Review of KonoSuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World!
A bit of background. I'm a big fan of the original series for KonoSuba. It's among my favorite comedy anime series (Scissor 7 and Kaguya-sama being its main challengers) and one of my favorite parts of that series (particularly the latest movie) was its use of the Crimson Demons. I can't say that Megumin specifically is my favorite of the central group (Kazuma's been my favorite), but the dynamics between that tetrad of weirdos and dimwits is what makes the series work. All this is to say that I went into this one... a bit trepidatious. A series that focused chiefly on Megumin and her developmentbefore the events of the central series seemed like it could be fun, but it could also easily become one-note and repetitive.
My concerns were partially right, but thankfully, the series ended up diversifying itself well enough to work as a decent comedy. The early portion of the series takes place in the Crimson Demon Village, which is fun for a while (particularly with all their introductions), but it does start to feel one-note before our characters move on. Their next stop in Arcaneletia initially looks interesting since this is a stop from the original series, but it becomes too focused on how pervy and duplicitous the members of the Axis Order are, again becoming one-note. The last arc in Axel is more interesting as our leads spend most of their time trying to ingratiate themselves to various parties in order to get a consistent meal ticket, which they fail at for various reasons, but is just a little too focused on showing or mentioning other characters from the original series in the background to make itself stand out.
That might sound like I didn't enjoy this, but there are things to love here, they're just not specific to certain locations. All their dealings with demons and the black cat Chomusuke are comedy gold, especially as Megumin ends up coming off as absolutely terrible. That's what I love to see.
The series also shines in showing more of the relationship between Megumin and Yunyun. This always came off as a rivalry with some unknown history of friendship between them, and it's nice to see how deep that goes. And yes, the series has some glorious explosions, each of which is beautiful in its own distinct ways.
I think as a journey, this series just doesn't stand out. Locations beyond the first seem to matter chiefly because they were present in the original series. But there's a lot to love in the continuous story here as Megumin clarifies both what makes her a character worth following and one that is also just hilarious in how terrible a human being she is. It captures some of the glory of the original, but coasts off of it too much to create an identity for itself.