Isekai is one of the most saturated genres in anime history, and like we’ve spoken in our initial rant about it, there’s always some ‘new’ title that drops EVERY DAMN SEASON! From the people who brought you ‘The Time I Got Sucked in to Another World with my iPhone 12’, comes ‘That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Refrigerator’! Japan loves coming up with things and objects that people can be brought into another world to be reincarnated as, but despite how stupidly long these titles are; and how generic most of the protagonists can be, there are exceptions. One of those exceptions comes in the form of a parody of all of the common tropes found in isekai anime titles; including how useless party members can be. One of the biggest useless party members happens to be a goddess (if you’d even call her that) of water, and also has the personality of a fish out of water. Guys n’ gals, meet Aqua, a useless goddess.

Konosuba is one of those shows that takes the ‘norms’ that you’d find in every isekai trope, and throws it out the window. You’d think upon first glance it would be about a generic MC getting transported to another world after death, and waking up in a forest to search for the king and become a knight and fight off dragons in order to save the kingdom, right? NO! Konosuba takes all of that and tells it to go kick rocks; because Kazuma (the ‘generic’ MC) doesn’t give a damn about fighting the demon king, he just wants to party and live it up in the new world he’s in. (And even drags Aqua along for the ride.)

Aqua is basically the first person Kazuma meets and already hates her guts…and the fact that she made her panties invisible so people wouldn’t see them. (Yeah, but now they can SEE YOUR BARE ASS!) Well, as air-headed and useless as she is within Kazuma’s party, Aqua brings a sense of comic relief and joy.

Part 1: The Origin of the Useless Goddess

So, was Aqua useless from the start? Well she’s worshiped in the Axis Order in the Fantasy World, and is basically in charge of trying to get Japanese people who’ve died to be reincarnated into the Fantasy World. However Eris was the one taking one most of her responsibilities, because Aqua would rather read manga and be lazy. (No surprise there.) Kazuma wasn’t like other Japanese people; instead when he was reincarnated, he took Aqua with him as a cheat item (which she hated) and the two of them started getting odd part-time jobs in order to make a living in the Fantasy World. Eventually Aqua started getting noticed throughout the town for her abilities and also her troublemaking; which places Kazuma as the one who ends up as her “babysitter”. When it comes to responsibilities…yeah, Aqua’s pretty useless.

Part 2: How Useless Is Your Goddess?

Aqua is an unaccountable airhead with a ‘kid-in-a-candy-store’ personality, who can be really annoying at some of the worst times. Though she won’t pass judgement on push her beliefs on people, she speaks out of term and has landed herself and the rest of Kazuma’s party in hot water. As a goddess Aqua has validation issues; as she constantly seeks praises for her good deeds – only to ruin her merits moments later. Aqua is also a terrible lair, and has no concept of what a ‘lie’ is and how to tell one due in part to her honesty. Because of this its easy to trick her into doing things or even getting her to agree with you on certain topics, and while she thinks highly of herself, Aqua isn’t the brightest when it comes to business sense.

On the flipside; Aqua can be smart when she wants to be, and has been known to be a walking encyclopedia for Kazuma and the rest of the team. Although she’s a goddess, Aqua forgets just how powerful her priestess abilities actually are; and has performed feats that others would deem extraordinary. She’s not fond of toads or demons and surely hates the undead, but she’ll get along with them if she gets to know them long enough. (Not the toads though.) As far as her skills are concerned, they may seem impressive on paper, but in actual battle…they’re useless against normal people and toads. Aside from her Priestess Magic, Aqua has powerful skills like “God Blow” and “God Requiem”, but she can also bring people back from the dead, purify unclean water, cause biblical floods, lift curses from those possessed by demons, a master craftswoman, can do water bending (just a little bit, don’t get excited Last Airbender fans), has holy magic, and is also great at party tricks. I know it looks like I made Aqua not sound as useless as she seems, but in the anime only half of this stuff is seen.

Part 3: The Legacy of the Useless Goddess

Many supporting characters in isekai anime titles are equal in strength and intelligence to a certain degree, as for Aqua, you’re kinda rolling the dice and hoping for the best. She’s totally useless when it comes to certain responsibilities, but she also knows how to entertain a crowd with her party tricks. Perhaps she’s not totally useless at everything, she’s just more skilled in other areas as opposed to the ones most people would assume she’s good at; but they’d be wrong. While she’d be okay for quests where there’s demons and undead involved, Aqua would still need to be babysat when it comes to keeping herself from getting in trouble around town. Also, she needs to PUT SOME DAMN DRAWS ON! Nobody wants to see that booty every single day (not unless you’re a freak); ask Kazuma when he’s groaning and rolling his eyes. At the end of the day, Aqua’s gonna be Aqua, and there’s nothing you can do about that.

That will do it for this One-2-One. Until next post, stay nerdy! 😉