Synopsis (MAL):
Kazuma Satou, a high school student, gamer and shut-in, died on an average day walking home from school, performing the one heroic act of his life. He reawakens in the afterlife, greeted by a beautiful but rude girl named Aqua, who claims to be a goddess that guides the youth whose lives got cut short. Aqua then offers him a choice: to go to heaven, or to get sent to a another world to defeat the Demon King. Of course, Kazuma's gamer instincts kick in, and he chooses to start a new life in a real-life RPG.
There's one last choice Kazuma has to make: he is allowed the choice of one thing to take with him to the new world. After puzzling over it, he chooses...Aqua?
Join Kazuma on his adventures as he tries to transfer his virtual gaming knowledge to real-life adventurer experience!
By now you've probably heard of this anime in which case you can skip the first paragraph. If you haven't, continue on while I explain the gist of everything that isn't explained in the synopsis.
I'd like to think of Kono Subarashii (Konosuba) as the line that mocks both Sword Art Online and Log Horizon. Unlike SAO and Log Horizon, the main character (Satou) doesn't want to save the world or anything for the people around him, or his friends, or really anybody in particular. He just wants fame and fortune. Also unlike in SAO and Log Horizon, Satou remains severely underpowered along with all of his party members. There are almost zero MMORPG elements outside of quests and leveling up skills, the latter of which almost seems to purely exists for comedic lineups in the future. In both SAO and Log Horizon the main characters are fearless and will go through extreme measures to complete their goals. Satou, however, is the opposite. If he deems the work too dangerous (euphemistic for too hard), he will force his party members to choose another quest, and are often times not what is expected. Adding insult to injury, he and his party members never leave the starter's town. Everything about Konosuba is on the forefront, just another attempt and bringing in comedy, where the primary goal is often left short-sighted with remedial tasks the characters are presented with. It's not inertly bad, but neither is it relatively good.
Konosuba's characters are all flat- and we aren't talking about melons. While you may learn a thing or two about the characters along the way, it does not constitute for the fact that the characters never really change. Albeit such thing is to be expected in an anime whose focus is comedy so this can be easily overlooked as integrating itself to the genre.
Every episode progresses by a means of random emergency quests or Satou accepting quests for money. All of which are very remedial tasks and rarely ever hold any means to his actual goal of killing the Demon King. The entire season is like a tangent to the main storyline which is likely to see a change come season 2 (confirmed).
There's nothing in particular that stands out in this anime so there really isn't much to talk about. Is that a bad thing? No, not really. Nichijou is one of the greatest anime I've seen but due to the nature of every episode, it's hard to talk about without explaining the episode itself. Aside from the spoilers, telling the story is much different than experiencing the story. Konosuba is exactly like that. Every episode is different and while the characters never change in this season, it's because of that we can feel relaxed in each episode because we already know what to expect. In layman's, this is a very laid back anime. You don't watch it for the plot, you watch it because it makes you feel good.
Anime weed.
However, if you are the type of person that's not too fond of the slice of life/comedy and you were hoping for an actual MMO-ish anime akin to SAO and/or Log Horizon, you should look elsewhere because almost everything in both anime are opposite to this. You need to go into this anime not expecting much. As for me, I had an alright time with it, but whether you should or should not watch it entirely remains on your taste. It's shitty but not shitty enough to reach a full verdict so here comes a checklist.
[size=x-large]TL;DR - Should You Watch Checklist:[/size]
Are you searching for an anime that is similar- if not identical- to either Sword Art Online or Log Horizon?
Do you hate flat characters (not talking about tits)?
Do you want a good story?
Do you like overpowered main characters (physically or mentally)?
Do you hate the slice of life/comedy genre?
Do you want fleshed out, serious action sequences?
Do you hate it when the fourth wall is implied and broken?
If you said yes to 3/7 to 7/7 of the above, I would recommend that you do not watch. Doing so will probably leave you finding it to be annoying, repetitive, or flat out cancer. As for me, I intend to wait and pray for an equally cancerous second season for me to watch.
