Konosuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World!

Episode 11

Episode 11 of Konosuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World! Starts out a little rough but has managed to check many of the boxes that make for a great KONOSUBA outing by the end.

The central tension of the episode is the arrival of Cecily during Megumin and YunYun's continued quest to find an adventuring party. Adding to this is the background pursuit of the archpriest with the blue hair (any guesses from the crowd as to their identity? anyone?) and a demon roaming the woods. None of these plot elements are deeply engaging in and of themselves, yet on the net they create a nice texture to the episode and have our cast running about in all directions interacting with lots of different people and locales.

Truth be told, Cecily's appearance made me reflexively tense up. The entire Axis Cult dimension of this show is very off-putting to me, and I don't find Cecily any more engaging than usual. It's lots of jokes I don't find funny and tired tropes that I don't find charming. That said, I had a 180 in opinion when Cecily and Megumin got to the graveyard. The entire setup for the “on three we turn around” gag was terrific. It's the kind of silly Scooby Doo-esque hijinks in a fantasy setting that warms my heart, and it got a big belly laugh from me.

Similarly, the latter parts of the episode with the adventurers were just fine for the most part. The animation is passable, with decently detailed environments and rather flat characters but with big bright spells effects make for a decent enough weekly television episode. The real joy is the super high stakes with the Demon and Chōmusuke, and the pervasive sense of doubt at the end of the episode. Just what will our heroes do to solve this one? Tune in next week and all that jazz.

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.