Konosuba is almost an orthodox isekai anime it’s not trying to be good in the traditional sense rather Konosuba is a parody not just of isekai but a kind of anime itself that takes all these tropes and rips it out off under Kasuma’s feet. Konosuba is the story of four trash characters being trash and barely scraping through every hurdle by the skin of their teeth while they make life difficult for everybody around them including themselves.
# Kasuma:
The protagonist is just a regular broke Japanese dude stuck in a world full of monsters with a completely incompetent idiot glued to his side.
Generally, isekai starts with a pathetic character who is either a virgin or a gamer with no social life or an overworked salary person or all of them. S/He gets reincarnated and gets transported to another world with some kind of super-power making them more or less unbeatable. This main character is usually relatable to its audience but, this is not the case with Sato Kasuma. He is lame but, sympathetic of course who is slapped with the fact that his sacrifice was unnecessary and at that ridiculous on his encounter with Goddess of Death, Aqua. He isn’t just a coward but a vindictive baby who instead of accepting eternity jumps into a world threatened by a demon king.
# The protagonist doesn’t own any particularly amazing skill set.
Isekai protagonists are bound to become overpowered sooner or later. But, Kasuma again lacks in this category, he uses his intellect and some very basic skills to get out of trouble. Furthermore, his OP weapon is Aqua herself who most of the time acts nothing more than pain in the rear.
#Aqua: The God character is a completely incompetent idiot with a bad personality
Aqua could be useful but she is not simply because of her bad personality. Much to the pique of Kasuma bringing her to the mortal plane rid her of most of her more omnipotent abilities but she still maxed out as far as her states go. She just wants to put all of her skill points into party tricks. Usually, isekai or not, God-tier characters are portrayed to be much more capable and mature than Aqua.
# Megumi: Diminutive 13 years old arch wizard isn’t smart at all
Though she is believed to be the most powerful arch wizard of her generation, she’s also a little nut. The explosion is certainly the most powerful of the offensive spells but, being so it requires a ridiculous amount of mp and costs 50 skill points which is the most expensive skill of any class. Moreover, it is pointlessly destructive because this explosion is considered extensive overkill. But somehow this is the only spell that Megumi knows and refuses to learn anything else except the things that’ll help her make the explosions better. She can use the explosion once a day and then becomes paralyzed afterward. Unlike any other isekai wizard she is useless.
# Darkness: The knight is all corrupt
Generally, isekai proposes knight characters who are ethical, upright, have strong morals and try to establish themselves as warriors now and then. But, Konosuba’s Darkness doesn’t fit into this description at all. She is overtly desperate like Megumi was like Megumi has hyper-focused her skills but instead of her magic, her skills went only into defense.
She carries a great sword but if you’re standing in front of her, she couldn’t hit you with it because she has zero swords’ skills and this is because she can take as much punishment as possible as she is a hopelessly perverted masochist. She will do whatever it takes to get captured, beaten, tortured, and more. Even evil creature tries to avoid her in case their image is destroyed by her out loud fantasizing.
# The protagonist doesn’t get his harem and antagonists are understandable
Mugumi’s explosion magic practice on the castle led Dullahan to attack Axel while Wiz the Lich gets no kick in harming people, she just wants to peacefully run an artifact shop. Thus, unlike other isekai actions of villains in Konosuba are logical and understandable. Moreover, adding to this list is the fact that Kazuma wants a harem, but he’ll never get one.
Konosuba is not our orthodox isekai where the main cast is just trying to survive. But they are truly what makes the series so special. Each of their personalities is well-defined and the dynamic that they create never wavers. Watching true losers rise from nothing to inevitable levels and once again fall back into debt and once again scramble around to fix their own mistakes is constantly hilarious.
