Konosuba: The Legend of Crimson: The Popular Phase

Last Thursday I was able to catch a showing of Konosuba: The Legend of Crimson, which is the film accompaniment to the anime of the same name (sans subtitle). It's one of the few anime that I'm really into and needless to say that I was pretty excited for it, so is it worth the hype? You bet your britches it is! Once the initial shock of re-entering the fanastical world of Konosuba had worn off it gave me everything that I like about the show in a film format: absurd characters, surreal situations, stranger solutions, and over-the-top-action.

Here we see Kazuma in his natural state of being overly confident and thinking with his dick.

Beginning with some background on the show, Konosuba or God's Grace on this Beautiful World, is what's referred to as an isekai anime, meaning that the entirety of the plot takes place outside of the protagonist's world (usually the protagonist dies and is brought to some sort of afterlife). Konosuba focuses on the callous Kazuma, a deceased and spiteful shut-in who's single passion in life was video games. He dies and is brought to this mystical world with the objective of killing the Demon King for unexplained reasons at the behest of the mocking Aqua. He's given a boon to aid him in his quest and in petty spite he selects Aqua after she mocks his pathetic death. The two then find themselves trapped in this generic fantasy world, much to both of their dismay. In their meandering non-quest the two make friends (or in Kazuma's case, enemies) and recruit the crusader Darkness and arch-wizard Megumin, both of which are every bit as inept and useless as Kazuma and Aqua. Really, it's a wonder that the quartet gets anything done, and their only successes stem from a combination of dumb luck, outside interference, and psychological warfare. Each is terrible in their own way: Kazuma has no combat ability (having chosen the thief class), Aqua has no useful spells and devotes her experience to party tricks (despite being a goddess), Darkness is a perverted masochist that can't hit a still target to save her life, and Megumin only knows a single school of magic (explosion) and can only cast a single spell each day before collapsing. It's quite the motley crew, but the antics don't end there, for this show is also a harem anime (more a parody of it), with everything that entails. However, while sex is liberally hinted at, with women in various states of undress (nothing explicit though), nothing actually happens, mostly because of Kazuma's juvenile and petty nature in addition to the eccentricities and prudishness of the various characters. It's pretty self aware about it, and I'd say that the show aims to show just how ridiculous objectification is.

The immediate aftermath. Also a display of some of the more minor facial expressions.

Getting into the story of the film itself, The Legend of Crimson is essentially a half-season of the show, taking place after the end of the second season of the show (season three when?). Once again the primary quartet is broke and in dire financial straights from a mixture of poor financial decisions and Aqua's alcoholism and thus in search of more money. At that moment a friend of Megumin's arrives with dire news and begging off the bat to bear Kazuma's child. Kazuma takes this enthusiastically, being the lecherous wretch he is. However, this is proven to be a false alarm with the slightest investigation, but the group decides to investigate the potential threat anyway. Thus begins an adventure filled with twists, turns, and revelations of the mechanically broken Crimson Demon race (they aren't actually demons they just call themselves that). Without giving away any more, that's the plot, and similar to the show the whole affair carries a heavy theme of absurdism throughout, from the antic,s to the foes, to even the shocking revelations. There were several themes that I noticed throughout, mainly that of loyalty and self-sacrifice, which are surprisingly displayed by both our morally suspect heroes and dastardly forces of evil. Beginning with Megumin's friend, like Megumin she wanted to master explosion magic, and saved up her experience throughout her childhood for this reason. However, shortly before reaching the threshold that would enable her to learn this skill, Megumin's sister was threatened by raiders, and in a show of sacrifice, she invested her points into intermediate magic so as to defend Megumin's sister, which she successfully did. On top of costing her simple experience, her choice to learn intermediate magic earned her the scorn of her friend and her fellow villagers (all of whom only know excessive and overly destructive magic) for whom practicality is not a virtue. That's pretty much all the themes that show up (without spoiling) for the forces of good, so what about evil? Evil has a pretty rough run of it in this film, what with not only failing against the Crimson Demons' obscene magical might time after time, they even fail in their final assault (duh). However, while they despair at their lack of success, they do notably have a feeling of unity and faith in their cause and commander that gives them the spiritual fortitude to optimistically assault the Demons' defenses near-daily. It was somewhat disturbing to watch them march to battle (and their deaths) with cries of 'We love our commander', 'We'll make you proud', 'For the Demon King' on their lips with less malice or rapture and more patriotism on their lips. This relationship isn't one-way either, and their commander, the BBEG, is just as willing as her forces to lay down their lives in defense of one another, constantly offering positive encouragement in the process. You have no idea how surreal it is for me to be seeing such military themes in a goofy isekai anime, but needless to say I like it. It's surprising and strikes a chord to me, which I did not expect, and I think is the narrative strength of this weird film. It's simple to brush away such a theme as functionally inaccurate or deceitful in your average Oscar-Bait film, but here it carries more weight. Turns out it's more impactful watching the heroes massacring the faceless cannon-fodder goons effortlessly than to watch a protagonist escape a near-death situation, and that's good storytelling.

Megumin casting explosion, also known as a fantasy nuke that can be seen from orbit (with pretty colors to boot).

In terms of general aesthetic, Legend of Crimson is much like any other episode of Konosuba, which is much like other anime. What's notable about the film (and the show by extension) is the expressiveness of the characters. The massive range of exaggerated faces are nothing short of sidesplitting, further adding to my enjoyment every time I watch the show. This expressiveness also extends to the voice acting. I'll be honest and say that I don't know a lick of Japanese, but even if I didn't have subtitles I would still able to easily get the feeling of the scene or the gist of what was being said. As with most anime there's a lot of bright pastel colors but apart from that I've pretty much hit everything technical that I feel is worth mentioning.

Aqua actually doing something with her godly powers for once, but will it actually do something?

KonoSuba: The Legend of Crimson is a really funny film, even watched without the context of the show. It's a bizarro-fantasy adventure filled with humor, undercut threats, and incredulity that never loses its charm, something that's incredibly hard to pull off, especially in a comedy. It's a film that I very much liked and look forward to seeing again, and strongly recommend people watch too as a good introduction to anime. The screenwriter for Pulp Fiction, Roger Avery, gave this film  five stars on Letterboxd, and if nothing else that shows that there is definitely something in this film that is for sure worth seeing.