Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. Let’s talk about Konosuba. Out of the 4 Horsemen of Isekai it’s definitely the most popular which makes sense. The whole series is hilarious from beginning to end with its hilarious main characters and deconstructing the isekai formula to give us something new and original. After a successful second season, the series went silent with no announcement of a third season in works. However, a few of the VAs said that they were working on a project from the series and that project was a movie titled Legend of Crimson. Released in 2019, Legend of Crimson adapts the 5th volume of Konosuba with the original cast and everyone who worked on the anime reprising their roles. The only difference was the movie was being produced by J.C. Staff (DanMachi) instead of Studio Deen who did the anime. As far as profits go the anime made 700 million yen in the theaters and even when it got shown in select theaters in the west everyone laughed their heads off watching it. Since we’re still in the middle of a pandemic I think we all could use a good laugh and what better way to laugh then with Konosuba. Let’s go.
The movie starts off with our heroes (are they really heroes? Hmm~, defeated 3 of the Demon King’s generals, befriended two of them, saved the town from destruction, destroyed an entire city’s main attraction, constantly in debt, almost killed a noble, and are more trouble than helpful. It’s down the middle) ruining the tuna fishing with Megumin’s explosion magic (starting to lean towards villains). At the guild Kazuma gets approached by Yunyun who says she wants to have his children (you do realize he’s the scum of the Earth?). Yunyun explains that she received a letter from her father where he says the Crimson Demons are being attacked by the Demon King’s forces. The fortune-teller of their village predicted that everyone would be wiped out besides Yunyun (because they would have forgotten about her), so she would need to find the scummiest guy in the town she was residing in, and give birth to a boy who according to her would go on to defeat the Demon King (so the son will succeed where the father failed? Sounds right). Upon further analyzing the letter, Megumin sees the part about the child was written by Arue, an inspiring writer from the village so chances are high she was playing a trick on Yunyun (scene here: https://youtu.be/b3p_PY_pkR4, and the fact that she was willing to go along with it proves just how gullible and desperate she is for marriage). However, the part about the village being attacked by the Demon King’s forces is true and Yunyun decides to head back home to check on everyone (because she has a moral compass). Megumin also gets worried and the group decides to go to the Crimson Demon village with her (try not to ruin this place). They have Wiz teleport them just outside the village, what she failed to remember is that the village is surrounded by female orcs and male orcs have gone extinct (meaning we got some thirsty orcs who are in desperate need of some loving). Kazuma gets captured by the orcs (every time I close my eyes~. I wake up feeling so horny~), but before the snu-snu can commence he gets saved by Yunyun (scene here: https://youtu.be/xz13Hxv1dcU). The group then comes across some demons where they get saved by mages from the village where we see they’re just like Megumin only more competent and just as flashy.
They then enter the village (which I have to admit is pretty nice. It’s got this rural Japan atmosphere with western houses. It’s a good combination) where we see everything is fine. The village is safe, Yunyun’s dad is in good health, and even though the Demon King’s army tries to invade the village constantly the mages are able to hold them off (hell, Yunyun’s dad even thinks about making the battles a tourist attraction. Scene: https://youtu.be/rks_Tayg63A, I’m on board with that. I’ll even market it for you). Kazuma and the others then go to Megumin’s. . .shack (yeah, I’m not even gonna pretend it’s a house) where we meet her sister Komekko (adorable) and her parents who try to get Kazuma together with Megumin once they find out he lives in a mansion and is coming into money (scene here: https://youtu.be/a28Z78xFRDk). They lock Kazuma in a room with a sleeping Megumin (wow, it’s like they’re practically presenting her to him), but Kazuma fights his natural instincts and instead just tries to sleep next to her. Megumin wakes up and tricks him into revealing his lecherous intentions (scum of the Earth) and jumps out of her window to spend the night at Yunyun’s place (I’m sure she’ll enjoy that. Scene here: https://youtu.be/lcQilzm7UVU). The next day Megumin gives Aqua and Kazuma a tour of the village while Darkness goes off to do her own masochist stuff (the less I know the better). They check out Megumin’s school and we learn that in the past Yunyun actually sacrificed her saved up skill points to save Komekko from harm (scene here: https://youtu.be/VII8jAWCZ30). In the afternoon they find Darkness fighting off the Demon King’s general Sylvia the chimera and her army. After finding out that all the male orcs were dead Darkness went out to fight against the Demon King’s army in order to sate her itch for abuse only to be disappointed and discover that the general is a woman (this adventure just isn’t going Darkness’s way). They chase Sylvia away and that night, Megumin and Kazuma share a moment like only they can share before it gets interrupted by Slyvia attacking (scene here: https://youtu.be/aapGC2tosBs).
Kazuma and the others run into Slyvia outside of Megumin’s shack where he gets entrapped by Slyvia’s amazing breast (https://youtu.be/8YB1ubx95kI). He soon allows himself to get captured by Slyvia and her amazing breast where he gets traumatized for the second time this movie because Slyvia is a transvestite (scene here: https://youtu.be/vdB1IB3KEKY). She takes Kazuma to the underground storage facility of the Crimson Demons where her objective has been to find the Mage Killer an ancient weapon that can neutralize all magic. The only problem is she can’t get pass the basement door and none of her magic works on it. Upon further examination, Kazuma sees that the control panel for the door is an actual NES controller (they wouldn’t). Kazuma opens the door and kicks Sylvia down the stairs trapping her down there (down there, with the weapon, that can destroy the village. Dumbass~). Sylvia absorbs the weapon into her body and thus becomes the Mage Killer (scene here: https://youtu.be/Vx2r76HSex4). She begins destroying the village (damn it Kazuma. You only had one job. Don’t destroy the village), but the chief says there might be a way to stop her in some old ruins left behind by the person who made the Mage Killer. Kazuma, Aqua, and Megumin go to these ruins where they find a stone tablet written in Japanese by that one adventurer who made the Destroyer (you know, just when I think Kazuma is the scum of the Earth, I remember this guy and start to debate whether this is true or not). So once again the adventurer was tasked by the king to create a weapon to fight against the Demon King. His answer, modified humans who would go on to be called the Crimson Demons (that’s why Megumin’s magic is so powerful. She’s a descendent of modified humans who were created to kill the Demon King. It’s practically in her blood to save the world). As far as destroying the Mage Killer, he created an anti-weapon for it, a railgun (which they use to hang their laundry on. Village of nutcases). Yunyun lures Sylvia into a trap as Kazuma and the others prepare the railgun. When it’s time to fire the damn thing it doesn’t work because it doesn’t have enough magic. Megumin tries to fire her explosion, but it gets absorbed by the railgun and now it has enough magic to fire (smile, you son of a bitch) and they fire it to kill Sylvia (scene here: https://youtu.be/5Wbemu9ww_g). Thus, the village is save and the movie ends on a high note (oh wait, we still got 20 minutes. Give us a bigger climax). Somehow, Sylvia’s soul survives the trip to the other side, and it fuses together with Hans and Verdia to become a super chimera that not even Wiz and Vanir can defeat it. This forces Kazuma to come up with a reckless plan (even reckless for him) where he uses Sylvia’s love for him to his advantage. He allows himself to become one with her (closes he’ll get to being inside a woman) to lower her defenses and then has Megumin and Yunyun blast her with combined magic of all the Crimson Demons to defeat her. The plan works and Sylvia is defeated, Kazuma dies again (dies almost as much as a sloth girl I know) and gets revived (scene here: https://youtu.be/lCzUKhfNmmQ). After returning to Axel for a few days, Megumin hands Kazuma her card asking him to put points into advanced magic. She feels bad for letting Kazuma die believing that if she focused on other mage skills she would have been strong enough to save him. She’s now decided to give up on her dreams of mastering explosion magic and instead focus on being a competent teammate who won’t hold the others back (do you think you can convince the others to do the same thing?). Kazuma hands her back her card and tells her to do one final explosion for old times’ sake. Megumin does hands down the best explosion in the entire series and we see that Kazuma didn’t change anything on her card as he doesn’t need a competent Crimson Demon who specializes in all magic when he has a Crimson Demon who can take out a Demon King’s general with one explosion spell (scene here: https://youtu.be/XkHdh2ZdHDY, that was nice).
Final Thoughts
So that was the Konosuba movie. Much like the show the movie delivers on the laughs as this has a lot of funny moments particularly with Kazuma. One thing that this movie does better than the anime is the character relationships between Kazuma and Megumin. While it was teased in the actual anime they never really did anything with it, but here they give us strong hints that Megumin and Kazuma may have actual feelings for one another and I think they would make a cute couple. I especially like the ending with Kazuma deciding to keep Megumin’s dream alive. Would Kazuma be better off with a mage who could use multiple magic, yes? But it’s just like he said, who needs a skilled mage when you have one that can destroy a demon king’s army with one powerful explosion spell. The secret behind the Crimson Demons is funny as well and does explain why Megumin’s magic is so powerful and why she and her village are somewhat nutcases.
The soundtrack and animation is nice overall. Although, there are some spots where the facial expressions look poor, but to be fair that’s part of the joke so I’ll give it a pass. The action scenes actually did get an improvement. That last battle with Sylvia was both funny, action-packed, intense, and fun to watch. Like I said before I did like the village of the Crimson Villages. It was a nice mix of Japanese and western culture. The animation on the magic skills was also great here. Megumin’s explosions just look fantastic. Also, let’s not forget Kazuma’s hand movements. I swear all of the budget went into those hand movements and it was money well spent.
Final Score
The final score for Legend of Crimson is an 8/10. If you’re a fan of Konosuba or just looking for a good laugh then check this movie out you’ll walk away with a smile guaranteed. There’s still be no word of a third season yet, but with the success of the movie and the anime being as popular as it is it’s only a matter time before a third season gets announced. I mean if Madhouse did 3 seasons of Overlord surely they can do three seasons of Konosuba. Until then, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
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