© 2024 暁なつめ・三嶋くろね/KADOKAWA/このすば3製作委員会
This episode doesn't utilize its strengths as strongly as it should. I'm a sucker for side jokes and one-off jokes, but if you spend about a third of the episode on a bit it better be one of the funniest things ever now or facilitate the show's story. The whole side story is about a noble sexually assaulting Kazuma's friend because of a misunderstanding about running out of money. The reward isn't funny at all; it goes on too long and is only closely related to the interesting content in the episode surrounding Darkness. If you cut that entire part out, you'd have a much better-paced and humorous episode.
As for the good parts of the episode, everything about Kazuma and Darkness was excellent, with the voice mimicry bit being a highlight. This situation is almost exactly what I thought it would be. Darkness's family is in debt and she has to marry herself off to make up for it. This is just a repeat of our last plot point with Darkness. Unless I'm missing something else, I don't feel like there's much new setup going on here, which makes me a little concerned unless the way this story pacing is resolved is going to be fake .
My final thoughts are about the blatantly intimate moments between Darkness and Kazuma in this episode. It's funny how the season was setting up healthy romantic tension between Kazuma and Megumin, but now we've just taken the hard turn to develop all the sexual tension between Darkness and Kazuma. I think the moment when Darkness entertains the idea of the two sleeping together is the perfect combination of drama and comedy, but even with these moments, the relationship still feels a bit strange at times. The show is trying to make it clear that these two are very physically attracted and would probably make a good couple sexually. But KONOSUBA also cannot decide the level of commitment for these two to be together socially. Maybe the lack of payoff in the relationship is supposed to counterbalance the gradually and naturally developing romance between Kazuma and Megumin. Strangely enough, I'm debating how seriously I should take these things. Maybe things will become clearer once we get to the end of this storyline.
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KonoSuba – God bless this wonderful world! 3 is now streaming on Crunchyroll.
Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more companies mentioned in this article are members of the Kadokawa Group.
