Review of KonoSuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World!

The megumin spinoff is rated lower than the main konosuba series mostly because the "jokes are not as good". But that is the point, megumin became the megumin we knew because of kazuma and the gang. This spinoff tells the tale of megumin before she became part of the party. As a backstory, it serves its purpose of expanding the world and elaborating on the reasons why megumin became obsessed with explosion magic. In comparison to the main story, this spinoff relatively is more drama. While there are jokes here and there, for me the story really struck more in telling the struggles of stickingto your dream. Aside from that, character development seems to have focused more on yunyun rather than megumin. It's going to be hard to see yunyun remain a side character after watching the series.

So Megumin was painted as a model crimson demon, top of her class with high aptitude for magic. But her dream of being the master of explosion magic hindered her from becoming ever useful to the society (aside from opportunities of blowing up stuff which hardly comes up often).

This is where yunyun comes and becomes such an important character. Without yunyun, megumin would have never become the megumin we see today (albeit she would have been more useful, but then would not fit to kazuma's party). Yunyun's existence allowed megumin to focus on her dream. This dynamic is similar to the dynamic of megumin and kazuma, but in a way that feels more logical and less forced.

The only issue that i had with the story is the lingering thought of how stupid it was for megumin to keep on pushing yunyun away. Like imagine how efficient it would be if they just decided to party together - yunyun will take care of all normal mobs, then megumin blasts the final boss away, it's too easy and common sense dictates that it should be what should have happened. It also makes the premise of megumin thinking of kazuma as her "savior" a lot less convincing since yunyun was there saving her ass all the way to axel (hence why i think the dynamic of megumin and kazuma being forced), and just waiting for her to lower her pride and party with her.

Then again, yunyun and megumin were rivals with different goals. It's almost heartbreaking knowing that their paths are meant to diverge, but also knowing that megumin is in good hands (a little generous here) in kazuma's party all in all makes it a good, must watch sequel to anyone who enjoys konosuba.