Konosuba Season 1 Recap

Konosuba Season 1 begins with a scene where while buying a game, a sleep-deprived shut-in named Kazuma Satō mistakes a tractor for a speeding truck and rushes in to push a girl out of the way, dying from shock as a result. In the afterlife, Kazuma is greeted by a goddess named Aqua, who offers to transport him to an RPG-like world to battle against a Devil King instead of going to heaven or reincarnation.

Sleep Deprivation is a Serious Problem

Given the option to choose any item or ability to arm himself with, Kazuma, annoyed by Aqua’s attitude, decides to drag her along with him to the town of Axel. With Aqua unable to return until the Devil King is defeated, the two earn some money to register as adventurers, with Kazuma assigned to a rather generic Adventurer class while Aqua is assigned as an Archpriest. The two then proceed to spend the following weeks working a carefree life as laborers, before eventually remembering that they need to do some actual adventuring.

After struggling to defeat some giant frogs, Kazuma and Aqua seek out members to join their party. They are soon approached by Megumin, a magician capable of performing powerful explosion magic. However, they quickly discover that she becomes incapacitated immediately after casting her Explosion spell and is too stubborn to learn anything else. Kazuma reluctantly keeps Megumin in his party so she wouldn’t make him seem like a perverted freak in public. Kazuma is then approached by a crusader named Darkness, who also seems to have a dubious quirk.

As Kazuma becomes cautious about Darkness’ odd behavior, her thief friend Chris offers to teach him a Steal skill, which he inadvertently uses to steal girls’ panties. Later, the entire town is brought together to defeat an army of cabbage monsters for the harvest, where Darkness demonstrates her ability to withstand enemy attacks while also showing off her nature as a masochist.

Every Mans Dream Skill

With hunting requests declining due to one of the Devil King’s generals moving in nearby, Kazuma accompanies Megumin as she practices her explosion magic on a seemingly abandoned castle. This ends up infuriating the general, Verdia the Dullahan, who had been living in that very castle. Placing a death curse upon Darkness, Verdia demands that Megumin come to his castle within a week in order to save Darkness’ life. Shortly after Verdia takes his leave, however, Aqua simply removes the curse from Darkness, eliminating the need to make the journey to the castle.

Wanting to earn some money despite only hard quests being available, Aqua takes on a request to purify a lake filled with alligator monsters, with the others putting her in a cage to keep her safe. Though Aqua eventually gets the quest done, she is left somewhat traumatized from hours of alligator attacks. On the way back, the group encounter Kyouya Mitsurugi, another human Aqua had sent to Axel, who is less than pleased with the way Aqua is seemingly being treated.

Kyouya challenges Kazuma to a duel but is quickly defeated after Kazuma steals the cursed sword he received when he came to the RPG world. The next day, after Kyouya becomes shocked to find that Kazuma had sold his sword, Verdia returns to the town, wondering why no one came to fight him.

Explosion!

Annoyed that Megumin had still been using his castle for explosion practice, Verdia, after proving easily susceptible to Aqua’s purification magic, summons an undead army which is quickly defeated by Megumin’s explosion magic. As Verdia then battles against Darkness, Kazuma deduces that he is weak against water and has Aqua attack him with a flood. Managing to weaken him, Kazuma manages to steal Verdia’s head, giving Aqua the chance to defeat him with her magic. The next day, Kazuma and his party earn a hefty reward for defeating Verdia, which is immediately put towards paying off the damages Aqua’s flood caused to the town.

Needing money to pay off his debts despite the freezing weather, Kazuma and his party take on a quest to kill Snow Sprites. However, their hunting attracts the attention of a powerful Winter Shogun who kills Kazuma, sending him to the world’s afterlife where he meets a goddess named Eris. Just as Eris offers him the chance to be reincarnated into the human world once again, Aqua uses her resurrection magic to bring Kazuma back to life.

Kazuma and Aqua visit a magic shop run by a kind-hearted lich named Wiz, who reveals herself to be one of the Devil King’s generals in charge of protecting a barrier surrounding the Devil King’s castle. After Wiz teaches Kazuma the Drain Touch skill, the party takes on a request to exorcise evil spirits from a mansion, where they can stay during the winter.

It’s Tough Being a Goddess in an Adventurers’ World

Later that night, Kazuma and Megumin find themselves on the run from an army of possessed dolls while also desperately needing the bathroom. The following morning, Aqua reveals that her actions after first meeting Wiz led to the mansion being haunted in the first place.

Kazuma and his adventure friends Keith and Dust go to a shop run by succubi who provide male adventurers with much-needed relief by giving them erotic dreams. After having a luxurious crab meal and briefly falling asleep in the bath, Kazuma mistakes Darkness entering the bath as a dream and tries to order her to do dubious things.

Before they can proceed further it’s discovered that Aqua has trapped the succubus before she was able to incite his dream, leading Kazuma to get beaten up by the others while trying to help the succubus escape. The next day, a mobile fortress known as the Destroyer approaches the town.

Hello Darkness, My Masochistic Friend

With their members being perfectly suited for the job, Kazuma’s party, along with Wiz, are chosen to lead an attack against the Destroyer. Meanwhile, Darkness tells Kazuma that her true name is Dustiness Ford Lalatina, the daughter of a well-regarded family. Using Aqua’s barrier-breaking spells and Megumin and Wiz’s explosion magic, the party manages to take down the Destroyer, only to set off a self-destruct sequence.

Heading inside to find a way to stop the Destroyer from exploding, Kazuma manages to find the power source and has Wiz teleport it elsewhere, before Megumin uses a powered-up explosion to destroy the fortress. As peace returns to the town, Kazuma finds himself under arrest as the power source he teleported away ends up destroying a noble’s mansion.

While running into Yunyun at Wiz’s shop, Kazuma ends up putting on a choker that supposedly grants wishes. He quickly discovers, however, that this choker will gradually tighten and eventually strangle him to death in four days unless he can fulfill the wish he had subconsciously made while putting it on. The girls admit they were partly responsible for it so they offer to help.

Always Better to Admit When at Fault

Taking advantage of the pity he receives from the other girls as a result, Kazuma guilts them into following all kinds of ridiculous and perverted commands as they try to grant his unknown wish. While most girls fulfill his perverted desires, he makes Aqua run errands and do menial tasks.

During the third night, Yunyun asks why Megumin wishes to save Kazuma and claims its just because he carries her when she’s unconscious and because they’re friends, which is a half-truth since the main reason is that he is the first person to never kick her out of his party since she can’t handle her magic. Yunyun states no matter what thing Kazuma makes her do, she’ll help get the collar off since she’s partly responsible.

At the beginning of the fourth day, Kazuma finds himself at peace after letting out all his callous feelings towards the girls; he told Megumin he tried to feel her small breasts whenever he had to carry her after using explosion, Yunyun and Wiz looks at their chests when he talks to them, Darkness that he started thinking of her as just breasts since she moved into the mansion, and Aqua no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get turned on by her, upsetting her that he never thought of her like he does the others.

Don’t Take Advantage of Others

It turns out the wish he had made was that he could know what it’s like to be comforted, which occurred before his confessions, resulting in the choker becoming undone without them knowing. Angered by the humiliation they were subjected to when the wish wasn’t anything perverted, the girls quickly take their revenge on Kazuma, who once again finds himself in an awkward meeting with Eris. Here season 1 ends with an OVA.

If you liked this recap of Konosuba Season 1, be sure to check out our other recaps here: AniWatch Haven Anime Recaps