No one expected that.
Summary:
- Usually, KonoSuba has a lot of comedy where characters annoy each other.
- This is why fans were surprised when the last episode was mostly wholesome.
- Princess Iris might be the most normal person in the series.
As the anime finally goes further than the leaked episodes, KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! (Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!) continues to surprise fans. This time, the anime took another turn, and the new episode is surprisingly… wholesome?
Well, as wholesome as KonoSuba might get, anyway.
KonoSuba’s Premise Makes It Pretty Mean-Spirited
It’s really hard to call anything about KonoSuba wholesome. Lighthearted and fun? Sure. Wholesome? Definitely not. Pretty much everyone in the series is an idiot, a scumbag, or a scumbag and an idiot. And we say that lovingly!
In fact, that’s the entire reason it got so popular — we see a group of friends who clearly care about each other, and despite that, act terrible to each other all the time anyway.
KonoSuba is essentially a parody of isekai. Instead of a hero who wants to save the world, we get Kazuma, who is greedy and perverted (although he possesses some heroic qualities). And, for his companions, we get Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness — each one being borderline useless.
That said, it’s not like this is a bad thing. These characters are still not bad people — they just have certain quirks and obsessions they act upon. They’re all flawed, and arguably, that makes them more realistic than a traditional “heroic” party.
As many scenes in KonoSuba are often mean-spirited towards at least one of the characters, it’s understandable why it might be hard to call the series wholesome. That’s why S3 EP3 was so surprising — it significantly toned down the mean-spiritedness of the comedy.
The New Character Makes the Episode Wholesome (Mostly)
Iris is the princess of Belzerg — the country where KonoSuba takes place. She wasn’t introduced until this season, and when she was, fans immediately liked her. After all, she might be the first major character in the series who isn’t a jerk or just stupid. In fact, she’s the opposite: she’s extremely kind, polite and innocent.
Episode 3 focuses mostly on her, and even Kazuma tones down his perverted antics and tendencies. KonoSuba often breaks tropes, and now, it subverts itself by having a character who’s completely normal — and so is her episode.
Still, fans wonder how her storyline might develop from here. KonoSuba is famous for its plot going into directions that no one ever expects, and some fans are worried that Iris might be negatively influenced by Kazuma and others. Others, however, feel that Kazuma would be the one to be influenced.