Television series

Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!

Name: Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!
Genre: Comedy, Anime, Fantasy
Released: 2016
Cast: Jun Fukushima, Sora Amamiya, Rie Takahashi, Ai Kayano, Sayuri Hara

Parody
Portal fantasy
Light-hearted

A hikikomori dies badly, wakes up in a fantasy world, and immediately proves useless at heroics — so he and his equally broken party (a useless goddess, a one-trick-pony mage, and a masochist knight) end up hustling for rent money instead of saving anyone. It's slapstick isekai parody: fast, filthy-minded, and gleefully mean to its own genre's clichés.

TVMaze rating

3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love comedy that finds its laughs in a lazy, bickering party of misfits and the gap between a fantasy premise and how small their ambitions really are, much like the grounded irreverence of Konosuba's ilk.

Skip it if you want sweeping epic stakes or a serious quest; the show mostly stays small, loud and deliberately silly, and its humor leans on one-note characters who can wear thin over 31 episodes.

What it asks of you: Each episode runs about 27 minutes, so it is easy to binge in sittings, and it wants you to laugh at escalating chaos rather than follow intricate plotting or tense drama.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Hataraku Maou-sama!2013

The mirror image of Kazuma's problem: a Demon Lord stranded in modern Tokyo, forced to work fast food to survive. Same broke-hero-in-a-strange-world comedy, played with real sweetness underneath the jokes.

But Gentler and less crude than Konosuba — if you came for chaos and vulgarity, this feels almost wholesome by comparison.

Slayers1995

The 90s ancestor of this whole subgenre — a loudmouth sorceress and her disaster party blast their way through fantasy tropes with the same gleeful disrespect for the genre's seriousness.

But Dated animation and pacing; it's a museum piece next to Konosuba's slicker comic timing.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime2018

Another reincarnation comedy, but built around building a kingdom rather than tearing one down — warmer, more communal, still funny about the mechanics of a game-logic world.

But Far less cynical and far more power-fantasy — some of Konosuba's satirical bite is simply absent here.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Army of Darkness1992

Both run on the same joke: an ordinary, mouthy coward thrown into a fantasy quest, treated as a hero he absolutely does not deserve to be.

Bruce Campbell's Ash is Kazuma's spiritual ancestor: a smug, cowardly, wildly overconfident nobody who stumbles into a medieval world and mostly survives by accident and one good chainsaw hand.

But Cheap 90s practical effects and horror-comedy gore instead of anime slapstick — the tone is grimier and gorier than Konosuba ever gets.

Overlord2015

Takes the overpowered-isekai-protagonist joke and plays it almost entirely straight and villainous — a fascinating companion piece if you want to see the premise inverted rather than mocked.

But Much darker and more morally uncomfortable; the comedy is nearly gone, replaced by genuine menace.

Gintama2006

Same anarchic, fourth-wall-breaking sense of humour and the same trick of undercutting genre nobility with broke, petty, ridiculous characters — just samurai-punk instead of fantasy.

But It's enormous — hundreds of episodes — and the tonal swings between gag comedy and real pathos are even wilder than Konosuba's.

Hai to Gensou no Grimgar2016

Same premise — ordinary people dumped into a game-like fantasy world with no plan — played almost entirely straight, melancholy and quiet where Konosuba is loud.

But Barely any jokes; if you want the comedy engine of Konosuba, this strips it out entirely.

The Good Place2016

Both are comedies about people who absolutely don't deserve their fantastical second chance, fumbling the rules of an afterlife-adjacent world with a squabbling makeshift family.

A dead woman gets an afterlife she doesn't deserve and has to survive its baffling bureaucratic rules alongside a mismatched crew — same structure of undeserving people muddling through a world with rules nobody explained properly.

But American live-action sitcom, warm and philosophical rather than crude — none of Konosuba's horniness or slapstick violence.

Free Guy2021

Same core gag reframed for cinema screens: an unremarkable guy discovers the absurd mechanical rules underlying his world and has to become a hero anyway, badly.

A background character in a video game realises he's an NPC and starts improvising heroics — same comic pleasure of watching someone game-logic-hack a world that was never built to take them seriously.

But Glossy Hollywood blockbuster polish and a much gentler, crowd-pleasing heart than Konosuba's mean streak.