following Vanir's life in Axel. Wanting to raise more money as his and Wiz's magic shop was struggling, Vanir opens a consulting center in the adventurers' guild. The spin-off also explores Wiz's own adventuring past, including her battles with Vanir and decision to become a lich. |
Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! Extra - Ano Orokamono ni mo Kyakkou wo![edit]
No. | Title | Japanese release date | Japanese ISBN |
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1 | Wonderful, name support Subarashiki kana, Mei Wakiyaku (素晴らしきかな、名脇役) | August 1, 2017[32] | ISBN978-4-04-105816-9 |
Taking place between the 2nd and 4th volume of the main series. It tells the tales of Dust's exploit during his party member exchange between Kazuma. After that, Dust goes through various attempts at earning a lot of money quickly and live a frivolous life, which included: taking a magic sword and reselling it; attempting to make Darkness fall for him; and aiding the succubus shop when they're under investigation in exchange for free succubus dreams. However, all his plans failed and he ended up in prison for a week. After being released from prison, he finds out that his party members, due to being infuriated by Dust's antics, have replaced him with a new member as they set off for a quest, leaving Dust behind. While contemplating his actions, Dust discovers a dark plot that targets one of his party member, Lynn. He sets off together with the loli succubus and a helmeted noble to put a stop to the scheme. | |||
2 | Beyond the distant harem Tōi Hāremu no Mukō ni (遠いハーレムの向こうに) | December 1, 2017[33] | ISBN978-4-04-105817-6 |
Taking place between the 7th and 9th volume of the main series. The story begins with Dust's perspective of the battle against the kowloon hydra and his meeting with goddess Eris. Then, Dust and his party take on a quest to explore an abandoned dungeon. After not finding anything valuable in it and his party member Keith and Taylor suddenly feeling weak, Dust receives vouchers for a trip to Alcanretia from Kazuma. Dust invites his party members, Yunyun, the loli succubus, Vanir and Chris to the trip. After Dust's plans of using a magic item to make the girls fall for him failed and a squabble with the local Axis cultists, they all return from the trip only to find that everyone in Axel is suffering from the similar but more severe symptom that Keith and Taylor had. Deducing that something in the dungeon caused it, Dust and his party together with Yunyun and the loli succubus returned to the dungeon to solve the mystery. | |||
3 | Yumemiru Hime ni Hoshizora o (夢見る姫に星空を) | July 1, 2018[34] | ISBN978-4-04-106522-8 |
4 | 常敗無勝のギャンブラー | November 1, 2018[35] | ISBN978-4-04-106523-5 |
Manga[edit]
No. | Japanese release date | Japanese ISBN | English release date | English ISBN |
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1 | April 9, 2015[36] | ISBN978-4-04-070539-2 | November 22, 2016[37] | ISBN978-0-31-655256-1 |
2 | December 5, 2015[38] | ISBN978-4-04-070782-2 | February 21, 2017[39] | ISBN978-0-31-655332-2 |
3 | March 9, 2016[40] | ISBN978-4-04-070834-8 | April 18, 2017[41] | ISBN978-0-31-646933-3 |
4 | September 9, 2016[42] | ISBN978-4-04-072019-7 | July 18, 2017[43] | ISBN978-0-31-655954-6 |
5 | March 9, 2017[44] | ISBN978-4-04-072212-2 | November 14, 2017[45] | ISBN978-0-31-641281-0 |
6 | September 8, 2017[46] | ISBN978-4-04-072433-1 | May 22, 2018[47] | ISBN978-1-97-532649-4 |
7 | March 9, 2018[48] | ISBN978-4-04-072628-1 | November 13, 2018[49] | ISBN978-1-97-532809-2 |
8 | September 7, 2018[50] | ISBN978-4-04-072881-0 | April 30, 2019[51] | ISBN978-1-97-530416-4 |
9 | April 9, 2019[52] | ISBN978-4-04-073139-1 | November 12, 2019[53] | ISBN978-1-97-535954-6 |
References[edit]
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
- ^'Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 1 (light novel)'. Hachette Book Group. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! 2 (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
- ^'Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 2 (light novel)'. Hachette Book Group. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! 3 (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
- ^'Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 3 (light novel)'. Hachette Book Group. Retrieved May 22, 2017.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! 4 (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
- ^'Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 4 (light novel)'. Hachette Book Group. Retrieved May 24, 2017.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! 5 (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
- ^'Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 5 (light novel)'. Hachette Book Group. Retrieved February 3, 2018.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! 6 (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
- ^'Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 6 (light novel)'. Hachette Book Group. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! 7 (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
- ^'Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 7 (light novel)'. Hachette Book Group. Retrieved December 19, 2018.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! 8 (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
- ^'Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 8 (light novel)'. Hachette Book Group. Retrieved December 19, 2018.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! 9 (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
- ^'Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 9 (light novel)'. Hachette Book Group. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! 10 (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! 11 (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を!12 (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を!13 (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を!14 (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を!15 (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved December 19, 2018.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に爆焔を! (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^'Konosuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 1 (manga)'. Yen Press. Retrieved January 10, 2019.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に爆焔を! 2 (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^'Konosuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 2 (manga)'. Yen Press. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に爆焔を! 3 (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^続・この素晴らしい世界に爆焔を! (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^この仮面の悪魔に相談を! (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^'この素晴らしい世界に祝福を!エクストラ あの愚か者にも脚光を!' (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^'この素晴らしい世界に祝福を!エクストラ あの愚か者にも脚光を!2' (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^'この素晴らしい世界に祝福を!エクストラ あの愚か者にも脚光を!3' (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^'この素晴らしい世界に祝福を!エクストラ あの愚か者にも脚光を!4' (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! (1). Amazon.co.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved February 22, 2016.
- ^'Konosuba, Vol. 1 (manga)'. Hachette Book Group. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! (2). Amazon.co.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved February 22, 2016.
- ^'Konosuba, Vol. 2 (manga)'. Hachette Book Group. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! (3). Amazon.co.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved February 22, 2016.
- ^'Konosuba, Vol. 3 (manga)'. Hachette Book Group. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! (4). Amazon.co.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved February 10, 2017.
- ^'Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 4 (manga)'. Amazon.com. Retrieved February 11, 2017.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! (5). Amazon.co.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved August 28, 2017.
- ^'Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 5 (manga)'. Amazon.com. Retrieved May 22, 2017.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! (6). Amazon.co.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved June 24, 2018.
- ^'Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 6 (manga)'. Yen Press. Retrieved June 24, 2018.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! (7). Amazon.co.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved June 24, 2018.
- ^'Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 7 (manga)'. Yen Press. Retrieved June 24, 2018.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! 8. Amazon.co.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved December 19, 2018.
- ^'Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 8 (manga)'. Amazon.com. Retrieved April 11, 2019.
- ^この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! 9. Amazon.co.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved April 11, 2019.
- ^Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, Vol. 9 (manga). Amazon.com. Retrieved June 2, 2019.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_KonoSuba_volumes&oldid=899920991'
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The two main characters of the story, Kazuma and Aqua displayed on the cover of the first light novel. Along with their companions Darkness and Megumin in Chibi form.
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Kazuma Satou is a hikikomori who died pushing a girl out of the way of a truck, only to wind up in the presence of Aqua, a beautiful self-proclaimed goddess... who proceeds to mock him for his embarrassing demise,note before giving him a choice: either go to heaven to lead a boring afterlife, start over on Earth as a baby... or reincarnate with his current body and memories in a different world in order to defeat a demon king who terrorizes it.
Given his past life as an avid gamer, Kazuma picks the latter option, after which he was told to choose anything, an item or ability of any type, to bring into the new world with him. And out of sheer spite, he chooses Aqua as his 'cheat' item to bring. And with that done the two are both dragged into a fantasy world of grand adventure...
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...Oh, how Kazuma wishes it were that easy. Instead, he is stuck with three 'problem children': Aqua, the self-centered water goddess; Megumin, a delusional Child Mage; and Darkness, masochistic lady-knight.
Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!, originally Kono Subarashii Sekai Ni Shukufuku O! (この素晴らしい世界に祝福を!, Blessing this Wonderful World!), is an ongoing 2013 light novel series written by Natsume Akatsuki and illustrated by Kurone Mishima, currently at fifteen volumes, with an anime adaptation by Studio DEEN released at the Winter 2016 block.
Crunchyroll is streaming the anime under the title God's Blessing on this Wonderful World!, which can be viewed here for audiences worldwide except for Asia, Spain, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand; and German, French, Italian, and Dutch Speaking Europe. The light novels and manga have been licensed by Yen Press.
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There are also a few tie-in games, though the first two are blu-ray season pack bonuses - the first season's being an RPG Maker game, and the second being a Mega Man-esque platformer made by Krobon Station, the developer of Pharaoh Rebirth, with the plot being Verdia coming back from the dead, and brainwashing Kazuma's party, forcing the poor bastard to go beat them up himself before taking down Verdia himself. The first isn't really noteworthy, but the second got a lot of attention for being very well-made and fun on its own, and foreign players are hoping for an official independent English release. There is also a visual novel game, about Kazuma putting on a ring that steals the panties of everyone around him (because of course) and he needs to acquire the funds needed to deal with the problem.
The main characters are part of the crossover Isekai Quartet.
Blessing this Wonderful World with Tropes:
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- Absurdly Sharp Blade: The Winter Shogun's blade slices Darkness's sword in half when it attacks her.
- Adaptation Expansion: The anime changes the fight with Hans to be much more climactic: In the novels, Kazuma's plan to beat him was simply have Wiz drain most of his mana dry, have her freeze Hans, and then let Megumin unleash her power on him. In the anime, this got expanded into a full-on Thanatos Gambit, where he lures Hans into a crater, lets Wiz and Megumin go all out, and then Aqua annihilates him with the power of her followers' prayer.
- All-Loving Hero: The Axis Cult is surprisingly progressive about romance and sexuality even when compared to modern Real Life religions, and one of its tenets is that true love can be enjoyed between anyone and anything, so long as you hate and agree to the extermination of demons and the undead (Though even Aqua herself is lightening up on that front). Unfortunately, this attitude also attracts many kooks like Cecily, who use their religion to justify acting on their absurd fetishes.
- And the Adventure Continues:
- The original web novel ended with Kazuma successfully taking out the Demon King with a point-blank suicide Explosion. In the afterlife, he rejects Eris's reward of reincarnating him back on Earth in a wealthy, loving family with two beautiful sisters (his original wish to Eris). Instead, he chooses to return to Aqua. To his dismay, Eris promptly tells him that the Demon King was just the first of many, each one exponentially stronger than the last, before wishing him luck on his new journey.
- The anime's second season ends with the characters returning home after their fight with Hans and getting ready to continue with their lives, the same way as before. After the credits roll, Kazuma states the true battle is only beginning.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Megumin's sister, Komekko. Volume 11 shows her as this in full throttle.
- Apocalyptic Log: Parodied with the diary of the scientist who built the Destroyer. It begins like a classic example, then turns more and more informal, starts using 'shiiiiiiit' like punctuation, and rather than ending in the usual omnious cliffhanger, the last words are of him calling whoever built the thing a complete idiot, right before remembering he's the one who did it. The readers end up understandably flabbergasted.
- Armor of Invincibility: One exists in the form of Aegis, considered the most advanced of the artifacts that the Japanese could choose from. It holds that title because it is invulnerable to damage, heals the user as a passive effect, and is sentient.
- Artistic License – Physics: When the Destroyer is about to 'release it's internally stored-heat' and melt the entire town of Axle, the characters' solution is to.... cast Explosion. Which generates heat. Heat which would be added to the heat the Destroyer is already venting, due to the conservation of energy. Justified by Rule of Cool and the setting's wonky RPG-Mechanics Verse.
- Art Shift: When Kazuma reaches his Rage Breaking Point after a little girl tries to scam him into joining the Axis Cult, the animation adopts a much different style with exaggerated outlines for the last several seconds of the episode.
- Astral Checkerboard Decor: The purgatory dimension where Kazuma ends up in after dying has a chessboard floor pattern.
- Battle Harem:
- One jealous adventurer lampshades it when claiming Kazuma doesn't deserve a party full of beautiful, powerful girls, and wishes he could be the harem protagonist instead. He ends up changing his mind after he switched parties with Kazuma for a day, to the point where he begged to switch back.
- Played straight with Kyouya Mitsurugi, whose female party members argue over the right to be his girlfriend.
- Beleaguered Boss: Kazuma is the team leader of his incompetent party and Unwanted Harem that are made up of three sociopathic girls all with Crippling Overspecialization and take turns at being The Load. They endlessly annoy him and there are many instances he'd be happy to be rid of them.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Despite how each and every member of the Axis Cult is a Cloudcuckoolander in some way or another, there's two things they are terrifyingly serious about: demons and heretics.Alcanretiaangry mob:[chanting]Slay the demons! Defeat the Devil King!
- Bio-Augmentation: Volume 5 reveals that the Crimson Magic Clan originated from chuunibyou humans who had their magic talent genetically enhanced. Oh and the idiot who came up with the idea to enhance said delusional mages in the first place? Why, the same numbskull who created the Destroyer, that's who.
- Bittersweet Ending: The anime's second season ends with the heroes defeating yet another one of the Demon King's generals, even when his plan to cripple Alcanretia's economy succeeds after Aqua uses a form of God Requiem so powerful the medicinal hot springs water turned into ordinary hot water.
- Belated Happy Ending: However, Volume 8 of the novels, well beyond the scope of the animated adaptations to date, reveal that it wasn't entirely a disaster — if anything, it was a blessing in disguise, as the resulting water was extremely potent holy water, which would in the long term prove to be even more marketable and thus profitable than were Alcanretia to remain a hot springs town.
- Book-Ends:
- The web novel ended exactly as it had began; Kazuma in the afterlife being summoned into the fantasy world, and choosing a goddess to take with him. The twist is that he ended up choosing Eris to get back at Aqua for pissing him off.
- Episode 3 of season 2 starts with Kazuma questioning what he's doing with his life after one of Megumin's Explosions creates a rainbow. He finds himself asking himself the same thing at the end, when he witnesses Aqua puking up a rainbow, after he spent all his Eris on alcohol.
- Brick Joke: In several episodes, Megumin (and occasionally Kazuma) sings a song with the lyrics of, 'bakuretsu, bakuretsu, la, la, la' (explosion, explosion, la, la, la). In the second season, Aqua uses the same tune to sing a song with the lyrics of, 'otakara, otakara, la, la, la' (treasure, treasure, la, la, la).
- In volume 1, Kazuma states that he, as an advocate of 'gender equality', Would Drop Kick a Girl. In volume 15, he does exactly that against Celestina.
- Brilliant, but Lazy:
- Kazuma can be surprisingly effective as a Combat Pragmatist and can reverse engineer some Earth technology, but tends to laze around if he's sitting on a lot of money.
- The Hikikomori members of the Crimson Magic Clan are powerful arch wizards capable of fending off the Demon King's army.
- Bullying a Dragon: Megumin does this to Verdia in Episode 4, talking big about how her constant casting of Explosion on the abandoned castle he was living at was all a ploy to bring him out and face off against the adventurers in Axel. Though he seemed to only want to leave them with a warning, she continues to taunt him, causing him to cast a curse on her which would kill her in seven days. However, Darkness intercepts the spell, and Aqua easily dispels it after he leaves.
- Butt-Monkey:
- Aqua's low intelligence keeps getting her into trouble, but Kazuma is also a frequent target of the world's abuse. It doesn't help that they always blame each other for all the misery they get.
- Despite their strength, even some of the antagonists (Verdia, Vanir, Sylvia, etc) suffer from the zaniness of the world and the party.
- By the Lights of Their Eyes:
- The Crimson Magic Clan are named after their deep red eyes, which radiate in varying intensity to the person's emotion state. In the dark they give off an 'eye shine' that can be seen without a light source.
- Baptized members of the Axis Cult have a strange glow that seems to emit from the back of their eyes, whenever they think of Aqua or are converting others to their faith. It's a sign of their insanity and the blessing of Aqua.
- The Call Knows Where You Live: After Kazuma defeats Wolbach and foils his plans in Elroad, the Demon King starts making plans to attack Axel.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Vanir claims that both Kazuma and Darkness are attracted to one another, but are too afraid of destroying their friendship by taking it to the next level, thus they feign ignorance. Kazuma later analyzes his relationship with Megumin and thinks manga/light novel readers would normally be screaming at them to just get together already, but it's a lot different when he is also pretty conflicted with where his heart truly lay. In volume 9, during an intimate moment with Megumin, he apologizes to all the anime, manga and light novel protagonists he criticized for doing nothing in the same situation.
- Can't Live With Them, Can't Live Without Them: Kazuma notes how he never realizes how helpful Darkness and Megumin are to his party's lineup and tactics until they have to step out.
- Casual Danger Dialog: Kazuma and Chris bicker about what they should name their thieving group while they flee from the Royal Palace's guards.
- Central Theme: The idea that despite not being perfect or ideal, this world still offers plenty of simple joys and well-earned victories to be treasured.
- Chained Heat: Darkness Invokes this on Kazuma in an effort to get him to pay his taxes, and even weighs herself down with heavy weights to prevent him from lifting her up and running away. He gets away with not paying his taxes, but they're stuck having to go to the restroom, bathe, and sleep together until they can find the key. Megumin Exploits this so Kazuma and Darkness can peacefully resolve their Unresolved Sexual Tension, now that Kazuma and Megumin are sort of in a relationship.
- Chest Monster: Double-subverted. Kazuma and Aqua encountered a suspicious chest while exploring a dungeon, and to test whether or not it is a monster, Kazuma throws a rock at it. The chest itself is not a monster, but the wall behind the chest is.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Subverted in episode 2x09. While relaxing in the Alcanretia hot springs, Megumin and Darkness discuss Kazuma and mention that even though he's a massive perv he's a good guy at heart. However, it turns out to be a trick to find out if he's peeping on them in the hot springs. He is, obviously. Darkness promptly punches him out.
- Chromatic Arrangement: The first three main characters, Kazuma (green), Aqua (blue), and Megumin (red). Finally, Darkness joins as yellow.
- Chuunibyou: The Crimson Magic Clan is an entire race of mages with overblown fantasies, down to the ridiculous clothes, nonsensical introductions, weird names, and, of course, overpowered magic.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe:
- This is how characters (specifically Aqua's companions) try to justify Aqua being able to use goddess-level powers despite not being a goddess: Since, in the Axis Cult, people's skills in Holy Magic and faith are tied to how completely bonkers they are, a person crazy enough honestly believe they are the goddess Aqua and to mimic her name and appearance would naturally have enough Holy Magic to use skills like Resurrection and God Blow.
- Played straight at the end of Volume 4, where the Alcanretians' prayers empower Aqua's God Blow enough completely obliterate Hans.
- Clothing Damage: Happens to Darkness during the cabbage event. She intercepts attacks meant for some adventurers who had been knocked down. Sections of her armor start breaking off as she sustains more hits, and eventually even her clothing starts getting ripped. However, later in the day, her gear is completely restored after said event is finished.
- Color-Coded Characters: A subtle example with the main characters. Kazuma is green (eyes, jersey, and cloak), Aqua is blue, Megumin is red, and Darkness is yellow.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- When Megumin justifies her Crippling Overspecialization with Explosion, she declares it with such passion Aqua agrees with her. Kazuma meanwhile wants to dump her as soon as possible, but Megumin clings onto him and begs him not to abandon her like every other party has done, even blackmailing him by making him look like a paedophile.
- Darkness gets a little too turned on at being hit with a curse that would kill her in seven days, and then imagines all the torture she would be subjected to by Verdia. Even he is creeped out by it, enough to make him hastily bolt out. Additionally, when Kazuma is chewing out Aqua for blowing all her money away and not being very useful to the group, Darkness wishes that he would verbally abuse her in the same manner as well.
- After Kyouya loses a duel with Kazuma, his female companions disagree with the way he won. Kazuma threatens to steal their panties in public if they wanted to duel him as well. While Megumin attempts to cover her skirt due to having lost her panties to him days ago, Darkness has an excited look on her face at that prospect.
- When Aqua is being attacked by monster alligators during a lake purification quest, Darkness wishes she were in the former's safety cage, all the while Aqua is frantically attempting to do her duties as though her life depended on it.
- Compressed Adaptation: Wiz and Dust both had proper introductions that were removed from the anime adaptation. In Wiz's case, her first meeting with Aqua and Kazuma gets a few lines of voiceover and some still images (despite it being an essential plot point for that episode's events), whereas the scenario where Kazuma and Dust switch parties for a day is missing entirely. Incidentally, the first season is two episodes shorter than your average light novel adaptation.
- Conspicuous CG: The horses in episode 2x07. While they are cel-shaded to fit in with the animation, the fact that they have full idle poses while everything else around them has Limited Animation makes them stick out like a sore thumb, and to make matters worse they look like they're capped to the animation's framerate (probably 12 frames per second) as opposed to the video framerate, resulting in jerky, stuttering movements that calls further attention to them.
- Corpsing:
- In Season 2 Episode 4 Kazuma and Aqua try to stifle their laughter after hearing that Darkness's real name is 'Lalatina'.
- In Volume 12, there's an intense scene were Darkness essentially confesses her love to Kazuma, and she tries to end the conversation by leaving dramatically... but she forgets that they're still handcuffed together and falls flat on her face. Kazuma can't help but burst out laughing at the suddenchange in tone.
- Crapsaccharine World: While the series definitely does not portray the world as sunshine and rainbows, if you weren't paying attention to the details you'd think it was relatively peaceful. However the casual way characters describe the darker parts of the world can be quite disturbing.
- The only reason why Axel is somewhat peaceful is because of the presence of both the lich Wiz and Verdia, one of the Demon Lord's generals. Monsters avoid the former, while the Demon Lord's lesser subordinates do so out of respect for him. Everywhere else lay at the mercy of demon raids and monster sieges.
- The people tend to have some sort of Gallows Humor regarding their existence in a world beset by the Demon Lord. Their annual thanksgiving celebrations for Eris is actually a time of prayer for a chance to survive at least a year (instead of wealth or good health), while Aqua casually states that people don't bother giving birthday presents to each other because they don't expect to live too long.
- Then there's the premise where the reason they are bringing in people from Japan is because they outright refuse to reincarnate in it. It's also worth noting that the gods are so anxious about defeating the Demon Lord, so they provide Japanese heroes with their choice of various Infinity +1 Sword or Armor of Invincibility to speed up the process. So far, only a few actually managed to defeat various Demon Lords, with each successful hero being married into the royal family. This, however, brings on another issue since it is heavily implied that the current Demon Lord is actually a Japanese himself.
- Though it's played off as a comedic moment, agricultural crops gain the ability to move and become violent upon harvest season. To give an idea of how dangerous these crops are, in a community of powerful mages, Crimson Magic Clan farmers are some of the most powerful in the community because of the nigh-daily combat they face subjugating their crops. Axel does not suffer from starvation or food shortages because it lies on a major migration route, has an early warning system, and benefits from the large standing army of adventurers to 'harvest' these crops. Communities lacking these fortuitous advantages, are not so lucky.
- Due to constant monster attacks, basic education for children is an alien concept, as they either become adventurers and join the meat-grinder, or they learn a trade to assist adventurers. The only known exceptions are the tourist city of Alcanretia, the home base of the Aqua-worshipping Axis Cult, who are so annoying that not even the Demon Lord would want to go anywhere nearby, and the Crimson Magic Clan's Magic Academy, whose students are collectively powerful enough to repel the Demon Lord's armies.
- Curative spells are a rare commodity among adventurers, removing a key pillar of the Damager, Healer, Tank tactics that are vital to survival. Part of this is because Healing Magic Is the Hardest, but another contributing factor is the world's greatest source of healers, the Axis Cult, is considered an incredibly dangerous religion.
- Wiz is recognized as one of the most powerful spell casters in the world, having once been the member of an epic tier adventurer party. Said group nearly suffered a Total Party Kill via a curse, the aftermath of which resulted in Wiz becoming a lich and serving the Demon Lord she was supposed to defeat. The Demon Lord has only gotten stronger since then.
- Crippling Overspecialization: This is basically the reason why Kazuma's team is such a handful.
- Aqua suffers from this the least. While her skillset is limited to water magic, healing magic, and purification magic, she has enough variety to be extremely useful in plenty of different ways. Still, a major reason for being so useful is the huge power of her magic, which makes up for the limited variety. However, her (literal) god-tier Turn Undead magic is only useful against undead, which the party rarely comes across, and even when they do, it's probably because Aqua attracted them in the first place.
- Darkness is a serious case: she has extremely high strength and endurance, but nothing else. In addition, she can't even make proper use of her high strength, because she's so clumsy that she's terrible at hitting targets. As a result, pretty much her only use on the battlefield is to tank damage. However, one reedeming quality is that, as a noble, she is useful off the battlefield due to her influence and connections.
- Megumin is the worst offender in Kazuma's party. She is a mage but can only cast one kind of magic, Explosion, an extremely powerful destructive area-of-effect spell. And as if only knowing how to use Explosion wasn't bad enough, the fact that she puts all her skill points in it has resulted in its mana cost being way too high for her to handle. As a result, she collapses due to exhaustion every time she uses it and needs about a day to recover enough mana to cast it again.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Kazuma's party as a collective whole. Their personality and combat quirks make them individually incompetent, and the leader is constantly berating the girls for their antics because of it, but when they listen to him and work together, there's signs of them being the world's best chance at overthrowing the Demon King.
- Writ large with the Crimson Demon clan, an entire race of Chuunibyou wizards that run entirely on badassbombastic speeches that looks absolutely ridiculous to everyone else in the world (and even one or two of their own number). But they are completely capable of backing those speeches up, as shown when a unit of the Demon Lord's forces, over a thousand strong and led by a highly magic-resistant general, try to take on fifty Crimson Demons. It's a magical slaughter, and the mages aren't even TRYING.
- Cult: The Axis Cult is featured in Volumes 4 and 8, and is infamous for its adherents' zaniness and stupidity. Considering it's the Faith ofAqua, none of their antics are truly surprising.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- Kazuma easily defeats Kyouya during their duel in episode five. He ends up stealing the latter's sword, then bopping him on the head with it.
- Verdia easily defeats some random adventurers when they attempt to attack him all at once during his second appearance on Axel.
- Cute Monster Girl: The Succubus that gets caught in Kazuma's Manor in Episode 9.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check:
- The Succubi in this world realized that they would get a lot better reception, and could make a decent profit, by selling their abilities to make anyone dream whatever they wanted as a legitimate service.
- While they aren't evil per se, Kazuma teaches the Axis Cult that they could make more money (and get a better reputation) during the festival if they perform legitimate services instead of trying to scam people into joining their religion. Their zealous nature actually ends with them outperforming the Eris cult.
- Cutting the Knot: When the monsters hiding in Keele's dungeon start causing trouble for nearby townspeople, Kazuma initially plans to just blow up the dungeon and hope whatever is hiding in there gets caught in the cave-in.
- Cyber Ninja: The Bomber Majin Moguninnin is a robotic ninja that destroys its enemies with Detonation magic. It also specifically targets overpowered Japanese people who are too content with their lives.
- Damager, Healer, Tank: Megumin, Aqua and Darkness, respectively; while there are occasions where he assists in these areas, Kazuma predominantly fills the Utility Party Member role.
- Dancing Theme: In the anime's second season opening, the 'dancing' consists of the main cast lazily waving their arms from side to side.
- Deathbed Confession: Spoofed in the OVA-exclusive Episode 11. Kazuma, unable to get a cursed choker off his neck, confesses to the girls so he can die with a clear conscience. Naturally, his confessions are all perverted: he tells Megumin that whenever he carries her he shifts her so he can feel her small boobs against his back, he says that when he talks to Wiz and Yunyun he's constantly staring at their chests, and admits that he basically just sees Darkness as a giant walking pair of breasts. As for Aqua...he admits that she's such a pain in the ass that, despite his best efforts, he simply can't view her in a sexual manner. Of course, this means he doesn't actually die...at least until the girls get their hands on him and give him a premature audience with Eris in the afterlife.
- Death by Origin Story: Kazuma is killed right off the bat. However, he is quickly resurrected in a new world.
- Death Is Not Permanent: How the story begins. Also applies to resurrection spells working on Kazuma in the fantasy world, despite the practice being illegal, because Aqua and Eris, both goddesses, are able to bend that rule in his favor.
- Debut Queue: In the anime, the first few episodes introduce the various girls that join up with Kazuma.
- Deconstructive Parody:
- Of light novels that reincarnate ordinary humans as heroes into a fantasy world. The way Kazuma died is specifically a parody of Mushoku Tensei. The deconstruction part is that, unlike most NEET protagonists that reincarnate, Kazuma isn't really able to turn his life around significantly, due to a combination of having less luck in recruiting comrades and occasionally snapping back to his pre-reincarnation habits.
- It's also a reversal on the trend of such protagonists becoming charismatic powerhouses in their new world. Kazuma is stuck with a rock-bottom-tier class, and his companions, while top-tier, tend to have ridiculously unbalanced specializations to the point that they make themselves look more like liabilities than assets.
- It also has an alternate take on the Harem Genre, where male observers of the quartet enviously mistake Kazuma as the luckiest man alive to have such beautiful companions, unaware of the sheer psychological pressure of handling his three 'problem children'.
- Veterans of Tabletop RPG and Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game often remark how the hilarious antics of Kazuma's party, remind them of personal experiences when 'serious' gamers are paired up with 'casual' gamers, and the chaos that ensues when they clash. Another common comparison is the case of a veteran gamer opening a new account (Kazuma) having to party with several newbies who purchased high-level characters from gold farmers.
- Kyouya Mitsurugi, another Japanese transplant, is a walking Take That! to the Chosen One trope commonly associated with the fantasy genre, being everything Kazuma is not — a Bishōnen who has the Cursed Sword 'Gram', an Infinity +1 Sword/Disc-One Nuke, as his reincarnation perk, is specifically tasked by Aqua to fight the Demon Lord, is accompanied by two cute girls who bicker over him, and lives on a creed of Honor Before Reason. Naturally, not only does Kazuma resent the unfair advantage, but also discovers that without Gram he's a mere pushover.
- The Point Build System is deconstructed in Megumin's spinoff, where her clan's optimal build is to only spend skill points on Advanced Magic, but not Beginner or Intermediate Magic. This means the students cannot use any real attack magic until they have enough skill points to learn advanced magic, even if they perfectly understand how to cast said magic. This leads to a rather amusing scene where the teachers help them power level by freezing an enemy in place while letting them bash it to death.
- However, the above is also played seriously when Megumin, Yunyun, and Komekko are at the mercy of several monsters, forcing Yunyun to spend her skill points on Intermediate Magic in order to survive and then slowly grind enough levels in the background across several books until finally earning enough skill points to unlock Teleportation by the ninth novel.
- In-universe, there's a picture book that further deconstructs the idea of giving cheat abilities to reincarnated heroes, especially if those 'heroes' don't have any of Kazuma and Kyouya's virtues. The protagonist of the story lets the cheat powers go to his head and becomes a comically insufferable 'solo player' who only fights the Demon King for fame and fortune. In the end, his less than heroic motivations lead him to become the next Demon King. It's unknown if this was based on actual events in the novel's setting.
- Even Megumin and Darkness could be considered parodies of their respective classes by taking their roles to their logical conclusion. Wizards are supposed to be responsible for casting destructive AOE spells, which Megumin takes to extremes with her Explosion obsession. Crusaders are supposed to defend their allies, which Darkness also takes to extremes by being a masochist who enjoys taking hits.
- Surprisingly, Kazuma eventually does fulfill the tradition of isekai series heroes finding more success in the other world than in their original life. This also gets deconstructed because while he did manage to become rich, he never really grows out of his NEET mentality like other protagonists usually do, causing him to coast on his riches now that he no longer has to risk his life to make ends meet.
- Didn't Think This Through: In Volume 10, Darkness ties Kazuma to his bed in order to keep him from helping Iris. The first problem with this plan arises when she has to help him go to the bathroom.
- Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?:
- The reason Alderp never seems to get into trouble despite being a Devil in Plain Sight is because he took advantage of his summoned devil's amnesia to get infinite favors. Though his devil eventually realizes that he's being scammed and punishes Alderp for eternity.
- When Megumin goes back on her deal to sell Chomesuke to Anis, the demoness complains that humans are often guilty of this trope when selling their souls in exchange for unreasonable wishes and wonders why they can't live more honestly.
- Played for Laughs and literally with Aqua, who buys what she is told is a dragon egg for 75 million. Her dragon looks suspiciously like a chicken.
- Disc-One Nuke: Defied. Kazuma is incentivised to reincarnate in the fantasy world by an offer to choose from a selection of skills, all of which seem 'broken' to his gamer instincts. However, the individual making the offer ticks him off just a bit too much, so he opts to drag her into the world instead. He thus locks himself out of the 'newcomer protagonist with a unique, powerful, game-changing skill' out of spite.
- Ditzy Genius: The guy who created The Destroyer and the Crimson Magic Clan was of no doubt an absolutely brilliant magical scientist... But he also was somewhat lacking in common sense, even if he figured out that fact after finishing his final creation. Granted, the people who commissioned The Destroyer in the first place weren't exactly the brightest tools in the shed either, especially since it's implied the whole project was actually under-funded...
- Divine Ranks: Aqua claims to be a high-ranking goddess because of her jurisdiction over Earth. When Kazuma mentioned there were rules that prevented him from having consecutive resurrections, Aqua immediately demanded to know who had the gall to question her authority and tell him that. Normally one might think she just being boastful, but Eris's submissive reactions indicate otherwise.
- Diving Kick: The Lizard Runner Princess unleashes a Kamen Rider Kick on Kazuma during Episode 6 of the second season.
- 'Do It Yourself' Theme Tune: Sora Amamiya (Aqua), Rie Takahashi (Megumin) and Ai Kayano (Darkness) perform the ending themes for both seasons.
- The Doll Episode: Episode 8 features a haunted mansion with ghosts that possess a large collection of Creepy Dolls.
- Door-to-Door Episode: The second half of Season Two's Episode 8, where Axis cultists attempt to win over Kazuma and Darkness to the Axis Cult, to the former's annoyance.
- Double Standard: Rape, Female on Male:
- Averted in Volume 5. Kazuma nearly gets raped by female orcs and it is treated with the same amount of seriousness had the same incident happened if the genders were flipped, exploring how traumatic such an incident can be on the victim.
- Played straight but downplayed in volume 12. Darkness tries to rape Kazuma and it's Played for Laughs though admittedly, it's more because of how clumsy and inexperienced Darkness is than the idea of the male Kazuma being raped by the female Darkness.
- The Dreaded:
- The Mobile Fortress Destroyer. It's considered less an enemy and more an unstoppable force of nature. The reward for destroying it is only exceeded by the bounty on the Demon Lord himself.
- Clergy of the Axis Cult. Whenever possible, the general population avoid contact with the followers of Aqua, warning newcomers of the extreme danger they pose. Aqua calls them, 'good children,' but the rest of the world consider them deadly nutcases.
- Dream Weaver: Succubi can control the exact content of the dreams of the men they feed on. This allowed them to form a mutually beneficial business-like arrangement known as the Succubus Shop with the male adventurers in Axel where a succubus grants a man an Erotic Dream shaped to suit his tastes (they have to fill in a form and everything) in exchange of a small amount of his Life Force.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Nobody recognizes Kazuma's party's feats, except for Iris and the residents of Axel, as more than a fluke. This is despite the fact that they've literally defeated several of the Demon King's generals (four, as of volume six), as well as the Mobile Fortress Destroyer. It doesn't help that Kazuma is renowned as a jerk who sexually harasses his party members, and is thought to have perverted Iris's mind. This changes after Kazuma personally leads Belzerg's army to victory over Wolbach in volume nine, then ingeniously secures the defense funding from Elroad in volume ten.
- Early Game Hell: True to its RPG roots, the starting conditions Kazuma and Aqua find themselves in are brutally difficult. Neither of them start with any gear or gold to buy items, forcing them to spend days doing boring menial jobs around town before they can even attempt their first quest. Upon attempting their first quest, they discover they are massively outclassed by even the most basic enemies.
- Eaten Alive:
- Played for Laughs during the 'Kill five giant toads' quest, where Aqua gets repeatedly eaten, along with Megumin after she joins them, forcing Kazuma to then save them.
- And in a not so comedic fashion when Kazuma is eaten by a Hydra. As expected when you're eaten by a multi-headed monstrosity, there wasn't much left of him to revive.
- Elves vs. Dwarves: Exploited by a pair of shopkeepers in Alcanretia, who deliberately play up stereotypes about their races and argue with each other for the sake of attracting tourists.
- Engrish: The second season of the anime ends with the message 'THANKS FOR YOUR PLAYING.'
- Epic Fail:
- Aqua rushes at a giant toad in anger after nearly being Swallowed Whole by one. She prepares a flashy Finishing Move as she runs towards the toad. As soon as it hits, the spell fizzles out, as the toad is immune to water-based attacks such as hers. She is then once again eaten by another toad, forcing Kazuma to rescue her again.
- Darkness takes on Verdia during the latter's second assault on Axel. They have what appears to be a Single-Stroke Battle at some point in the fight. Unfortunately, despite Verdia being stationary, Darkness only cuts the two rocks between him, missing him entirely.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- In Episode 4, after Darkness intercepts a curse intended for Megumin from Verdia, she starts getting a little too excited about being taken away and being tortured in various ways. Even he was so creeped out he simply tells Kazuma's party to stop blowing up his castle before leaving.
- When he returns some time later, he chastises them for not showing up at his castle to try and defeat him and get the curse lifted, not knowing Darkness was uncursed mere moments after he left.
- The Demon King allows Wiz to interfere if his generals cause civilian casualties, implying that he shares her views on sparing non-combatants (or simply doesn't want to antagonize her).
- The Winter Shogun spares Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness after they all prostrate in front of him for killing his snow minions. Kazuma unfortunately isn't so lucky and gets decapitated, although he's forcefully resurrected and ordered by Aqua to come back instead of being resurrected back on Earth.
- In Episode 4, after Darkness intercepts a curse intended for Megumin from Verdia, she starts getting a little too excited about being taken away and being tortured in various ways. Even he was so creeped out he simply tells Kazuma's party to stop blowing up his castle before leaving.
- Exposed to the Elements: In episode 7, they visit a freezing snow covered mountain in completely different costumes, but exposing just as much flesh as their usual outfits. Aqua has her usual micro mini pleased mesh skirt & thong on under her winter coat. Megumin has skin tight short-shorts under her parka.
- Expy: The blue armor with gold gilding that Kyouya wears in the anime, has similarities with that of the iconic Roto (better known as Erdrick in the English version) equipment set from the Dragon Quest series. The cross guard of Cursed Sword Gram also bears a similar shape to that of the Roto's sword. Roto was a savior from another world, the champion of a water goddess, who defeated the Demon King with an almighty blade: traits Kyouya sought to embody.
- False Camera Effects: In episode 2x09, after Darkness punches Kazuma in the hot springs, water droplets cling to the 'camera lens'.
- Fanservice: The series has it in spades. Including (but not limited to) absurd amounts of Gainaxing and several but and boob focus shots. Episode 9 and its introduction of the Succubus Shop and the chaos that results after Kazuma decides to hire their 'service' for an evening dials it up even more.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: Kazuma's party has this dynamic with him as the Thief, Darkness as the Fighter and both Aqua and Megumin as the Mages.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Initially Kazuma saw his 'problem children' as useless burdens, and the girls saw him as an unreasonable taskmaster. While these sentiments still hold true in later volumes, Kazuma has grown accustomed to and accepted the girls' eccentricities, as his tactics increasingly factor their strengths, while he learns skills that compensate for their weaknesses. This never went unnoticed by them, and their increasing trust and loyalty demonstrates unspoken appreciation. And slowly but surely, their growing trust is reaping dividends, allowing them to defeat even some of the Demon King's greatest generals.
- First Town: Axel serves this purpose, though the story also deconstructs the idea that people would abandon their home, just because they exceeded the average power level of it's citizens.
- Fixed Relative Strength: Played straight with the girls: their personality quirks prevent them from 'fixing' their flaws, and Kazuma willingly gave up an opportunity to correct Megumin's skillset, thus increasing levels only further magnifies the Crippling Overspecialization. Averted with Kazuma, who chose to learn skills to compensate for their weaknesses and/or leverage their advantages, becoming a more adaptable fighter in the process.
- Foreshadowing:
- A quest for locating the mobile fortress Destroyer is mentioned in Episode 7, as one of the missions Kazuma refused to accept that day. It makes a grand appearance in Episode 10, showing up at Axel without warning because no one else took the quest.
- In vol 3, Megumin wins a manatite crystal from Yunyun. Megumin tells Kazuma that manatite can be used to supplement mana for spells but the quality of this one is too weak for her to use Explosion so its useless to her, and tells him to sell it to pay off his debt a little. In the web novel, before the final assault on the Demon Lord's Castle, Kazuma uses all his money buying a small mountain of manatite crystals of the highest quality for Megumin, allowing her to spam Explosion on the Demon Lord's Castle, wiping out vast hordes of his army and even breaking the barrier.
- Kazuma mentions early on that Megumin's useless in dungeons because Explosion will cause the entire dungeon to collapse, killing everyone. At the end of the web novel, Kazuma does just this to kill the Demon Lord, though he also dies in the process.
- The very beginning has Aqua trying to summon Kazuma to the fantasy world as a hero, despite the fact that he's not hero material, simply because she has a quota to fullfil. Its implied that she does this to every recently deceased Japanese youth regardless of the kind of person they are. The Demon Lord is actually a Japanese, meaning the entire situation is her fault to begin with.
- Very early on, there's a quest at the Adventurer's Guild to subjugate a manticore and a gryphon that are battling for territory. They finally take this quest in Volume 11.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: The Winter Shogun is a high-tier monster inhabiting a snowy wasteland otherwise occupied by largely harmless Snow Sprites who takes the form of a shogun. Aqua mentions that it subconsciously takes on a form of anything previous adventurers imagined, and mentions that several Japanese reincarnated adventurers have been there recently.
- Freak Out: The alligators in the lake Aqua attempts to purify freaks her so much that, for most of the rest of the day, she's sitting in her safety cage in a state that (as former Hikikomori Kazuma noted) is dangerously close to shutting herself in the cage forever.
- 'Freaky Friday' Flip: A pendant that Iris receives is actually a divine artifact sent down with a Japanese person that has this effect on people. The effect only lasts a half hour or so, and Kazuma denounces it as harmless beyond Power Perversion Potential (as he demonstrated when he swapped bodies with Iris). Then Chris points out that it can be used to Body Surf if a person in their new body kills the person in their old body, rendering them basically immortal if they keep swapping with people in younger bodies.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Several are hidden throughout the anime series.
- In the fourth episode of the second season, when Kazuma is using Drain Touch on Darkness and she asks what Kazuma intends to do with her leftover bathwater, the camera zooms to her eyes. For a brief instant there's a little heart inside.◊
- The Fundamentalist: The entire Axis Cult. They openly reject and abuse any member of the Eris Cult, and are constantly pulling publicity schemes to increase membership, like trying to completely replace the Goddess Eris Thanksgiving Festival with a Goddess Aqua Thanksgiving Festival. Aqua, being their goddess, naturally makes her the goddess of fundamentalists.
- Funny Background Event: During the shot of the guild's horrified reaction to overhearing Chris crying about how Kazuma extorted her over her inadvertently stolen panties, three men are instead giving Kazuma an admiring thumbs-up, while the other males are smiling.
- Gainaxing: Just about every female character in the anime does this. Its most evident in the opening and Episode 9.
- Giving Radio to the Romans: Kazuma makes some cash by patenting and selling inventions from Earth. While his inventions started off as simple commodities, like flint-wheel lighters and kotatsu, he eventually tries to invent things like plastic and honest-to-goodness, Alfred Nobel-style dynamite.note The thought of Kazuma bringing modern weaponry to the new world scares Aqua, but she doesn't object.
- Godlike Gamer: Kazuma Satou is a deconstruction due to the series being an affectionate parody of the genre. While he seems like the typical example at first, being a Genre Savvy NEET who dedicated himself to gaming and got whisked away to a RPG-Mechanics Verse, the new world is just different enough to his gaming experiences that his experience is mostly useless and he ends up being a Loser Protagonist with nothing ever going his way.
- The Gods Must Be Lazy: Subverted from all sorts of angles. Eris isn't a war goddess, so her contributions are often indirect or through the adventurers sent to save it. However, as Chrisshe's performed many heroic feats, and Kazuma eventually becomes her champion. Evidence points that Aqua was a lazy and irresponsible goddess who did as little Earth-related work as possible, and those habits are seen during her interactions with Kazuma and the new world. On the other hand, she has to be an active member of his party if she wants to return home, and she needs all the money to fuel her partying habits.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: The power and rank a particular god has is proportional to the number and fervor of their followers. Therefore, while the Eris Cult has more members, Aqua outranks her because the Axis Cult is significantly more fanatical.
- Going Commando: In the anime, Aqua definitely seems to not be wearing underwear. Season 2 Episode 8 shows this also seemed to extend to the Axis Cult, since every female member of the Axis Cult in Alcanretia in even moderately revealing clothing, with the sole exception of one old lady, is drawn such that they could not possibly be wearing panties under their clothes.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Kazuma's death isn't shown on screen in Episode 7. The girls mention that he got decapitated, and he sees the blood splatter on the snow from said attack. But when he's resurrected, he's perfectly fine thanks to Aqua's healing magic.
- In the Light Novels, he suffers from the blood loss for a few days.
- Growling Gut: Megumin's stomach does this when she first meets Kazuma and Aqua. She then tells them she hasn't eaten in three days.
- Ham-to-Ham Combat: Verdia engages in some with Kazuma's group during their encounters. He tries to act like a typical villain, but is constantly mocked by the girls.
- Hero Insurance: Averted. Any property damage caused by Kazuma's party ends up costing them, such as the safety cage Aqua was in costing two-thirds of the lake purification quest (mostly caused by Kyouya bending it open to 'rescue' her), as well as the 340-million-Eris damage to parts of Axel after Aqua used a Sacred Create Water to defeat Verdia, costing them all 300 million of their quest reward, with an extra 40 million in debt. Double Subverted as Volume 7 revealed that they are not actually supposed to be held responsible for damages incurred during exceptional emergency situations like the defense of the whole city and its inhabitants. The evil mayor of the city used a demon's power to warp the aftermath and tricked Darkness' family to fund the repair. He did so in order to force Darkness's family to marry her off to cover the debt.
- Hired Guns: Adventurers are essentially seen by the state as private police contractors, and are paid both by the rewards for their quests, and by not having to pay income taxes.
- Horny Devils: The succubus have an entire service industry, offering to fulfill the dreams of male adventurers.
- Hotter and Sexier: Episode 9 and all of season 2, compared to the first.
- Hub City: While it's a bit of a stretch to call it a city, Axel is this for Kazuma and the girls. A more straight in-universe example would be the kingdom's capital, though only well established or veteran adventurers have the luxury of doing so.
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Vanir is this to Wiz. The way that he bosses her around, manages all the merchandising, and controls her shift schedule, you would think that he was the owner.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: In the anime, barring the first episode, all of the episodes' Japanese titles follow the same pattern: 'この___に___を!' (Kono ___ ni ___ O!)
- I Know Mortal Kombat: Deconstructed: Kazuma initially thinks his experience playing JRPGs will help him out while making sense of the new world. However, the world behaves so unpredictably and has so many cases of reality ensuing where it tends not to in games that he seems like the one lacking common sense. Becomes reconstructed, however, as his experience gives him a Munchkin-like mentality to look for shortcuts, forming his Combat Pragmatist fighting style, and his experience as an MMoRPG guild leader helps him figure out how to effectively utilize his quirky and unreliable companions.
- Parodied in Volume 3: Aqua insists that her experience playing visual novels similar to Ace Attorney and Danganronpa will help her defend Kazuma, with her 'help' only consisting of her shouting 'OBJECTION!' and 'HOLD IT!' for no reason, nearly getting her kicked out of the courtroom.
- Impossible Thief: The 'Steal' skill is basically the logical conclusion of thieving skills in RPG games that can allow for stuff to be stolen without notice, with the skill itself basically being a spell that steals things from a distance. It's also reliant on luck, and other people can make it harder by holding a bunch of worthless objects, including small rocks, as Chris demonstrates when she teaches Kazuma how to use it. Kazuma's ridiculously high luck stat allows him to abuse this skill for both practical purposes... And for stealing panties right off girls right in front of him, much to the horror of every woman in Axel, including Chris herself, who is a regular victim of Kazuma's panty thefts.
- Insane Troll Logic: When Megumin is asked why she continued casting Explosion at Verdia's castle despite him warning them pretty clearly about it the last time he visited, she stated that, after learning the pleasures of having the castle as a target, she couldn't return to just using an empty field anymore.
- Irony: In episode 2x09, a congregant tearily confesses that a painting of Eris's huge boobs is tempting him away from the path of Aqua. Eris especially in her disguise as Chris is pretty much the definition of Pettanko.
- In the Name of the Moon: Megumin lives and breathes this trope, as does her entire hometown because cool speeches are a must for members of the Crimson Magic Clan. In a side story is revealed that red-eyed wizards living in Axel gather from time to time to, among other things, decide who has the coolest signature phrases. To Megumin's surprise and horror, Kazuma was unanimously elected champion because he shamelessly plagiarized the best one-liners he could remember from manga and anime series that nobody in the other world had heard until then.
- Interservice Rivalry: Kazuma observes that no matter the country nor the world, governmental agencies don't really get along with each other. This allowed him to escape from tax collectors in Volume 12 by spamming his trademark Steal skill on female police officers and getting himself arrested and thrown into a cell for theft and public indecency. Knowing from experience just how inflexible the police in the other world is, Kazuma correctly guessed that they would stubbornly keep the tax collectors away from him while they processed him for his crime. Darkness, who was sharing the cell with him because she unsuccessfully tried to Invoke a Chained Heat situation with him so he wouldn't escape and lost the key, couldn't get over the fact he got away with tax evasion (see Intimidating Revenue Service below) and angrily yet resignedly kept calling him a 'sly bastard'.
- Intimidating Revenue Service: Thanks to Kazuma's party, the adventurers in Axel make a real profit out of their work for the first time in Volume 12. Problem is that it had been so long since that was the case that they completely forgot that their low income was the main reason why they were exempt from paying their taxes, and so the In-Universe equivalent of the IRS organized an armed city-wide hunt to get adventurers to cough up the dough before the deadline, after which they aren't obligated to pay due to their weird Medieval Fantasy laws. Of course, Kazuma being the richest adventurer in Axel prompted the noble in charge of the city (Darkness) to make special efforts to make sure he won't escape. He does so anyway thanks to a brilliantInvokation of Interservice Rivalry.
- I Want Grandkids: Both Darkness' father and Megumin's mother want their respective daughters to have grandchildren, preferably sired by Kazuma.
- Just Like Robin Hood: The Noble Thief who steals money and valuables from Evil Aristocrats in the Capital then donates it to the Eris Cult, who turns out to be Chris.
- Kangaroo Court: Double-subverted in Volume 3/Season 2. The judge for Kazuma's trial wants to give Kazuma a fair trial and states outright that Shena's 'evidence' is beyond flimsy, but Alderp's subtle threats and influence allow him to effectively game the trial in his favor.
- Kill Steal: Crimson Magic Clan members have a habit of stealing the limelight from their allies, especially when it comes to taking out strong monsters or Demon Lord generals.
- Lap Pillow: Aqua does this for Kazuma in episode seven shortly after reviving him.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Much to Kazuma's distress, the girls favor this line of strategy and sometimes do so without consulting him.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Kazuma and his group essentially end up doing this when a fight turns serious, such as their fight against Verdia, who was largely a Butt-Monkey until he decides to attack them.
- Like Brother and Sister: The typical banter between Kazuma and Aqua is not unlike bickering siblings who find it easier to annoy each other, than keep civil and not argue.
- Invoked by Kazuma in his relationship with Iris. Iris has other ideas.
- Loophole Abuse:
- When given the option of being sent to the fantasy world, Kazuma doesn't take kindly to the poor treatment he receives from Aqua. In revenge, he takes advantage of the 'cheat item' perk by choosing Aqua. Her superiors seem to roll with the situation rather quickly.
- The Adventurer class's Power Copying abilities let the user learn any skill that is displayed and named in front of them. Key word being any. While obviously intended to be used on the skills of other classes, there is nothing preventing it from being used to learn forbidden or restricted skills like Drain Touch.
- When collections agents come to get back taxes from all the adventurers in Axel, Kazuma gets himself thrown in jail to avoid them. Knowing the city guard will not allow the collectors near him while he is being processed, and that their Interservice Rivalry will prevent any form of compromise. Allowing him to get way with tax evasion.
- Lower-Deck Episode: The 'Consulting With This Masked Devil' Spin-Off novel focuses on Vanir and various other secondary and minor characters in the series, like Yunyun, Iris and her bodyguards, Luna, the Succubi, and, of course, Wiz. Aqua is the only main character present for any of the stories, and the others are only mentioned.
- Mask of Power: Downplayed in Volume 6. Vanir sells mass-produced masks similar to his own that, if worn on a moonlit night, will increase the wearer's mana, enhance their metabolism, and give their skin a silky luster through the mysterious power of the devil. Kazuma is given one for free due to his joint business venture with Vanir but treats it more like a cursed item. Later, when Chris convinces him to team up with her as a 'Masked Chivalrous Thief' to raid the royal castle to steal a dangerous artifact so it can be sealed he wears it as a disguise. He actually seems to have forgotten the mask had any powers at all, but only notes that he felt in excellent condition and if the mask did boost his abilities in any way he didn't notice.
- Based on Kazuma's time wearing it, the actually benefits are likely small boosts. Kazuma definitely had a lot of energy and was in top form, made abundantly clear when he tore through the castle's Knight Corp, Mitsurugi, and the Royal Guard while wearing it. While he terrified the opposition by downing powerful and experienced fights in a single blow and having seemingly limitless mana, Kazuma notes that he is actually just using Drain Touch to quickly deplete their stamina and replenish his mana. Aside from being unusually fired up he didn't actually do anything he couldn't do without the mask. Then again, he was also unarmed and was trying to avoid hurting anyone so it's possible the mask could boost his attack power if he fought for real.
- It's only mentioned in passing, but Claire thought the masked figure was quite handsome despite generally disdaining Kazuma so the mask might actually have the power to boost attractiveness.
- Masochist's Meal: In one chapter, Darkness brings some blowfish for the party to enjoy, with the logic that Aqua could just cure the poison before it kills them, since she's immune to it. The following meal almost results in aTotal Party Kill.
- Mass 'Oh, Crap!': Pretty much everyone's reaction when the Destroyer shows up in front of Axel in episode ten. Aqua even already has some stuff loaded on a cart to run away with.
- Memetic Hand Gesture: All of Kazuma's party frequently flash the thumbs-up sign to signal that, even after a long day of toil, everything is ok.
- Misfit Mobilization Moment: Despite their flaws, Kazuma and his party usually find a way to defeat whatever boss shows up at the end of each volume, though not without consequences in the first two volumes.
- Mook Horror Show: The Masked Chivalrous Thief to the defenders of the Royal Castle in volume 6. Interestingly, it isn't as much how powerful he was but instead how he completely sidestepped the fighting logic of guards, heroes and wizards alike, making their considerable strength useless against him. For example, he used a simple ice spell to trap a high-level Sword Master's weapon into its scabbard, depriving him of his main method of attack, and immediately stepped within his guard to summon some water into the adventurer's mouth and nasal cavity and froze it solid, which effectively disabled him until a wizard could thaw the ice with magic and even then the Primal Fear of near-asphyxiation would keep him out of the fight for a while.
- In Volume 9, once the walls were completely rebuilt and Wolbach declared that the battle was at a standstill, Kazuma, Megumin, and Yunyun decide to try the exact same tactic of combining Explosion and Teleport. The only difference being that the Demon King's mooks don't have a fortress to hide in. We're treated to a large amount of the Demon King's army fleeing in terror and begging for mercy whenever they show up.
- Ms. Fanservice: The succubus and Darkness during Episode 9.
- Mundane Utility: Aqua plans to use a snow sprite she managed to hang onto to chill drinks and make snow cones with in the summer.
- Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Subverted. Darkness kneels and says a prayer for the adventurers killed by Verdia during his second attack, all of whom had criticized her before. However, Aqua resurrects all of them, causing a lot of embarrassment to her after they hear what she thought of them.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!:
- In Episode 4, due to Verdia moving near Axel, low-level monsters have gone into hiding, thus drying up quests for newcomers such as Kazuma and Aqua. Megumin passes time by practicing Explosion on an abandoned castle near the town — which so happened to be Verdia's hideout. He ends up showing up at Axel's gates to voice his complaints about his constant misfortune. And when he shows up again, Kazuma finds out that she was still doing it after the warning, this time with Aqua carrying her back home.
- In episode ten, they manage to stop the Destroyer from blowing up the town by having Wiz teleport the core somewhere else. Unfortunately it lands by a rich noble's mansion, and Kazuma is then accused of treason as a result of said explosion.
- How Kazuma handles the issue with the hydra. Darkness was so persistent about defeating it so she could use the 1 billion Eris reward to pay off her family's debt to Alderp. However, since Kazuma invited the rest of the adventurer's guild to defeat it, they had to split up the reward about fifty ways, meaning that she couldn't use their much more meager reward to clear her debt.
- No-Sell:
- In Episode 2 of the anime, Aqua's ultimate God Punch has no effect on Giant Frogs because they are immune to water-attribute attacks.
- Verdia and his undead knight's armor is supposed to do this to the spells of priests. The fact that Aqua's Turn Undead managed to harm him goes to show, depowered or not, how effective she is against the undead.
- Darkness is capable of doing this to Vanir's dolls, whereas they do a crippling amount of damage to any other adventurers when they explode, she simply punches one in the face and walks away without a scratch.
- Aqua is also able to do this with Vanir's clairvoyance. Her holy aura makes it impossible for him to read her thoughts, and it also obscures his vision for anyone nearby her.
- Not-So-Abandoned Building: Megumin and Kazuma find a castle out in the boonies so that she can practice her explosions with nobody around. It turns out that not only is it occupied, it's inhabited by the army of the same General who's been chasing away all the weaker monsters. And he really doesn't like the explosions.
- Official Couple: Kazuma and Megumin as of volume 12. It is no longer a secret and, though it's still 'less than lovers', they frequently state their loyalty to each other as a reason to not get romantically involved with other people.
- Officially Shortened Title: Yen Press' translation is titled Konosuba.
- Off-Model: Viewers don't seem to forgive Studio DEEN's art quality for this one, despite some scenes are superbly animated. However, they're the most willing to ignore this trope and focus on the comedy.
- Off with His Head!: Kazuma suffers this from the Winter Shogun during a snow sprite kill quest. However, only the blood splatter on the snow is seen, and referenced by the girls. He's perfectly fine when he resurrects. This could have potentially happened after Darkness's father saw the 'aftermath' of her and Alderp's son's practice duel.
- Only in It for the Money: Adventurers are not necessarily heroes. Volumes 11 and 12 show that most adventurers only see their profession as a source of income, and won't risk their lives on difficult quests where they're likely to die, even if they have high rewards. Like Kazuma, they will stop adventuring once they come across a decent-sized fortune, and this leads to a huge backup of quests at the Adventurer's Guild, since adventurers aren't obligated to complete any of them.
- Only Sane Man:
- More often than not Kazuma has the displeasure of having this role, though he occasionally joins in on the antics himself. Near the end of the first volume, however, Verdia also ends up getting frustrated by the insanity of the party.
- The epilogue of Volume 3 hilariously reveals that Aqua and Megumin think they're the Only Sane Man of the party too.
- Orphaned Etymology: Megumin uses Excalibur as a euphimism for Kazuma's penis, despite being from a parallel world where Arthurian mythos never existed. Probably.
- As it turns out, it's one of the divine weapon, now in the hands of Iris.
- Our Demons Are Different: Demons (or devils, depending on the translation) are inhabitants of Hell who can only come to the mortal realm if they are summoned, or have an extra body they can possess somewhere. They feed on the negative emotions that humans emit, and if they feed on enough, can create an 'extra life' that can be used if their bodies are exorcised or destroyed. None of these necessarily make them malevolent beings, and many of them, like Vanir and the succubi are perfectly fine coexisting with humans so long as they don't try to hunt them downor prevent them from fulfilling their contracts.
- Our Goblins Are Different: Goblins in this world travel in groups, are small as grade-schoolers, and carry weapons.
- Our Liches Are Different: Liches are undead sorcerers in this setting, with the more powerful ones capable of creating The Undead from their presence alone. So far though, both Wiz and Keele, have been pretty cordial and not evil. While the former makes it a hobby to go out of her way and lay spirits to rest, the latter only became a lich to be with his beloved until her final moments and then asked Aqua to send him to the other world since he can't commit suicide.
- Our Souls Are Different: All things in the world have souls, so killing or eating anything will cause you to absorb a part of it of their memories in the soul and gain experience points.
- Our Vampires Are Different: We haven't actually seen one (yet), but they are mentioned as being a step above Dullahan and a step below Liches in the undead Sorting Algorithm of Evil.
- Panty Shot: Conspicuously averted in Season 2 Episode 8. When a little girl trips on a rock, an angle that should have provided one definitely doesn't, even though nothing definitively NSFW is seen. Possibly justified as she was a member of the Axis Cult, whose prime goddess Aqua also doesn't seem to bother.
- Perpetual Poverty:
- Kazuma's group is stuck with this, and early on has to resort to manual labor simply to survive, and even their early quests don't amount to much due to the amount of trouble they have just trying to complete it, such as killing five giant toads and getting paid about what they were making just laying bricks. Later, thanks to his high Luck stat, Kazuma does make quite a bit of money, but mostly keeps it all to himself because he (correctly) believes his party members (particularly Aqua) are incapable of spending it responsibly.
- Megumin's family lives like this. Anything Megumin makes that doesn't go to immediate needs or upgrading/replacing her equipment, she sends back home. Unfortunately, Megumin's Hikikomori father promptly spends any money they make on worthless magical items, meaning they're constantly struggling to be fed.
- Wiz and Vanir are constantly struggling to make a profit, and any profit they do make Wiz shortsightedly spends on some horrible business venture. It's so depressing that, when a racketeer comes to extort their profits, he feels so bad that he ends up leaving them food and money. However, Wiz, being undead, can survive on limited nutrition, and Vanir, being a devil, doesn't need to eat at all, so poverty doesn't affect them much more than in their long-term goals.
- Phlebotinum-Induced Stupidity: Aqua is notorious for her sheer stupidity, and it reflects on her followers, the Axis Cult, who actually suffer a penalty to their Intelligence.
- Ponzi: The Axis Cult attempts to use one for fund raising. This draws the ire of the Eris Sect, since it violates the sanctity of fortune.
- Potty Emergency:
- In Episode 8, Kazuma and Megumin both have one in the middle of the night, but are too scared to go to the bathroom because of the ghosts in the place they're staying at. As usual, Hilarity Ensues.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: Because of the small amount of episodes allotted to it (ten regular episodes plus one BR-exclusive OAV), the anime had to skip or rearrange some of the gang's misadventures.
- Wiz's introduction, which in the books took up an entire chapter, was reduced to a twenty-second flashback in episode 8. What's more, it's placed much later in the broadcast, where chronologically it would have occurred sometime after Kazuma learned Steal from Chris. The scene was, however, adapted into an audio drama.
- The aforementioned chapter where Kazuma and Dust trade places for a day, because the latter mistook the former's companions as a Battle Harem, was skipped entirely, and episode 9 instead focuses on something that happens after that, the Succubus Shop.
- Pretty Freeloaders: Aqua and Megumin are definitely falling into this trope, as they barely do anything useful during the quests, and often need Kazuma to loan them money or feed them.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: Comes with the territory given how self-centered the protagonists can be. Verdia, the first antagonist of the series, only goes after the heroes because Megumin was insistent on using his castle for target practice. Even then, Verdia was willing to let it go and spare the city the heroes were living in if she just stopped, but Megumin refused.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Apparently a lot of the Demon King's subordinates are like this, maintaining the barrier for him just because he asked them to.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Kazuma's group have various flaws which make them unsuitable for any other group, save for Kazuma himself, who is simply too low-level at that point to be of much use to others. Despite that, they manage to mostly work together to get their quests done.
- Reality Ensues:
- As much as can be expected for an RPG-Mechanics Verse. The easy monsters near Axel have been hunted to extinction (unless herded in by a 'Rookie Killer'-type). Monsters don't explode into money or items when they die; the guild offers a delivery service to bring them back to town and then you get paid accordingly after the service takes a fee. The nearby beginner dungeon has been thoroughly ransacked. New adventurers don't get 'starter' equipment or anything for free, even having to pay a registration fee, and the adventurer's guild is full of Fair Weather Friends. Oh, and there's no Hero Insurance, either.note
- Kazuma isn't the first and only person from Earth being sent to this world. Many people have been sent to defeat the Demon King, and many have failed, leaving behind their Schizo Tech and the 'cheat' items they were given by the Gods. Several arcs have the party dealing with the mess that others like Kazuma have left behind. And, due to Aqua irresponsibly sending anyone who wants to reincarnate over without regards to character, there are plenty of less scrupulous characters using their 'cheat' items to just gain wealth, power, or other things. And some others, like the creator of the Mobile Fortress Destroyer are just irresponsible chuckleheads.
- After defeating the Kowloon Hydra, all of the adventurers in Axel come across a decent-sized fortune. Like Kazuma, once they're wealthy they basically just laze around and stop adventuring. This leads to a backlog of quests at the Adventurer's Guild, and monsters begin to move into nearby areas where they had previously been extirpated.
- This enormous windfall also leads to unforeseen trouble with their world's version of the IRS. Since up until then, the adventurers were exempt from taxes due to their low income. Once word gets out about all the money they have, armed collections agents are sent to scour the city.
- Before Kazuma and Aqua come along Meguimin could not find a party, since nobody is willing to put up with her Awesome, but Impractical fighting style when there are more reliable mages available. Even Kazuma recognizes what dead weight she would be, and tries to get rid of her before she is able to blackmail him into letting her stay.
- After an extended unplanned stay at the capitol, Kazuma returns home to find that Aqua has boarded up all of the mansions' entrances as payback for leaving them. When his attempts to gain access to the mansion fail, he calls the cops to eject Aqua, as he's the one who owns the house.
- 'The Reason You Suck' Speech: The Tranquility Princess, after Kazuma coaxes her into showing her true colors, gave everyone in the party a verbal thrashing.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning:
- Vanir's eyes turn red when he's using his Clairvoyance ability.
- Downplayed with the Crimson Magic Clan, whose eyes emit a red light usually prior to combat. However, Kazuma notes that Megumin's eyes also glow whenever she just gets excited or anxious, and there are people who misinterpret it as a threat.
- Red Shirt Army: The adventurers who attack Verdia suffer a Curb-Stomp Battle when he not only dodges all of their attacks, but also kills them all in the process. Subverted later when Aqua quickly resurrects them after the battle.
- RPG-Mechanics Verse: Kazuma's new world largely runs on this principle, with its denizens' abilities and characteristics (like Luck and Intelligence) being gauged by measurable attributes, which increase by killing monsters or completing quests.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Iris is a descendant of heroes who have defeated previous Demon Lords, and her father (the King) is often away leading his armies to defeat the current Demon Lord.
- Rule of Cool: The Crimson Magic Clanlives and breathes this trope. 'Why would we seal away an evil god that we could just as easily destroy? Because it would be cool to have 'that spot where we sealed away an evil god'!'
- Running Gag: Quite a lot as expected of a comedy series, but one of the more frequent ones is having one of the characters attempt to strangle another in retaliation for something the another said or did.
- Kazuma responding to people saying his name with a disinterested 'Yes, I'm Kazuma.'note regardless of the context.
- Whenever certain lines are spoken/situations happen, the party - especially Kazuma - will typically have an identical, extremely unimpressed expression on their faces.
- Characters staring unimpressed at each other outright saying the word 'Staaaaaaaaaaare.' for the duration of their time on screen. Usually gets louder should the camera zoom in on them.
- Scam Religion: Played with by the Axis Cult, Aqua's faithful. On one hand, it is notorious for its aggressive recruitment, indoctrination techniques and its followers being nuisances that certainly act like they're members of a Scam Religion. On the other hand, Aqua herself is an actual senior deity and the sacred waters of their central temple possesses incredible healing powers. Both factors make them a threat to the Demon Lord. In Volume 8, their shady practices lead it into a foul encounter with the dominant religion of the fantasy world, the Eris Sect.
- Scenery Censor: It's amazing how that towel keeps the viewer from seeing Darkness completely nude in Season 1 Episode 9, as well as drips of water on the screen covering Wolbach in Season 2 Episode 9.
- Schizo Tech: The world is a pretty typical fantasy medieval setting, but there are a few oddities such as internal plumbing, toilets and running water, or a mobile fortress destroyer, which a gigantic robotic spider that lives up to its namesake. Justified in that Kazuma isn't the first adventurer from Japan, and much of its technology is powered by magic.
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: In the spirit of There Is No Kill Like Overkill, the Mobile Fortress Destroyer has TWO of them.
- Shapeshifting Seducer: A Doppelgänger once used Megumin's appearance to seduce Kazuma and then his to do the same with each of his party members, all in order to restrain them and clear the way to assassinate Princess Iris. While it worked well enough with Kazuma, Darkness noticed something was amiss because the fake didn't look at her chest at all (her masochism got in the way of actually stopping the bad guy though) and Megumin accidentally interrupted the double's attempt to sweet-talk Aqua but neither figured out it was an imposter unlike the blonde. The Doppelgänger's biggest mistake was using the same disguise to seduce the twelve-year-old princess — probably the one girl Kazuma never treated or thought of in a perverted manner — who despite her obvious crush on her 'onii-sama' stopped 'his' advances short and all was left of it was a puddle of black liquid on the floor.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Just look at Darkness in Season Two, in a blouse and hat, and a dress with a more formal hairstyle. They will hit you harder than Megumin's explosions.
- Shipper on Deck: Megumin's mother to a T, who goes out of her way to remind Kazuma that her daughter is old enough to marry pretty much every time they meet. In later novels, she gets even less subtle than that:Yuiyui: … On another note, though I've heard rumors about it before, I didn't believe your mansion would be this luxurious. With that, I can now entrust my daughter to you without reluctance.
Megumin: Yuiyui, ancestor of mine! Dost thou honestly have no better topic to discuss during this precious reunion with your beloved daughter!?
Yuiyui:Hurry up and have a kid.
Megumin: Hey, mom…!
Yuiyui: Live a great life, all. I've already thought of a name for my grandchild. [Teleports away]- Chris, on the other hand, prefers to couple Kazuma and Darkness, especially given their previous near-sexual encounters.
- Arue decides to forgo Kazuma altogether and wishes Megumin had stayed on the 'Yunyun path'.
- Ship Tease: As of Volume 9, both Megumin and Kazuma have plainly stated to hold attraction for one another, but neither push hard enough to turn it into a full-on relationship. It does, however, slowly progress in volume 11 and 12, at which point they basically see each other as partners (if not yet lovers).
- In the anime adaptation, Kazuma admits that while Megumin, Darkness, and even Aqua are good-looking, they are a turn-off for him. That does not stop Megumin and Darkness teasing though.
- Shout-Out:
- Every light novel title alludes to other media.
- Volume 1: Oh! My Useless Goddess
- Volume 2: Love, Witches and Other Delusions
- Volume 3: You're Being Summoned, Darkness!
- Volume 4: You Good-for-Nothing Quartet
- Volume 5: Crimson Magic Clan, Let's and Go!
- Volume 6: Princess of the Six Flowers
- Volume 7: 110-Million Bride (Million Arthur)
- Volume 8: Axis Church vs. Eris Church
- Volume 9: Destiny of Crimson (Specifically the Collectible Card Game)
- Volume 10: Gamble Scramble
- In the anime, the wording in Megumin's explosion spell is a blatant reference to Lina's 'Dragon Slave' from Slayers, which is fitting, since it's an anime based on the Dungeons & Dragons RPG.
- Megumin's delusional nature is accented with wearing an eyepatch, just like how Rikka Takanashi, a fellow chuunibyou, uses an eye gauze for an eyepatch in her chuunibyou mode. She also has quotes similar to Ranko Kanzaki. Until the anime, all three girls were voiced by Maaya Uchida.
- Kazuma voices a throwaway line in Episode 2 that references Gate while waking up to Aqua oversleeping again.
- Megumin tells Kazuma about a quest to defeat One Hit Bear in Episode 7, which he intelligently refuses on the grounds of being suicide. One Hit Bear was also the nickname Japanese gamers gave to Heroic Bear and Darth Lycanthrope (translated as Fierce Bear and Darthbear in the American release) from Dragon Quest III. They were one of the few random Mooks able to regularly inflict a Critical Hit, sometimes two or three in a row, thus killing Squishy Wizard party members in one hit.
- In the English translation of the light novels, the One Hit Bear has been renamed to One Punch Bear.
- Episode 6 has the Dullahan Verdia throwing his head to the air then lo and behold, a great lidless flaming eye came to be. This allows Verdia to see all of his enemies at once thus dodging their attacks and killing them all with one slash as a result.
- In Episode 7, an angry Aqua performs the signature side-to-side swaying motion of the Dempsey Roll, before getting blocked by Darkness.
- In Episode 8, there are dolls that look like Shinku, Suiseiseki, and Souseiseki.
- In Episode 9, there is a succubus wearing leotards in the same color scheme as Morrigan Aensland.
- In Megumin's first spin off novel, the Onion Duck looks a lot like Farfetch'd.
- In Episode 6 of the second season, the Lizard Runner Princess unleashes a Kamen Rider Kick on Kazuma.
- In volume 7 of the light novels, one of the guards of the Dustiness home is named Chuck Norris.
- Every light novel title alludes to other media.
- Sigil Spam: The populace of Alcanretia stamp the symbol of the Axis Cult on many things in the city, including pastries and soap.
- Single-Stroke Battle: Subverted when Darkness fights Verdia. They both swing dramatically and destroy stones nearby, only to realize that Darkness missed him.
- Skewed Priorities: One of the Crimson Magic Clan's teachers tends to favor chuunibyou-related answers to her questions rather than Megumin or Yunyun's more practical answers.
- Slapstick Knows No Gender: Kazuma states that he is an advocate of gender equality, and as such he sees no problem in beating some sense into his party members, all female, whenever they get too rowdy, or in retaliating when they try to hurt him. He also threatens Kyouya's female companions after they protest the way he won their duel, by stealing their panties in public if they wanted to duel him as well.
- Early on, both Aqua and Megumin get eaten by toads and covered in slime. That should tell you a thing or two about this series' attitude on this topic.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat: Happens between the main quartet all the time, but mostly between Kazuma and Aqua.
- Snipe Hunt: The creator of the Destroyer didn't really want to make it in the first place, but since he didn't want to disappoint his bosses either, he asked them to retrieve a legendary, unobtainable power source. When they actually manage to bring him some, he has to build it.
- Something Completely Different: Episode 9. The episode still followed the series comedic formula, but the amount of Fanservice was taken Up to Eleven during the succubus shop and mansion bath scenes. This episode featured suggestive self-groping and partial nudity.
- Spanner in the Works: Kazuma is forced to deal with three of them on a daily basis.
- Spider Tank: The Mobile Fortress Destroyer, which is literally a giant mechanical spider that lives up to its namesake. The idea came about when its designer squashed a spider on the plans and turned that in when he couldn't come up with any ideas.
- Spin-Off:
- Gifting this Wonderful World with Explosions!, which focuses on Megumin's adventures before meeting Kazuma and Aqua.
- Consulting with this Masked Devil!, originally a web based spin-off but was later compiled into a published print form, focuses on Vanir and the people who live in Axel other than the main party.
- Continued, Gifting this World with Wonderful Explosions! another spin-off following Megumin, made due to her winning the popularity poll. Originally released in a web novel format, before being published in print with an additional chapter and epilogue. Notably most of the novel takes place between volumes 9 and 10 chronologically, while the last few that were added in the print version occur after volume 10.
- A Limelight onto that Fool As Well!, which focuses on Dust's adventures, in parallel to those of Kazuma.
- Standard Hero Reward: The Royal Family is a firm believer in this trope and has a long history of marrying great heroes and heroines into the family, a practice that has produced an equally long list of badasses to its name. Currently, First Princess Iris is expected to marry the hero that finally defeats the Demon King and she's planning on arranging things in the background for that hero to be someone of her choice.
- Stupid Sacrifice: Aqua tells Kazuma that even if he didn't push the girl out of the way prior to getting killed, it wouldn't have hit her anyway. It was going very slow, and it wasn't a truck per se, but rather a small farming tractor. And the girl actually suffered a fractured bone after he pushed her. Combined with her constant laughing and mocking his death, this probably gave him more reason to pick her to come to the new world with.
- Superpower Lottery: Kazuma mentions that some 'talented' people are born with extra skill points, and hints that Darkness and Megumin were these types of people, which is why Megumin could learn Explosion despite being level six and Darkness could have such a high defense. Kazuma, however, started with zero skill points at level one. Furthermore, some people just have high stats, and there's not much one can do if they have a low stat they can't improve like Intelligence, Magic, or Luck.
- Surrounded by Idiots: This is how Kazuma feels about his companions, especially in the beginning of the history. He even lampshades it when Darkness wanted to join the group.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial:
- While inquiring about the Succubi's Erotic Dream services, Kazuma asks if there aren't any age restrictions regarding his chosen dream partner...then quickly makes a disclaimer about merely asking out of curiosity and not exactly being into underage girls or anything. Of course, this being Kazuma, he then verifies if it really is okay, and gets incredibly excited at the thought. This comes right after internally questioning the sanity of certain male customers who reportedly fantasize aboutbeing abused by older, stronger female adventurers.
- After his party did nothing to prevent Kazuma from being Arrested for Heroism at the end of Volume 2, Aqua sneaked into the police station to break him out while Megumin and Darkness created some distraction to keep the police busy. She then explained that they didn't defend him before to avoid getting arrested as his accomplices in order to keep their options open to do something about it afterwards, definitely not because they were afraid of what Kazuma would do to them if he managed to get out on his own.
- Taking the Bullet: A spell variation of this occurs in Episode 4, after Darkness intercepts a curse that would kill its recipient in seven days meant for Megumin.
- Tempting Fate: The Crimson Magic Clan have this down to a science, and have published a list of things that you should never ever say unless you want to invoke the ire of the universe note . Megumin hilariously Invokes this in her Spin-Off, by commenting on how peaceful their caravan ride is, and how they should arrive in the morning if they're not attacked by monsters. Cue monsters that she can grind for experience showing up.
- Teleport Spam: The Crimson Magic Clan is unable to damage Sylvia, who absorbed an Anti-Magic weapon. In order to buy time, they keep spamming the 'Teleport' spell to dodge her attacks and frustrate her into utter madness.
- Theme Naming: Everyone in the Crimson Magic Clan has a unusual name, such as Megumin and Yunyun. In addition, everyone in the clan share a similar tendency to choose bizarre names when naming things.
- There Is Only One Bed: Invoked by Megumin's mother. She locks Kazuma and Megumin in the same room, knowing fully well that they'll have to share the same bed. Megumin wakes up in the middle of the night, realizes what's going on, then escapes through the window to go sleep at Yunyun's house.
- This Is Gonna Suck: The second season opening has Darkness scheming an idea of using exploding enemies and an iron door to fly over the back of a giant turtle. While Darkness is absolutely thrilled at the idea, Kazuma, Aqua, and Megumin have an expression of total resignation at their fate.
- After the four main characters finally get together, we get this gem from Kazuma'I see nothing but hardships in the future...'
- After the four main characters finally get together, we get this gem from Kazuma
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Aqua finds a quest that perfectly matches her skill set when she sees a job posting looking for adventurers to purify a lake.
- Those Two Guys:
- Dust and Keith have this sort of role, though in the light novels, Dust seems to have gotten more character development.
- Funifura and Dodonko are this in the Crimson Magic Clan. Megumin even points out that there's not much difference between the two, other than Funifura having a little brother that she dotes on.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Kazuma's party finally pay off their debt at the end of Volume 3 and even end up with quite a lot of leftover money
- Too Kinky to Torture: Kazuma tries to discourage Darkness from joining his team by telling her all the horrible things that will happen to her if she gets captured by the Devil King, but this only ends up encouraging her instead.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth:
- Apart from possessing some of the finest healers in the land, this is the reason the Demon King is wary of the inhabitants of Alcanretia, as their behavior freaks even him out. This is the reason he sent Hans to covertly poison their hot springs to cut off their income.
- Both Vanir and Beldia find Darkness creepy due to her masochism and disturbing fantasies. With the former, Darkness enjoys having her body controlled against her will, as well as the idea of her allies attacking her. With the latter, she gets giddy at the idea of being tortured in Beldia's castle.
- Zereschrute essentially becomes the first character (we know of) to indulge Darkness's fantasies. Unfortunately for him she feels no negative emotions at all, and sends her away without his fingernail.
- Training Montage: Kazuma and Aqua do this at the end of Episode 1 after they become adventurers. Except they have to start out with manual labor, much to the former's chagrin.
- Translation Train Wreck: The season two premiere begins with a Star Wars-inspired opening crawl, written by Japanese writers and badly translated to English (such as misspelling 'STRANGER' as 'ETRANGER'), which is then narrated over by Kazuma, who is then subbed in English with a more natural-sounding translation of the exact same text as the opening crawl it's superimposed over. At least two viewings are required if you want to parse all the stuff on screen.
- Trapped in Another World: Zigzagged with Kazuma. While he's repeatedly resurrected by Aqua after dying, Eris could reincarnate him back to Earth after each death if he refused to answer the spell (either choice requires consent). He enjoys the new world, troublesome party members included, more than he openly admits. Played rather straight with Aqua, to the point Kazuma can manipulate the goddess by simply mentioning her return to the divine realm is contingent upon his victory over the Demon King.
- Twinking: The Rookie Killer monster deliberately sticks around packs of low level monsters, knowing that the low level adventurers it preys on would come to hunt them.
- Uncanny Village: Alcanretia is a breathtakingly beautiful city of canals, aqueducts, and lakes. It is home to the most powerful healers on the continent and feared by monsters for its legions of skilled priests. The idyllic society has become one of the most peaceful locations in the world... but visitors soon learn it's the Holy City of the dreaded Axis Cult.
- Underdogs Never Lose: Averted. Kazuma's party have given up quests they cannot complete, due to stacked difficulty. Kazuma has also died on several occasions, and only continued adventuring because of Aqua's influence and seniority over Eris to resurrect him.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Despite Kazuma's party and Wiz defeating Hans and preventing him from poisoning Alcanretia's hot springs, the Axis Cult shows no gratitude and runs them out of town. This is because by using God Requiem to defeat Hans, Aqua purified the hot springs into normal hot water, rendering them useless to the town as a source of income.
- Unreliable Illustrator: When Kazuma uses Steal to take Megumin's panties, they're described as being black. However, the accompanying image shows them to be white. They're colored black in the anime.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Hilariously Exploited by an antagonist. In Volume 3, Vanir noticed the UST between Kazuma and Darkness and very nearly succeeded at invoking a 'Leave Your Quest' Test on them by telling them that his clairvoyance assured that nobody would interrupt them from fulfilling the 'unreasonable request' that Darkness owed to Kazuma due to a bet.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The citizens of Axel get used to Megumin casting Explosion once every day, and treat the incredibly loud, destructive, and hot spell like a normal, everyday occurrence. In the spin-off volume, Vanir describes the daily explosion as part of the town's natural scenery, much to his company's bewilderment.
- Useless Useful Spell:
- Played with and sometimes inverted with Aqua. Because of her high stats, she was able to pick up many skills. However, except for her healing and buff spells, Kazuma often declares many of those skills to be completely useless. Her Nature's Beauty skill is entertaining but has no practical value, she has a spell that lets those affected make vocal impressions, and she's preternaturally and genuinely good at art and construction… which are all completely useless to adventuring. Crosses over with Chekhov's Skill when these turn out to be surprisingly useful (or at least Kazuma finds a use for them), like the vocal impression spell allowing you to mimic voices perfectly, or her talent for construction allowing her to repair a fortress faster than the enemy can destroy it (and add a beautiful mural in the process).
- Megumin's Explosion spell tends to enter this since she can only cast it once a day, and sometimes she gets so excited she lets it off before it would be effective, or even safe.
- Van Helsing Hate Crimes: Both goddesses (even the otherwise gentle Eris) would gleefully eliminate all undeads and demons if given the chance. Naturally, this causes trouble with friendlier individuals like Wiz the Shrinking Violet lich shopkeeper or the lewd but harmless succubi running the Erotic Dream shop. Aqua does eventually warm up to Wiz, but it takes quite a while to get to that point.
- Variant Chess: Episode 9 starts with Darkness and Megumin playing a game of it. It is also a recurring feature in the light novels. While the full rules are never explicitly mentioned, it incorporates features that emulate combat in the fantasy world, such as teleporting mages and Teleport Spam, healing, traps, thieves and steal, and the Explosion spell (flipping over the board and sending all the pieces flying, effectively wiping out the battlefield), which can only be used once a day. It is also apparently perfectly legal to win by paying someone to distract your opponent off the field with something so interesting that they resign just to see what all the fuss is about.
- Video Game Stealing: The first technique that Kazuma learns and uses is 'Steal,' which allows him to take things by concentrating, reaching in the direction of his target, and closing his hand while it glows. However, he has no control over what precisely he steals - it depends on the user's Luck Stat. Good thing that Kazuma has a very high luck stat.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Between Kazuma and Aqua, the vitriolic part is definitely there, the best buds not so much; but they are pretty much inseparable at this point...
- Headbutting Heroes: ...though sometimes they venture into this territory, since the two are still really bitter over their bad first impression of each other. Though in the later volumes they really soften up to one another, physical altercations between the two of them are still not uncommon.
- Ultimately, all of our four protagonists are like this, with arguments and grappling matches frequently occurring between them. While most of their animosity is normally directed toward Kazuma (sometimes in the form of Belligerent Sexual Tension when it's with Darkness and Megumin), he's also perfectly capable of throwing the Apple of Discord between the others.
- Washtub Throw: Megumin and Darkness throw many washtubs over the fence dividing the women and mixed bathing areas at Kazuma after finding out he was attempting to peep at them.
- We Want Our Jerk Back: After Kazuma is killed by the Winter Shogun, Eris meets him much in the same way he met Aqua. Unlike the latter, Eris actually seems concerned for his wellbeing and promises to reincarnate him into a wealthy Japanese family. However, he sheds some tears as he talks about what he's gone through with the girls in the new world, suggesting he would miss it. Aqua then forces Eris to let him come back lest she reveal a shameful secret to him.
- What the Hell, Hero?: A minor example during episode nine when Kazuma thinks that he's having a dream influenced by a succubus when he sees Darkness in the bath with him. He later finds out it wasn't a dream, and that the succubus who was supposed to give him said dream he wanted was captured in one of Aqua's traps. He then protects her from the other girls, and gets soundly beaten, though the succubus does manage to escape. Darkness then gets upset with him the next day when he uses said beating as an excuse to not remember anything the previous night, but then accidentally says something to suggest he didn't forget anything.
- When Trees Attack: Agricultural crops gain animal intelligence and magical flight upon reaching harvestable maturity. They gather in massive swarms, attacking whomever attempts to stop their lemming-like migration to die somewhere remote without being eaten.
- 'Where Are They Now?' Epilogue: The web novel ends with Eris revealing the fate of each character. Kazuma and Aqua continue their quest to defeat the other Demon Lords. Darkness became a famous hero who gets bombarded with marriage proposals, but rejects them all while always telling Kazuma about it (Eris notes that he's too dense to realize that she's waiting for his proposal), and Megumin's still blowing up castles.
- With Friends Like These...: Pretty much everyone in Kazuma's group has this attitude towards each other, with each of them thinkingthey are above the others' hijinks.
- When the Imperial prosecutor comes to arrest Kazuma, his party and all of the members at the adventurer's guild start chanting for Kazuma's freedom. Then the prosecutor mentions that they could also be arrested for supporting him, and they immediately pipe down, and the rest of the party starts testifying against him. Ultimately subverted since they all conspire to break him out of jail right after. It's not a very well-executed attempt, but at least they tried.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit:
- When Kazuma discovers that Megumin has too lopsided a stat build and a single and extremely situational skill to be useful, he immediately tries to dismiss her from the party. At first she tries a 'Please Don't Leave Me' approach, but as her bargaining gets more pathetic, some women overhear them and assume Kazuma was her Bastard Boyfriend breaking up with her after having fun subjecting her and Aqua to some deviant sex play involving the slimy substance they were drenched in at the time. Megumin immediately plays on this, and blackmails him into allowing her to be a fixture by making him look like a paedophile.
- Chris plays this up as well after Kazuma accidentally steals her panties while trying out the Steal ability she taught him (though he initially wanted his purse, he was quite ecstatic with his loot). She later makes a huge scene of it in the guild hall where a lot of people can hear what he allegedly did to her panties and blackmailed her into giving up all her money to get them back. Shortly afterwards, she looks at him, and sticks her tongue out at him, suggesting that she was simply teasing him.
- After blowing what little earnings she had from the cabbage hunt quest and finding herself unable to pay her bar tab, Aqua pleads with Kazuma to give her some of his relatively larger bounty. He initially refuses to, until she starts saying something about sharing a bed with her and doing various things in it to her out loud in front of a lot of people in the guild hall. He then promptly gives her the money she needs.
- One of the first things to happen in Volume 5 is Kazuma and his party running into a monster infamous for this. The adventurers' guidebook even explains, in detail, how the gambit works. Still, this monster is a Master Actor, and despite knowing it's all a trick, the party can't bring themselves to kill it, until Kazuma, worried about Yunyun falling for it goes back to check, and sees with his own eyes and hears with his own ears how he was being played.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: While fleeing from the possessed dolls of the haunted mansion, Kazuma was calling out for Aqua-sama to save him, noted that Aqua would be successfully eradicating ghosts in the huge estate, and warned the spirits to leave him alone or else they'd be destroyed by his powerful goddess. As much as it would please Aqua to hear Kazuma say these things, she was never within listening range.
- You ALL Look Familiar: The Crimson Magic Clan has dominant genetic traits that pass to their offspring, such as dark hair and red eyes, that cause them to almost look alike at quick glance. Megumin and Yunyun could easily pass themselves off as sisters to an unknowing stranger. The same could be said for any of the other girls from their village.
- Justified in that the entire Clan are a genetic enhancement experiment program originally, who asked specifically for crimson eyes, because of them all being of Chuunibyou stock.
- You Just Had to Say It: Kazuma, being Genre Savvy, calls other charactersnote out on Tempting Fate lines, warning that such lines are bound to trigger an Event Flag. He's invariably right.
- Your Costume Needs Work: Early on, Aqua tries demanding money from a priest, claiming that she deserves alms as a goddess. Not only does the priest not follow her (though he does follow one of Aqua's subordinate goddesses), he tells her that she shouldn't try impersonating someone divine.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Subverted in Episode 4. Verdia casts a curse at Megumin which would kill her in seven days. However, Darkness intercepts it, and then Megumin and Kazuma decide to confront him at the abandoned castle in order to force him to lift the curse. However, Aqua easily dispels the curse, destroying whatever plans the two were going to do. Verdia shows up again in episode six to mock them for letting Darkness die from the curse, only for her to show up alive and well, with Aqua mocking him about removing the curse after he left.
- Your Mind Makes It Real:
- According to Aqua, numerous Japanese people who arrived in the world before Kazuma related legends concerning the Winter Shogun, and they all congealed into a very dangerous conceptual entity that's the embodiment of winter.
- Your Soul Is Mine: Gaining experience is a mild variation of this. Killing or eating anything with a soul will cause you to absorb a part of it and gain experience.