Konosuba - The Best Worst Girls

on repeated re-watches konosuba has cemented its place in my heart as one of my favorite anime of all time i love everything about this show the wild comedy the superb animation and especially the lovably quirky cast of mean-spirited idiots who drive its plot forward but for as much as i love this stupid show there's one thing i don't understand about the reaction that fans myself included have had towards it the girls of konosuba especially main girls megamin aqua and darkness have become some of the most prominent waifus in recent memory aqua was the top seed and second place finisher in this year's reddit best girl contest while megamin and darkness were both in the top 20 seeds and only lost to quarter-finalists there's half a dozen figurines of each of these girls not to mention many of the minor characters with more coming out like every other month so what's so weird about the girls from a popular anime franchise being widely loved and getting lots of merchandise well the thing about konosuba's best girls is that they're kind of the worst and i don't mean that in the subjective your waifu is trash kind of way that the term gets bandied about online i mean that these characters are intentionally written to be as unrepentantly awful as humanly possible kazuma and company are self-centered capital j jerks and while that's a large part of what makes them so funny it also makes them more or less objectively some of the worst potential romantic partners in anime aqua in particular has even been canonically identified as worst girl by kazuma in the konosuba ova moreover the main girls of konosuba are specifically written as subversions of standard waifu tropes designed to poke holes in common female character archetypes initially aqua appears to be your bog standard hottie tsundere but within minutes of arriving in the other world it becomes clear that she's really just a whiny entitled stupid like really stupid [ __ ] megamin evokes the appeal of a cute little sister character but spend a few minutes with her and you'll quickly realize that in line with her youthful cuteness she's a stubborn childish brat she's impulsive and ill-tempered not to mention so caught up in her tunibio delusions that she actively drags down her allies in combat on top of that she mercilessly bullies her only other friend union for basically no reason and she's probably the least awful out of the trio darkness is the stereotypical older sister graceful composed and self-sacrificing to a fault but why would somebody in such a cynical world as konosubas hurt themselves so frequently for the sake of others in darkness's case it's because her selfless acts of heroism are driven by very selfish masochism she gets such an extreme sexual thrill out of humiliation and pain that she classed as a paladin just so that she could be closer to the monsters who might molest her even though she can't swing a sword to save her life now to some people that might not sound like such a bad thing and i'm not here to kink shame anyone but darkness's masochism borders on insane her life goal is to be captured and tortured by the demon king and her ideal husband is an abusive alcoholic who would force her into prostitution she has zero self-control or sense of boundaries making everyone around her profoundly uncomfortable and unsafe as she frequently puts her friends in actual danger thanks to her proclivities all three of these girls are written to comedically suggest that irl your average perfect anime wife would almost certainly be some brand of ruin your life crazy while wiz eris and union the less tropey girls who don't gravitate as closely around the equally awful kazuma tend to come off as a lot more sane likable and genuinely kind yet if you look at their popularity it's no contest the fandoms behind konosuba's deranged main girls dwarf those of every supporting character except for aerys who's big in japan but not so much in the west and pat's her chest people love these girls who have been explicitly designed to be hateable and looking at that r anime poll they seem to love the worst one of them the most so why is that part of it is almost certainly the so-called mere exposure effect people tend to develop a preference or affinity for things simply because they're familiar with them konosuba is a really good anime that's been watched to death and meme through like three levels of undeath and naturally that means that every anime fan and their mom has been exposed to a lot of each of these girls and their popularity does line up roughly with the amount of screen time they get but if that was all there was to it then rem wouldn't be more popular than everyone else in re zero and toru would have won the best girl contest in a landslide because she's in every shot of my hero academia so we've gotta look beyond people's affinity for the show itself the simplest possible explanation is definitely their looks if you look past their obnoxious personalities the girls of konosuba are undeniably cute as heck and a lot more animated and expressive than your average anime girl and sure a lot of their expressions aren't what you'd call conventionally beautiful but i'll be darned if they don't make me smile pretty hard and stick in my memory especially the many distressed faces of aqua and the classic smuggamine on top of that their designs are really strong aqua's fancy hairdo and fine clothes exude an elegance that clashes beautifully with her uncouth attitude the ribbons and wing-like shoulder guards on darkness's armor match her outward persona of angelic purity while her long tied up hair suggests she's trying to restrain herself and mega man's youthful enthusiasm and tunibio delusions are reflected in her asymmetrical patchwork robes and rough haircut each one is drawn almost entirely with a single primary color along with an accent tone corresponding to their personality aqua's outfit is blue with pure white trim the fitting of a goddess mega means hat and cloak are demonic black and darkness has pure white armor that lets her less than pure true nature peek through the cracks you'll note that whenever she's stripped down to her black bodysuit she tends to get even hornier than usual all of the girls and kazuma have yellow trim on their outfits as well that signifies that they're all part of the same group these great designs naturally make for great merchandise especially figurines mega means flowing cape and aqua's flowing hair lend themselves really well to dynamic figurine poses and they fit together so nicely that you really want to have a full set of them regardless of whether or not they actually are your waifus there's a good chance that you'll want to put them on your shelf because they just look great but most importantly in terms of design and i am being 100 serious here aqua doesn't wear panties or maybe she does and she used magic to turn them invisible so that cosma can't peep at them that's a popular fan theory but the fact that fans are theorizing about this at all should tell you that konosuba's character designer hit gold with this decision not unlike the plot thread that somehow holds up hestia's plot this is that but for booty lovers not only is this somehow a debate but people are using figurines to push both sides of it and the fact that some have panties while others don't only makes it more contentious this single brilliant marketing decision has surely moved aqua figurines and coming back to the mere exposure effect if you got an aqua or two up on your shelf you're naturally going to be more inclined to declare your undying affection for her or at least say that she's pretty neat if someone asks you to pick a favorite girl from the show but picking a waifu can't really be something so superficial can it surely there's more to winning a place in our cold dead weep hearts than just putting a really cute girl in front of us a lot well i mean when i say it out loud that makes a lot of sense but uh stop doubting yourself jeff that was supposed to be rhetorical and in all seriousness there is more to the primary motivator behind choosing a waifu the ephemeral feeling of moe than simply liking how an anime girl looks moe is a feeling of adoration and devotion a desire to protect something precious so maybe aqua by virtue of being the single most pathetic creature in existence naturally inspires our protective instincts as does megamin in her limp post-explosion form or maybe just maybe we do like these girls for their personalities after all because as awful as they can be they sure as hell are entertaining the way that aqua smugly looks down on others for their embarrassment only to inflict it on herself 10 times worse the way that megamin wears her emotions on her sleeve the way that darkness gets way too into being attacked by monsters yet can't stand the humiliation of being called la latina these girls are hilarious their antics make me smile with much greater frequency and strength than any waifu who's more conventionally cute and sane i find a similar appeal in the harem of abrasive violent jerks surrounding ranma and ranma in his girl form for that matter but it's not just comedic value that makes me love these girls for me the real heart of what makes them so fun and lovable is the shitty personalities themselves because for as annoying and crazy and downright insufferable as they are at least they're not fake well i mean as fictional characters obviously they're the definition of fake but so many waifus and moe characters are made less for the sake of advancing the plot or having good chemistry with the existing cast and more just to tick boxes and pander to otaku there are so many anime girls out there who are just cute for the sake of being cute who play into worn out tropes is a cheap way of making our kokoro's go doki doki without having anything of substance beyond that and while it can be fun to indulge in that occasionally it's the moe equivalent of empty calories at a certain point the transparent attempts to seduce us into picking best girls get exhausting the girls of konosuba by trying their hardest to be unlikable ironically end up being much more charming there's something nice about knowing that someone is comfortable being their absolute worst around you it breeds a level of familiarity and affection that you really don't get when people are putting on airs in a transparent attempt to impress you and be attractive with most anime waifus you never really get past that first date awkwardness but aqua megamine and darkness basically jump straight to that level of invasive familiarity where they can puke in front of us hold a conversation on the toilet or confidently push us into a tiny corner of our shared bed we end up loving them in spite of and even because of their faults especially darkness because she is crazy dtf and if that's not true love i don't know what is or maybe it's just that they're all really cute and we're all sheep let me know in the comments below who your favorite konosuba girl is and why and while you're down there don't forget to hit that subscribe button and ring the notification bell to make sure that you catch every mother's basement video that comes out from now on i'm jeff though professional [ __ ] bag signing out from my mother's basement you

Channel: Mother's Basement

Views: 2,565,189

Keywords: anime (tv genre), Konosuba, Darkness, Megumin, Aqua, Wiz, Eris, Chris, Yunyun, Waifu, Best Girl, Worst Girl, Waifu Wars, kono subarashii sekai ni shukufuku o!, Anime Analysis, kono subarashii sekai ni shukufuku wo!, konosuba ova, megumin konosuba, video essay, konosuba best funny moments, Mother's Basement, konosuba facts, konosuba season 2, konosuba season 3, Anime, Konosuba Analysis, Comedy Anime, Aqua Konosuba, Darkness Konosuba, Best Girl Conest

Id: IitWnB4VRW4

Length: 11min 24sec (684 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 28 2018