Konosuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World!

Episode 7

Episode 7 of Konosuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World! is, sadly, the worst of the season for quite a few reasons.

Firstly, the core joke is that in the new city that Megumin has traveled to, there are loli-obsessed priests. For me personally, making a joke out of this sort of thing is already a tricky situation where it's hard to make it genuinely funny and not just a flop. It is definitely a flop here, as there is no real comedy other than, uh, saying loli a lot. No setups and no payoffs, no sense of timing, just repetition. It's clear that this is supposed to be a hilarious series of gags but I basically just sat there stone-faced and wondered when it was going to end.

To add insult to injury, none of it has the trademark Konosuba animation charm. There are very few fun expressive faces or outrageous movements to go with what's happening. In the past, even when I've taken issue with some of Konosuba's humor attempts, I've at least been able to enjoy the animation for its vibrancy and expressiveness, but that's not the case here. It's just tired non-jokes and bored-looking on-model characters for three-quarters of the episode.

This also underscores my concern that Megumin leaving the academy and YunYun behind would be a detriment to the show. Almost immediately it feels listless and directionless plot-wise and empty character-wise. Thankfully, YunYun does reappear and reunite with Megumin by the end of the episode so there is hope for future shenanigans between these two. Sadly, their reunion gets cut short when the knights of the holy order of exposition show up to try and deliver a bit of plot. So even the one ray of hope I had at some enjoyment this week was quickly dashed.

Hopefully, this is just a low ebb and things will course correct by next week because up until this point, the show has been very strong.

Rating:

Grant is the cohost on the Blade Licking Thieves podcast and Super Senpai Podcast.

Konosuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World! is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.