KonoSuba OVA 1

Overview

The first KonoSuba OVA was released in 2016 after the conclusion of the first season, and yet I’ve just gotten around to watching it. Since OVAs such as this aren’t streamable on Crunchyroll, it typically means I don’t see them until long after they’ve aired simply because it’s not as convenient.

While our main cast is all present in this OVA, as you may be able to tell from the cover art, Megumin and Yunyun steal the show this time around. But let’s be honest, Megumin was always one of the best parts of KonoSuba anyway.

The basic plot of the OVA is that Kazuma puts on a magical (cursed) choker he finds in Wiz’s shop, and the rest of the girls must do his every bidding in order to remove it. Now, you may be asking yourself, “why would they need to do that?”

Well, dear reader, the choker will slowly strangle the wearer to death over the course of four days unless their wish is granted. And by wish, I mean whatever they happened to be wishing for at the time they put the choker on. It. seems simple enough, except for the fact that Kazuma doesn’t remember wishing for anything.

Normally, since the characters of KonoSuba are literally the worst people ever, you’d expect nobody to really care about Kazuma. In fact, Aqua even mentions that there’s nothing to worry about because she’ll just resurrect him again after he dies, but Kazuma responds by saying he’ll choose to stay dead so she’s permanently stuck in this world.

While Aqua’s response was easy to predict based on what we know about her character, the rest of the girls, oddly enough, felt that they were in part to blame for Kazuma’s predicament.

Yunyun was the one who dropped the choker that Kazuma picked up, Wiz had it on display in her shop in the first place, and Megumin and Darkness distracted Wiz so she wasn’t paying attention to Kazuma putting it on. Aqua was also distracting Wiz, but as she says, she did nothing wrong.

As you would expect from an episode of KonoSuba, or most anime for that matter, with a plot like this, fan service ensues.

In order to figure out what his wish was, Kazuma has the girls do a variety of things he thinks his wish might have been. For starters, he uses Wiz as a pillow in a variety of ways, which is pretty tame compared to some of his requests of the other girls.

He has darkness exercise without her armor on. First he tells her to do 100 push-ups (pictured above) and then he tells her to do 100 sit-ups. Despite her terrible form doing push-ups, I believe it should be abundantly clear what his main objective here was.

But Wiz and Darkness are my least favorite of the five girls in this episode, so what about the other three?

Megumin and Yunyun are forced to duel, something which Yunyun was already wanting to do. However, much to her dismay, their duel is in the form of strip Rock-Paper-Scissors, or as Kazuma calls it, Rock-Paper-Strippers.

Finally, although Aqua believes Kazuma is going to “defile” her in a similar manner as he did to the other girls, this doesn’t end up being the case. It would seem that Kazuma doesn’t actually view Aqua in the same way as the other girls, which is something I’ll mention more about later on.

Instead, Aqua is simply forced to run errands for Kazuma by bringing him food and alcohol. That said, this punishment seems to be more than enough because, well, it’s Aqua. She overreacts to everything.

At the end of the episode Kazuma still hasn’t fulfilled his wish and so before he dies he wants to apologize to the girls for things he’s done to them without their knowledge.

In Megumin’s case, he said that as he carries her back from using her explosion magic he shifts her weight so he can feel her (flat) boobs on his back. For Wiz and Yunyun, he stares at their boobs when talking to them, and for Darkness, he only sees her as her boobs, not a person.

Aqua, on the other hand, is different. You’d expect Kazuma to say something about her boobs, or about her non-existent panties, but this isn’t the case. Instead he admits that he tried his best to see her as the main heroine to his story, but she’s so useless and annoying that he just couldn’t do it.

After he admits to these things, the choker falls off and Kazuma remembers that his original wish was to have some peace. By getting everything off his back, he was able to be at peace with himself before dying, and so his wish was granted.

However, Aqua and the other girls force the choker back on him after learning how he views them and he subsequently dies from it four days later. The episode ends with him sitting in front of Eris in the afterlife as she tells him not to die in such a ridiculous way again.

Supporting Characters

Since I’ve already gone over the four main characters (Kazuma, Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness) in my review of the KonoSuba series, today I’ll be focusing on the three supporting characters who appear in this OVA. Unfortunately, although Chomusuke is on the cover art, he does not make an appearance (I think).

The most prominent of the supporting characters in this OVA is Yunyun. She’s a member of the Crimson Demon clan just like Megumin and is apparently the next in line to be their leader. She’s also Megumin’s self-proclaimed rival who doesn’t appear to have ever beaten Megumin in a duel.

As previously mentioned, her duel against Megumin in the OVA involves a game of Rock-Paper-Strippers, and is the best part of the entire episode. Even though I’ve seen stills from this scene before, I still cried from laughter when I watched it.

To provide context to the following video, Megumin and Yunyun tied multiple times in a row, so, suspecting they’re cheating, Kazuma declares that if someone doesn’t win in the next three turns, they both must take off a layer of clothing.

The next character is Wiz. She’s the owner of a magical items shop within the town as well as one of the Demon King’s generals. Although she works for the Demon King, she’s simply the one who placed the barrier around his castle and doesn’t play an offensive role.

Wiz is also an undead which is the reason she and Aqua don’t get along very well, or rather, Aqua doesn’t like Wiz, she has no real problem with Aqua. Incidentally, Wiz’s shop is often the place where Yunyun lies in wait for Megumin since she knows Megumin and the gang frequent the shop.

The final supporting character of the OVA is Eris. Eris is the goddess who works directly under Aqua. Her followers are known to be some of the nicest and selfless, which is the opposite of Aqua’s followers. She’s seen taking over Aqua’s job of helping souls on to the afterlife since Kazuma took Aqua with him to the fantasy world.

It’s also important to note that according to Aqua and her followers, Eris pads her chest. This has yet to be confirmed nor denied by an objective third-party, but all we do know is that Kazuma doesn’t care.

Conclusion

While I rated the two current seasons of the KonoSuba series at 9/10, this OVA episode is a 10/10. I didn’t really expect it to be as good as it was considering I knew there was going to be a lot of fan service going in, but it actually ended up being one of the funniest episodes so far.

In case you’re looking for the OVA’s OP, it’s the same one as season one, but I’ll link it here anyway.

I plan to watch the second OVA by Friday of this week, so expect a review of that in the near future. But, before we get to that, tomorrow is going to be a review of the next Boruto episode, just as every Thursday is.

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