Konosuba: God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World! Season 1 (Collector’s Edition Blu-ray) Unboxing

Konosuba: God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World! (Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o!) is a 2016 television anime series based on the light novel of the same name written by Natsume Akatsuki. It was adapted by studio DEEN with director Takaomi Kanasaki and writer Makoto Uezu, and published by Kadokawa Pictures. The series first broadcast in Japan on January 2016 as part of the Winter 2016 anime season.

Background:

“Kazuma Sato decides that today is the day to get out of the house for a bit. Since he dies, pointlessly, it’s clearly a bad choice.

The goddess who greets him in the afterlife, however, offers him a chance to be reborn in a world not unlike that of a video game, and as a bonus she’ll even throw in a cool item or power! Can’t possibly be a bad choice, right? Except he arrives with no money at all, dead average skills, and his “bonus” isn’t useful at all–since he picked the goddess, Aqua, herself. How are the two of them supposed to defeat the evil Devil King and live happily ever after? Well, for them, it probably starts with day labouring rather than adventuring.

And it’s only going to get more disappointing from there.”

Plot Synopsis via Anime Limited, October 2020

After Sword Art Online aired, the isekai genre concept slowly was being adapted into anime form. There was Log Horizon, No Game No Life, Outbreak Company and then eventually the adaptation of Konosuba made an appearance. Studio DEEN’s reputation was very hit or miss with their catalogue and despite having pretty average to messy animation, that style worked surprisingly well with Konosuba and its comedy.

Konosuba grew in popularity quite a lot but it was also a strange series to not even be touched for simuldubbing and home video releases. Eventually when I asked around during MCM Birmingham in 2016 I realised that Crunchyroll had acquired the full rights to the series. Saying that, it was quite a surprise to see that it was never brought into Funimation’s distribution during their partnership considering catalogue titles like BERSERK, The Testament of Sister New Devil and Twin Star Exorcists were chosen. Eventually that partnership concluded and Konosuba was never picked up.

Then out of nowhere Crunchyroll dubbed the series for their streaming service and not long after came Discotek Media with their random Crunchyroll pickups. Miraculously Konosuba was among the titles chosen and was released on Blu-ray in the United States. Anime Limited in the United Kingdom and Ireland was able to license Konosuba, though this had been rumoured for years, probably around the time when the Crunchyroll x Funimation partnership began.

Collector’s Edition Contents:

Anime Limited released Konosuba: God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World! in a collector’s edition package which does not use their digipack style because the series is presented on a single Blu-ray disc unlike the other titles. The single Blu-ray disc idea is thanks to Discotek Media but unlike KAZE UK, the US distributor pretty much perfected the concept and put extra effort in making sure the authoring maintained the quality than you would normally get with two discs or more.

Included in the set is a single Amaray Blu-ray case and an 80-page booklet featuring character artwork, storyboard sequences of the opening and closing theme songs, and more which were translated for the first time outside of Japan. These materials were included in the original Japanese Blu-ray volumes.

The set received 1000 units in total for a £59.99 SRP and it has sold out already. It didn’t sell out during the early bird back in August but eventually the stock must have ran out pretty fast thanks to Amazon pricing the set for the same range as the early bird. There is a standard edition scheduled a month after the release of the collector’s edition so the series will still be around for UK fans.

Physical Contents:

• Rigid Box with Amaray case and clean artwork
• 80-page Booklet

On-Disc Contents:

Distributor: Anime Limited
Released: 12th October 2020

Konosuba: God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World! Blu-ray release contains all 10 episodes and an additional OVA on a single Blu-ray disc using the Discotek Media encode. The audio options available include the main Japanese language with English subtitles and the Bang Zoom! English dub.

As this is a Discotek authored title, we have yellow subtitles for the dialogue. The subtitles are unlockable during playback, and the disc is locked to Region B for playback.

Blu-ray Specs:

Languages	English, Japanese
Audio	English Linear PCM 2.0 Japanese Linear PCM 2.0
Video	1080p High Definition Native format 16:9 aspect ratio
Region	B
Subtitles	English
Locked Subtitles	No
Discs	1

Blu-ray On-Disc Extra Features:

• Title Free Opening Song “Fantastic Dreamer”
• Title Free Ending Song “Little Adventurer” (Chīsana Bōken-sha)
• Promotional Videos and Commercials
• Thanks for Watching

Unboxing Photos:

Final Notes:

Konosuba: God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World! Season 1 is available to own on Blu-ray from UK distributor Anime Limited. The collector’s edition Blu-ray is out of print but some units may be available on Amazon UK. A standard edition Blu-ray is also available.