By Dustin Cabeal
Okay… this is probably the funniest episode of the season, and I hate to say it, but it’s because of Darkness. As much as I find her gimmick hilarious, I just never liked Kazuma’s interaction with her. Not in the way I enjoy him and Aqua, who act like best friends or he and Megumin who have a brother-sister type bond. Darkness is a pervert… I suppose that’s how they bond.
Darkness, if you haven’t figured it out, returns in this episode. The group's response is hilarious. All of them tell her to take a bath for as long as she needs and to cry it out. She informs them of what really happened between her and the Lord that Kazuma owes money too. He wants her to marry his son, who is the nicest guy in the world.
Kazuma is brilliant in this episode. He looks at this as an opportunity to get Darkness out of his life and get someone in the group that can hit a target. To do this, he separates Megumin and takes Aqua to Darkness’ father’s house where they pretend to be her maid and butler. Darkness tries to sabotage the arranged marriage because the son doesn’t act like a rich lord. She goes on a tangent, and it is by far the best Darkness has ever been. Eventually, Darkness wants to battle the son (she wins because he doesn’t want to keep beating her with the wooden sword), but soon enough Kazuma and Darkness are fighting. Kazuma doesn’t pull any punches, and it is fucking great.
The single best line though is when the son of the Lord pays Kazuma a compliment and Kazuma rolls up his sleeves and asks him to take it outside. I laughed so fucking hard. I’m not attempting to do the line justice so that it can still make you laugh, but it is funny as hell.
The ending is only fitting for this show and Kazuma. He’s not destined to defeat the Devil King, but rather living a mundane life with some excitement. Kazuma will be the middle of the barrel, and it will work for him because it’s still just enough and still better than the life he gave up.
As for the animation. It’s good. The opening still sucks. It looks like a different team animated it, and it bothers me every fucking time. I don’t get why they don’t just tune it up or something. Just a little each week. I mean the fucking golden cherries (or apples) look great so why do the faces look so fucked?
At any rate, I love this show. Sure, it’s given up on doing anything, but what it is doing is so hilarious that I don’t mind. That and I enjoy that Kazuma continues to get in trouble with the law either at the beginning or end of the episode… or in this episode’s case… both.
Score: 5/5
KonoSuba 2! E.0