Characters / KonoSuba: Kazuma Satou

KonoSuba | Main Index
Protagonists (Kazuma Satou | Aqua) | Supporting Characters | Antagonists

Kazuma Satou

Voiced by: Ryōta Ōsaka (Japanese, Drama CD), Jun Fukushima (Japanese, Anime), Arnie Pantoja (English) ^{Foreign VAs}Javier Olguín (Latin American Spanish), Miguel Babio (European Spanish), Bastien Bourlé (French), David Turba (German), Erick Bougleux (Brazilian Portuguese)

"Just so you know, I'm not the type to go for clichés."

A sixteen-year-old Japanese shut-in who, while trying to save a girl from a careening truck (actually a farm tractor), died and found himself having to choose between being reborn on Earth as a baby, going to "heaven" to live a boring afterlife, or being reincarnated with his body and memories intact into a fantasy world being besieged by a Demon King. Given that he was also a gamer, naturally he's all too happy to take the latter option, and upon being given a choice of "cheat" weapon to bring with him, he proceeds to pick... Aqua, the goddess who met him in the afterlife and mocked him for the embarrassing circumstances of his demise. Upon arrival, he sticks with the basic class of Adventurer.

---

A-I

• Abomination Accusation Attack: He gets this a lot, to the point of becoming a Running Gag. By Volume 4 and on, his party's heroic deeds compensate for this a lot, but his bad rep as a pervert never quite goes away.
• Accidental Hero: Unbeknownst to anybody, let alone himself, him dragging Aqua down as his "cheat item" ended up saving Megumin and Yunyun from an elite of the Demon King's army.
• Accidental Pervert: Whenever he uses Steal on a girl, he usually ends up with her panties. Unlike most examples, he has no regrets whatsoever.
• Accidental Proposal: Kazuma unknowingly proposes to Iris thrice.
  • The first was when he accidentally stole her ring, which she will give to whoever marries her.
  • The second was when he promised to defeat the Demon King, as it is a tradition for the hero to marry the princess as a reward for defeating the Demon King.
  • Add a third time when he gave Iris a ring to replace the one he stole; in effect, the two have exchanged rings.
• Adaptational Badass: The Krobon Station-developed tie-in platformer for the Season 2 blu-ray makes Kazuma far more capable than he otherwise would be in service of the gameplay, such as being able to launch charged shots from his sword, and defeat numerous foes that would kill him easily in canon. He also successfully defeats all three of his brainwashed party members (all three of whom have this trope applied to them as well in different ways), kills a dragon that Verdia summoned to fight him, and defeats Verdia on his own, even after the general goes One-Winged Angel for his third phase of the boss fight. This is a justified trope in this case, however, otherwise the game wouldn't be any fun.
• Almighty Janitor: His job is an Adventurer, the lowest available class in the world, and he also has the lowest stats among the team, but he is the leader because he's the most versatile (in contrast to Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness's Crippling Overspecialization), and his tactics are directly responsible for pulling off multiple upsets.
• Anti-Hero: He may try to defeat the Demon King, but he's also a slothful pervert who'd rather go skirt-chasing and leave the world to rot but for circumstances forcing his hand.
• Arbitrary Equipment Restriction: Higher level enchanted gear is usually class-locked, but since it's so rare for people of the Adventurer class to reach high levels without switching classes, there's zero demand for equipment that Adventurers can use.
• Armor-Piercing Response: His reaction to a little girl handing him a signup sheet for the Axis Cult? He tears the thing apart, to the girl's shock. Also serves as a Rage Breaking Point, as he'd been seeing the same signup sheet everywhere and thought the little girl was the one innocent person in town. Her attempting to trick him to sign up for the cult made him tear it up out of rage-fueled frustration.
• Arrested for Heroism: At the end of Volume 2/Season 1. He successfully leads Axel in an emergency mission to stop the Destroyer, but when he comes to the guild to collect his reward, he's arrested and charged with treason, with town mayor Lord Alderp screaming for his head in a Kangaroo Court.
• Audience Surrogate: One of Kazuma's more defining traits is he often speaks the mind of the viewers. He will point out clichés and themes common to isekai genres and either lampshade or defy them.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: A downplayed example with Aqua. Despite their grievances with each other, they still have a strange attachment. This is best exemplified with him clinging onto Aqua after being rescued from female orcs, as well as ramming the door of her room upon hearing her crying on their first night at his newly-acquired mansion to see if she was okay. Or him drop-kicking a Demon King General in the face as soon as she causes Aqua to cry.
  • This is essentially the entire crux of Volume 15, with Kazuma's actions demonstrating just how much Aqua actually means to him (as a friend).
• Bathtub Bonding: With Darkness and Megumin at different times in the story. The former barged in on him, while the latter bathed with him after they got covered in Giant Toad slime.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Kazuma's main method in combat. Kazuma is pretty clever in understanding the abilities of his opponents, and using it in a way to work against them. This includes using the Lie Detector to prove his innocence when Alderp was planning to get him arrested, doing the same bribery method on him to prevent Darkness' marriage, and using Serena's curse on her.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Kazuma at times can be very blunt and sometimes borderline harsh, but he can soften up to people who treat him with kindness and respect. As such, Eris and Iris are some of the few people he has a genuine friendship with.
• Beleaguered Boss: Kazuma is the team leader of his incompetent party and Unwanted Harem that are made up of three quirky and/or sociopathic girls with Crippling Overspecialization and take turns at being The Load. They endlessly annoy him and there are many instances he'd be happy to be rid of them.
• Berserk Button: Don't ever try to invoke a gender-based Double Standard on him. It won't work.
• Blackmail: Has been on the receiving end of this several times, with the girls force Kazuma to go along with their requests by exposing some of his dark secrets or tarnishing his reputation.
  • Megumin gets Kazuma to accept her into his party by making him look like a pervert.
  • Aqua manages to persuade Kazuma to lend her money by revealing what she saw him get up to while they were sleeping in the stable.
• Blessed with Suck: One would think having a Physical Goddess at your beck and call while going up against the Demon King would be a good idea. Not with Aqua as his deity. And it gets worse when Megumin and Darkness join—on paper, the party is truly impressive; in practice, it's a miracle they're not all dead.
• Boring, but Practical: Being an Adventurer, Kazuma can use beginner spells from other, "better" classes; combined with his pragmatism, versatility, and luck, he can get a lot of mileage out of even the most basic of beginner magic spells (such as combining Create Water and Freeze to handicap enemies).
• Born Lucky: While most of his stats are fairly average, as early as Level 4 his Luck is already shown to be in the triple digits. On one hand, it enhances his chance of netting rare items with Steal (such as Chris's panties, Beldia's head, or the Destroyer's core), as well as the accuracy of Snipe. On the other hand, in his new world this stat is rarely appreciated, and even Luna's initial appraisal would have him relegated to passive roles such as a merchant. He boasts that he's never lost rock-paper-scissors, beating Aqua several times in a row (even after she boosts her own with Blessing), and only meets his match with Chris, who happens to be the avatar of Eris, goddess of fortune. In Volume 10 he even mentioned at being titled "Lucky Bastard Kazuma-san" back on Earth, and runs a casino dry for several days, only screwing up once at a roulette when Aqua makes the same choice.
• Bow and Sword in Accord: He realizes that he won't be of much tactical use in close combat, so he gets a bow and a few ranger skills to round himself out.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: While he has potential as a Combat Pragmatist, he still struggles with his freeloader habits.
• Bridal Carry: He carries Darkness this way as he rescues her from getting married to Alderp, meaning she was in a bridal gown at the time.
• Bring My Brown Pants: When he died on Earth, he wet himself from shock, making said death even more degrading.
• Brutal Honesty: Kazuma describes the girls' flaws like he sees it at various points. Sometimes it comes across as a dick move, other times it serves as a motivator.
• Butt-Monkey: Despite his supposedly high Luck, Kazuma tends to die in stupid ways. In fact, his death in his original world was apparently caused by a heart attack because he thought he got run over by a truck (which was actually a slow-moving garden tractor), which even his parents (supposedly) laughed at.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: Despite his attempts to settle down and retire due to his amassed wealth, circumstances always conspire to force him back into his enforced goal of defeating the Demon King.
• Came Back Wrong: Averted thanks to Aqua. It's pointed out she's careful to reconstruct Kazuma's body perfectly before casting Resurrection, to avoid anything dangerous from happening to him.
• Can't Catch Up: Even though his class is supposed to level quicker, he can't seem to land a finishing blow on any of the bosses, causing him to be very under-leveled compared to his comrades. He tries to not think about the depressing fact that even Megumin has a higher Strength stat than him.
• Can't Stand Them, Can't Live Without Them: As much as he complains about the girls' antics, Kazuma gradually realizes that he has grown too close to Aqua, Megumin and Darkness to actually go through forcing them out of his life. This was best shown during an afterlife audience with Eris after he was killed by the Winter Shogun. After ranting over their absurdities, he then unconsciously sheds a few tears, realizing that deep down he doesn't have enough courage to abandon them for good and reincarnate back to Japan.
• Caught with Your Pants Down: Aqua wasn't always asleep when he decided to rub one out in the stable they originally had to live in. However, she admits that whenever she heard him rustling, she simply turned away from the noise, thus never seeing what he was doing despite her Innate Night Vision.
• Celibate Hero: Downplayed. Kazuma isn't averse to dating at all; he would like a girlfriend very much, in fact. However, he doesn't consider any of his party members as viable girlfriend material. His relationship with Aqua is Like Brother and Sister, he tries to classify Megumin as Just a Kid, and while Darkness possesses many of the traits he desires in a woman, her massive masochism is a major turn-off for him. This restriction only applies to his party members. Other women who match his preferences, such as Luna and Wiz, will find him more proactive. Later in the series he goes back and forth once he and Megumin become a couple—as much as he wants to get further with her, someone or something always gets in the way; more often than not, however, it's just his cold feet.
• Chekhov's Skill: To the point of recurrence. If an Adventurer uses a low-cost Skill that happened to catch his gamer eye in one volume, there is a good chance Kazuma will take steps to learn it and put it to good use by the next volume, if not sooner. Snipe, Bind, Lip Reading and the grappling-hook Trick Arrow are a few examples.
  • In the final volume, while being cornered by the Demon King, he takes a cursory glance at his adventurer's card to see if there are any skills he learned that could turn the tide. He sees one spell that has been on his adventurer's card since the first volume, but he's been unable to learn until recently: Explosion.
• Chick Magnet: His crude but honest personality, as well as his habit of being reliable and doing the right thing despite his complaints, has won the hearts of Megumin, Darkness, Iris, and possibly Chris/Eris. He has even been on a date or two with Yunyun, who appreciates him treating her with kindness.
• Chivalrous Pervert: He at first tries to keep his perversions low-key, but gradually becomes more shameless over time. Even knowing this, his party members all stick with him because he's ultimately a good friend.
• Chosen Conception Partner: Subverted. Yunyun asks Kazuma to have a son with her because she thinks a prophecy says the son of a good-for-nothing will defeat the Demon King. She takes back her request after she realizes the "prophecy" was just a fictional story written by one of her former classmates.
• The Chosen One: A Double Subversion. Aqua outright states that the only reason she picked him as her champion was because she has yet to meet her quota and that she has little expectations of a Hikikomori like him. Out of spite, he picks her as his "cheat item", to which Aqua's fellow gods immediately agreed, with the condition being set that she can only return if Kazuma defeats the Demon King in her presence (and if someone else beats him to it, she may get stuck forever). Then he gains the favor of Eris, the goddess of his new world, due to their mutual relationship with Aqua and Darkness. By the end of Volume 8, however, there's no question he is both the Herald of Aqua and Champion of Eris. Neither position bring him joy, as they tend to be a Weirdness Magnet for zany problems from both goddesses.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Kazuma is lazy, sarcastic, self-serving, and not a little perverted, and mostly only acts either out of self-interest or to fix the mistakes of his party members (usually Aqua) lest they backfire on him (though often they still do). But when the chips are down he'll willingly (if not happily) sacrifice himself to protect others and defeat evil.
• Combat Pragmatist: He isn't averse to using morally questionable methods to win a fight, like using his teammates as bait against Giant Toads, using Steal on Kyouya's Gram and hitting him on the head with it, or threatening the latter's companions with stealing their panties into leaving him alone. Iris finds Kazuma's style a refreshing break from the stereotypical "Attack! Attack! Attack!" yarns of past adventurers. He is also considerably resourceful and makes a point of mastering the abilities he acquires for mundane tasks so that, provided that they are not very powerful, they work for him the way he wants them to work.
  Aqua: "Hey Kazuma. Can't you think of an easy way to finish off the Hydra? The strong point of the weak Kazuma is your numerous half-baked skills, and your ability to use despicable means to solve any problems, right?"
• The Comically Serious: Used as a Running Gag in the anime. Whenever Kazuma says something either hypocritical or full of anger, he does it in an uncharacteristically calm, succinct, and sometimes jolly manner.
• Consummate Liar: He's incredibly good at mixing irrefutable facts with utter bullshit in ways that make everything he says seem true. For example, when Celestina started becoming popular in Axel, he started spreading rumors that can be verified (such as minor Character Tics and that she smokes) as well as ones that are completely false (such as that that she's actually a man).
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: The second Continued, Explosions! volume reveals that he has one in store for each of his party members in case they really screw something up, like Megumin going on an adventure without him and losing a royal artifact.
  • Megumin: Using "Drain Touch" on her so she can't cast her daily Explosion until he allows her to.
  • Aqua: Throwing out her collections of expensive alcohol and rocks.
  • Darkness: Making her wear a frilly outfit, then inviting all the other adventurers over for a party.
• Cool Mask: Gets one from Vanir in appreciation for their brief joint business venture, and it's so cool it grants him a major power boost, and leaves Megumin a blushing mess at the sight of him.
• Covert Pervert: Yes, he does have a healthy libido, and he does get those desires towards his teammates. Transitions into Chivalrous Pervert by the end of Volume 4 as he starts openly ogling his teammates, especially Megumin (once she hits fourteen).
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: His entire experience in Volume 6 could be summarized as this. He takes a major hit to his reputation when he lets Chris escape so as not to expose her, and then gets swarmed to death by kobolds while being derided by the castle knights, especially Claire. But when Eris tasks him to steal/disable a divine Body Swap artifact, having learned from Chris that the swap could become permanent if one party dies, meaning that Princess Iris is in mortal peril, he makes the entire castle staff and Kyouya look like rank amateurs as he mows through them, only being defeated by Aqua, who doesn't recognize him, when he reaches Iris. Nevertheless, the mission is still a success as Aqua seals the artifact to prevent the theft. Chris also mentions that "she doesn't want to be his enemy".
  Darkness: "Really, you are a strange man. I thought you are a weakling, but you act courageously sometimes. You will help others, but you will go play around at night, doing disagreeable things. Which one is the real you?"
• Deadpan Snarker: Doesn't help to note that his crappy treatment from his party opened up for him to make blunt and sarcastic remarks.
• Death Is Cheap: Aside from being reincarnated from Earth, he has died more than once, either from monster attacks or his own carelessness; each time he is brought back to life by Aqua's Resurrection spell. It has gotten to the point that Kazuma sometimes wishes he'd stay dead just to take a break from life (and having to deal with his party's eccentricities again).
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of Stock Light Novel Heroes. Unlike most isekai heroes, who are chivalrous, determined, and heroic, Kazuma acts very much like someone who would be obsessed with games to the point of being a shut-in: perverted, lazy, and more concerned with living his life than being a great hero. He is also far from being an honorable Invincible Hero, acting on his wits to make up for his average aptitudes, and lacks the traditional overpowered abilities protagonists of the genre start with. While he does amass his own Unwanted Harem of attractive girls, they are quite literally Unwanted as he does not even enjoy their presence, let alone their affections.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: Does this at least once a volume, often leading the entire town to victory in the process. However, though he comes up with the idea, he never actually lands the final blow, so he doesn't get the massive EXP boost.
• Didn't See That Coming: Sneaking a succubus into the mansion was doomed to fail, since Aqua's ability to detect and imprison demons is just as impeccable as her skills against the undead.
• Didn't Think This Through: He kept asking a water goddess to cast her most powerful spell after repeatedly saying she's a worthless water goddess. Of course she'd create a deluge.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Does this quite often when he's trying to come up with an excuse. Like when he is trying in vain to explain himself when Eris tells him that sexually harassing people isn't good. The first thing he comes up with is saying that Chris' chest was so small he mistook her for a man, which only soured Eris' mood further.
• Disc-One Nuke: Drain Touch. It is the signature spell of a high level Lich. Kazuma learned it from Wiz, and utilized it on several occasions to save the day. Since most Liches tend to be high-ranking members of the Demon King's armies, and few remain in the Adventurer class when facing them, Kazuma is unique for gaining such powerful necromancy so early in his career.
• The Dreaded: After they discover that he's the masked thief, Claire and Rain recognize his abilities and treat him like a legitimate threat.
• Dude, Where's My Reward?: Most of his adventures conclude with him losing his reward for completing them, for whatever reason. One such instance was when his party defeated Beldia and his undead army, thus defending Axel from him. The reward for this was big, but the repair bills for the city wall his party (read: Aqua) destroyed was even bigger.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: Before the final battle with the Demon King, he gets powerleveled by Wiz and Vanir through the world's hardest dungeon. This gives him the skill points to learn several new spells, including Teleport, which quickly proves its usefulness. Later, during the final battle proper, Kazuma finds himself exhausting all his options against the Demon King to no avail when he notices that he has enough skill points to learn one last spell to turn the tide: Explosion.
• Embarrassing Nickname: A bunch: "Hikki-NEET" (or "Loli-NEET" on one or two occasions) by Aqua, "Trash-zuma" (Kuzuma) and its snowclones "Scum-zuma" (Kasuma) and "Lowlife-zuma" (Gesuma) by the rest of his party and, according to Kyouya, "Kazuma the Brute" by way of his reputation for sexually harassing girls in public. Even his own wakizashi is given the not-so-awesome-sounding "Chunchunmaru" from Megumin.
• Empowered Badass Normal: He enters this world no more powerful than any other adventurer (and overall his stats, besides luck and intelligence, are actually slightly lower than average), however he soon learns his two signature powerful skills from gods and liches. In particular, Steal from Eris in her "Chris" body and Drain Life from Wiz, a lich, the latter of which is noted several times to be a skill only powerful undead can teach.
• An Entrepreneur Is You: He plans on selling gadgets based on Earth's technology to help make ends meet.
• Expy: Brown haired teenage boy as a protagonist? Check. Surpisingly normal? Check. Pervert? Check. Attract weird girls he didn't want anything to do with at first? Check. Unlucky? Check. Get a lots of Dude, Where's My Respect? moments after saving the day? Check. At least has one Clingy Jealous Girl around him? Check. This guy is basically the Isekaï version of Moroboshi Ataru from Urusei Yatsura.
• Everyone Has Standards: Not always obvious, but he does have them:
  • Kazuma is many things, a lot of them bad, but one thing he is not is a racist. He's willing to tolerate demons, undead, monsters, etc., so long as they're not a threat (and is even friends with Vanir and Wiz, two former elites of the Demon King's army). He even protects the succubus he tried to bring into his mansion from his party members when it would've been much easier to let them kill and then blame her for his perverted actions at that time. He's also shown to be genuinely disgusted by Aqua's cruel treatment of Wiz simply for being a member of the undead, especially when she does nothing to deserve it.
  • He also doesn't like it when he and his team accidentally cause problems only to be credited for solving them, always refusing awards for such feats no matter how much he needs them. Likewise, if they are responsible for someone else's misfortunes, he will always help fix it—forcing the others (usually Aqua) to comply if need be—even if there is no apparent benefit to himself.
  • Despite being lecherous and assaulting his teammates often, and generally being self-centered, he does find some of Darkness' masochistic fantasies to be too much to stomach. Especially when she starts imaging potential punishments for herself.
  • While Eris didn't want to ressurrect Kazuma because because he originated from another world, he gets put off when Aqua starts trash talking her, even pointing out that Eris is about to tear up.
• Evil Laugh: Engages in this once in a while whenever he steals something good, such as Chris' panties and Beldia's head.
  • When Aqua was cleared by the Heavens to be Kazuma's "Cheat Item" and there was no way to get out of it, Kazuma lets out an Evil Laugh since she now belongs to Kazuma, when earlier she gave him grief. The Dub has Kazuma planning on "tapping" Aqua's power "to live the Good Life! And I'll tap it All Day, EVERY DAY!" It's said with manic glee at Aqua's suffering that she's begging the Heavens "Please don't make me go with a creep like him!"
  • After taking Gram, a cursed sword, from Kyouya with "Steal," Kazuma finds Kyouya's female teammates calling him a coward (though Kazuma thinks Kyouya's challenging a rookie with starter gear the bigger act of cowardice). He then makes an act of planning on using "Steal" on THEM, with a wicked laugh. Given they realize they could lose their dignity if he steals their panties with the skill, they run.
• The First Cut Is the Deepest: His childhood crush got together with a delinquent upperclassman instead of him. Kazuma became a Hikikomori from the shock.
• Fish out of Water: Initially has a bit of trouble understanding what's considered common sense in his new world since he's very suddenly thrown into it. But thanks to Aqua and their mutual understanding of classic fantasy tropes, it doesn't take him long to get used to it.
• Flaw Exploitation: Kazuma's signature technique. For example, when he got into a duel of sorts with Darkness in Volume 3, the fight devolved into an endurance contest where she tried to crush his hands with her superior strength while he took advantage of the contact to use Drain Touch to sap her vitality and add to his. To break the stalemate, Kazuma raised the stakes by proposing a Humiliating Wager where the loser has to do as the winner demands, hinting that if he wins he will ask of her something that would make her "go red from ear to ear" and "cry and beg for his mercy", which prompted the masochistic Darkness to wonder what kind of favor he would demand of her, severely undermining her will to win. In the end she loses the bet and Kazuma's "unreasonable request" turns out to be merely addressing her by her Embarrassing First Name, "Lalatina".
• Freudian Excuse: Seeing his childhood friend who promised to marry him eventually ditch him for a delinquent caused him to become a shut-in.
• Full-Frontal Assault:
  • Came out half-naked after discovering Megumin's drawing on his body while he was temporarily dead during a mission to kill Lizard Runners, giving Darkness and Aqua a full look at him. Darkness was embarrassed while Aqua didn't really react much since the two were already very comfortable with each by that point.
  • Happens again, once with Megumin (because she was rushing him to change clothes), and again with Darkness (because he didn't want to reveal he was going out to rob a place). Unlike Aqua the other two aren't nearly as used to him nude as they claim they are.
• Geek Physiques: While this trope isn't directly pointed out, nor is he any skinnier or fatter than the average, he was very out-of-shape when he started out in the parallel world.
• Genre Savvy: As expected from a NEET gamer, he's very familiar with game mechanics and cliches, which prove useful in an RPG Mechanics 'Verse world. As such, instead of leveling up, which turned out to be a remote possibility for him, he resorted to grind and make intelligent use of the very few abilities that he has obtained until he mastered them beyond their expected use.
• Godlike Gamer: Kazuma is a deconstruction due to the series being an Affectionate Parody of the genre. While he seems like the typical example at first, being a Genre Savvy NEET who dedicated himself to gaming and got whisked away to a RPG Mechanics 'Verse, the new world is just different enough to his gaming experiences that they are mostly useless and he ends up being a Loser Protagonist with nothing ever going his way.
• Godzilla Threshold: Due to their massively destructive potency, moments that require Megumin to cast Explosion or Aqua to use Sacred Create Water are these kind of situations for him.
• Guile Hero: Compared to the rest of his party, he is clearly this. Kazuma's main way to overcome his opposition is finding ways to manipulate his opponents to a move that can take them down, or even use their own abilities against them. He also shown talent in handling politics and leadership, being in charge of the committee for the Eris and Aqua Festival and leading it to become one of the most successful in history and even aiding Iris in negotiation with another kingdom.
• Gut Feeling: Seeing Darkness get excited about the idea of hunting otherwise harmless Snow Sprites made Kazuma suspicious that she has a hidden agenda. As it turns out, the quest has an extremely powerful boss, the Winter Shogun, which Darkness just can't wait to get beaten up by.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Only his torso is left after the Kowloon Hydra eats and digests most of his body. Fortunately, due to Aqua's healing magic, he gets better.
• A Handful for an Eye: One of his favorite tactics is to use Create Earth and Wind Breath to throw sand in the faces of his enemies.
• Has a Type: His internal monologue indicates that he prefers taller women with large breasts. However, thanks to his intimate relationships with Megumin and Princess Iris, he has a reputation for being a lolicon; it doesn't help that he becomes an Official Couple with Megumin, even though she's far from his ideal body type.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Big time. His disappointment at having to be a mere Adventurer goes away once he realizes how much mileage he can get out of the class's ability to learn skills from any other class. His versatility helps the others overcome their Crippling Overspecialization and Kazuma's suite of utility skills become the glue that holds the group together.
• A Hell of a Time: He mentions that if he were to die and go to hell (i.e., if Aqua couldn't resurrect him), he would just party it up with Vanir.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Settles on a short sword as his weapon of choice, but while he was sent to Eris's world to be a hero, he is a Pragmatic Hero at best.
• Heroic Lineage: Played with. Wolbach believes that Kazuma's either the descendant or reincarnation of one of the legendary heroes who have defeated a previous Demon King, as he shares the same rare last name. Kazuma silently notes that "Satou" is just a common last name in Japan and it's a mere coincidence.
• Heroic RRoD: In his original world, he died of acute stress reaction out of shock of apparently being hit by a truck. Much to his embarrassment, he discovers in the afterlife that it was actually a slow-moving, small farm tractor, and it wasn't even remotely close to hitting him.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Subverted with his first death; he dove in front of a speeding truck to save a girl from getting hit. As Aqua explains in the afterlife, that "speeding truck" was actually an extremely slow moving tractor that the girl wasn't in any danger from. And he didn't die from getting hit, he died from shock.
  • Played straight with his final death in the web novel. He fought the Demon King in the deepest part of his dungeon and casts Explosion, causing the dungeon to collapse, killing the Demon King and himself in the process. Unlike his other deaths, he knew he was going to destroy his body without a trace, making Resurrection impossible. However, he's rewarded with a new body for his achievement.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Wherever he goes, someone is repeating unsavory rumors about him. It doesn't help that the way his party phrases the incidents in question is easily misinterpreted.
• Hikikomori: Downplayed in that while he spends most of his pre-reincarnation life playing games inside his home, he doesn't really have a problem going out. In fact, he originally died because he went to the nearest city to purchase a Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition of an MMORPG.
• Human Packmule: It usually falls to him to piggyback Megumin back home every day whenever she exhausts herself practicing Explosion, despite the presence of Darkness, who is stronger and has more stamina.
• Hypocrite: On multiple levels:
  • He constantly criticizes Aqua for being useless, despite being quite lazy and hedonistic himself; he would rather flirt with girls than support his teammates in their time of need.
  • He shows an extremely low tolerance for The Unfair Sex trope, to the point that someone trying to invoke it is his Berserk Button. And yet he constantly insults and demeans his female allies, repeatedly engages in acts that can only be described as "sexual harassment", and in general acts like a total creep towards women, which he never does towards men. For all his preaching about "true gender equality", it's clear that he's just using said belief as a way to keep people from bossing him around. It also reflects on him as someone who can't take what he dishes out, making him an even bigger hypocrite.
  • He's shown to greatly dislike it whenever Aqua calls him a NEET, yet his ultimate goal is to retire from adventuring and live as a rich idiot with no day job, which, as Aqua notes, is basically the same thing.
  • In the second OVA, he calls out Aqua for not wanting to go on a golem-slaying quest, claiming that it's their "job" as adventurers. As Aqua points out, however, Kazuma has no room to talk since up until this point he would complain constantly about how dangerous adventuring was and how he would want nothing more than to retire, and he's only interested in taking quests now because he has a girl to impress.
• I Choose to Stay: After the defeat of the Demon King, Kazuma rejects being reincarnated back to Japan because he already grew attached to his friends.
• I'm a Man; I Can't Help It: Kazuma ultimately justifies to himself that hiring a succubus is natural behavior because he has stresses and frustrations that, as a male, are inherent to him.
• Impossible Thief: Kazuma ends up stealing Chris's panties from underneath her own shorts. From a distance. It's not what he was trying to accomplish (he meant to get back his purse), but he considers himself still lucky. Later he somehow manages to steal Beldia's head during their fight.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Snipe is heavily reliant on the archer's Luck Stat, especially for difficult, almost out-of-reach shoots. For Kazuma, this is a very good thing.
• Indy Ploy: He's a consummate master of spontaneous plans by necessity. Whatever quest or situation he finds himself in, Kazuma's plans almost always go to hell in the blink of an eye, usually when Aqua messes something up. This forces Kazuma to think fast on his feet.
• Innate Night Vision: The Farsight skill he learned from his time with Keith's group gives him both long-distance vision and the ability to see in the dark.
• Inner Monologue: A lot of Kazuma's thoughts can be heard when he internally snarks at the antics of his party members.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • While most other characters refer to the weapons or abilities Japanese people receive from the gods as "blessings," he refers to them "cheating." In his perspective, they're the equivalent of people who enter a Cheat Code to get the best items and abilities in an RPG at level 1.
  • Also inverted when it comes to Aqua calling him a "shut-in NEET"; he insists that he never was one due to the fact that when he lived on Earth, he still went out from time to time. That him "going out" amounted to him going to a shop to buy a game to play at home doesn't seem to diminish this belief in the slightest. Ultimately, it's ambiguous if he really does believe he wasn't a NEET, or if he knows he was one but just doesn't want to admit it.
• Irony: In spite of having the Luck stat to the max, Kazuma has died multiple times.
• I Shall Taunt You: He engages in this with the Demon King, knowing that if he can't keep the Demon King invested in killing Kazuma personally, he would just teleport back to his castle and leave Kazuma to die at the bottom of the dungeon.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: When Dust goes on a drunken tirade about how Kazuma is a weak adventurer who gets to form a party with three fair ladies, Kazuma snaps back at him for daring to suggest his companions are fair and that his situation is enviable.

J-Z

• Jack of All Trades: Having Adventurer as his class automatically makes him this. He can learn any class's low-level skills, but can only learn intermediate and expert-level skills with a large markup of skill points.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Mostly leaning on the Jerkass side, in that he has no qualms expressing his dismay over the kind of life he has and attempting to get rid of his "problem children", one way or another (such as trading Darkness off to marriage). That said, deep down he does care for his comrades, as best shown in Volume 5, where he foregoes rectifying Megumin's skillset imbalance in favor of further boosting her trademark Explosion spell, knowing well that she wouldn't be happy otherwise. Even in the incident with Darkness, he did so because Darkness wanted to be wedded to a man who would sexually abuse her. Kazuma initially believed the arranged marriage was to an ordinary man who would show her decency and respect. His heart of gold has been shown since day one, actually: He's willing to try and save a girl he never met without any perverted thoughts that he thought would be in danger of dying at the cost of his own life. Even if it ended with his utterly humiliating death and his sacrifice was in vain, it shows that he still has decency in his heart even when he was a no-good shut-in otaku.
• Katanas Are Just Better: He learns Smithing and refers to Japanese metallurgic techniques just so he can have a katana. A running gag is that circumstances contrive so he can never actually debut it in combat.
• Kavorka Man:
  • Princess Iris is smitten with him because he's rude, crude, and lewd—a refreshing change of pace from the rest of the world that is overly fake in their politeness to the point of tedium. Moreover, she utterly treasures his many, many vices, because ultimately he treats her honestly, as opposed to letting her win in games of chess. She also greatly appreciates the stories of his party's antics because unlike the other "great heroes" of the country, who simply keep "hitting their problems over the head until they die," Kazuma's morally ambiguous pragmatism is a rich, varied, and utterly unpredictable cornucopia of entertainment.
  • Kazuma hilariously fulfills the "desired partner" part for most of the female characters in the manga. He has a surprising amount of romantic options for a man that behaves like he does.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: When he spies on the girls in the bath, he's nonplussed when one of the projectiles they bean him with is Chomusuke. He also didn't want her get taken by Wolbach who wanted to do cruel things to her.
  Kazuma: (thinking) "As a cat-lover, I wouldn't let that happen."
• Laborious Laziness: In Volume 6, his motivation for catching a skilled thief is so he can impress Princess Iris enough to freeload at her castle.
• Last Confession Wins: Averted (probably). Megumin confesses to him first, and Darkness confesses while they are in the beginning stages of his and Megumin's relationship. While Kazuma rejects Darkness's confession and states wouldn't be such a scumbag as to accept her as a mistress, he says he would forgive her if she uses her superior strength to force herself onto him.
• The Leader: Of the adventuring party consisting of Aqua, Darkness, Megumin, and himself, not that he has a choice. Often he's also the one calling the shots during large-scale battles, directing other adventurers in Axel against enemies like the Destroyer or the Hydra, especially after his prowess as a cunning (read: tricky and underhanded as hell) strategist became better known.
• Let's Get Dangerous!:
  • Vol 6 marked the first time Kazuma decided to get serious in battle, the result is as awesome as it can be.
  • In Volume 14, pent up by everybody calling him weak and helpless without his companions, he drunkenly runs out with Megumin to prove himself to her. During his stupor, he manages to single-handedly bind and incapacitate a Fenrir (but not kill it, because he forgot his sword). Darkness later mentions that Fenrirs are a Walking Calamity-type monster.
• Level Drain: In Volume 15, he force feeds Celestina a potion that resets her level, which affects him as well due to her Curse of Vengeance. Given that his stats were already low in the first place, he doesn't mind too much. In the next volume however, he learns that 1) he retains his skill points and skills even after the reset and 2) because he's so naturally untalented, he gains levels faster than average. Thus, he decides to exploit this by having Wiz and Vanir powerlevel him while Wiz level drains him whenever his level gets high enough in order to gain a massive stockpile of skill points.
• Like Brother and Sister: Kazuma and Aqua's dynamic can be best described as siblings who bond by constantly bickering with each other.
• Loser Protagonist: Whenever something incredibly good happens, it's guaranteed at he, or at least one of his teammates, will negate it somehow. It's often alluded that, had Kazuma picked someone besides Aqua, he'd have long ago become the world's greatest hero.
• Love Epiphany: He eventually realizes that he's in love with Megumin, and advances their relation to "More than friends but less than lovers".
• Loving Bully: Kazuma tends to pester, harass and make fun of people he likes, seeing that the people that are closest to him and the girls he likes romantically get the "worst" of him.
• Magic Knight: He originally wanted to have this build. While he chooses to be a Jack of All Trades instead, he does still employ low-tier magic.
• Magikarp Power: The Adventurer is commonly seen as a worthless beginner class people promote out of ASAP. Partly out of necessity (because of the Crippling Overspecialization of his teammates), Kazuma stayed longer in this class, in the process discovering its potential to access every "better" class that might make it more useful than were he to pick a niche. Moreover, he also discovers its hidden ability to copy forbidden skills like those of the undead or demons, which really opens up his options.
  • By the end of the final novel Kazuma learned to cast Explosion. During his latest visit to Heaven, Eris cites her surprise that he died again, given his insane class level from experience points gained for killing the Demon King. He then casually reveals he can Teleport in to and out of Heaven at will.
• Magnetic Hero: An unusual case. He attracted Megumin and Darkness because no other party would tolerate them, and he can't get them to leave.
• Manipulative Bastard: Kazuma is a Consummate Liar and uses that comes up with ways to trick his party into helping him when they initially don't want to.
• Mask of Power: Unintentionally makes use of one of these when he is fighting his way through the royal guard.
• Master of None: Kazuma chooses to remain at the base level of the Adventurer class rather than level up to a specialized job. The perk of this is Kazuma is capable of learning various skills and magic of other classes. The downside is he is restricted to only learning low-level skills.
• Metaphorically True: Inverted. During Kazuma's trial on charges of being in league with the Demon King, he gets implicated because the Lie Detector goes off when he denies ever having associated with the Demon King's army. He forgot to take Wiz, a retired general, into account.
• Mirror Character:
  • Despite their constant bickering and vastly different skillsets and stats, he and Aqua had a lot more in common than they'd like to admit, in that they have a good side beneath their rotten personalities, to the point that they can work together without saying a single word in beating up an unwanted visitor. This is exemplified in a Brick Joke when Vanir annoys Kazuma so much he considered rubbing holy water on the door handles of Wiz's shop, but ultimately desists for fear of hurting Wiz; the next volume, he overhears Vanir telling Aqua to refrain from doing the same.
  • In a more literal sense, Kazuma is all intelligence, no power; Aqua is all power, no intelligence.
• Mistaken for Gay: In the second Chapter of the "Nichijou series," Megumin and Darkness take the construction worker’s kinsmanship with Kazuma as this
• Mistaken for Terrorist: At the start of the second season, due to the events of the Season 1 finale. ^note  Accidentally teleporting an exploding core (that can destroy everything around it) to a noble's house
• Mundane Utility:
  • He uses the basic spells Create Water and Tinder to make tea and soup, and Freeze to cool his room and treat injuries. This baffles Megumin, who wonders how a lowly adventurer can use basic spells better than trained wizards can use advanced ones. Kazuma's laziness and extensive gaming experience makes him look for shortcuts and exploits wherever he can find them, and the skill system of the RPG Mechanics 'Verse lends itself to that.
  • Goes double when he learns Cooking, which is usually reserved for those seeking to become high-class chefs.
• Mysterious Past: He appears like this to other characters because of his unfamiliarity with the way this world works, and his odd knowledge base. There have been a few occasions where the party has asked him about his background, but he either gave vague details or changed the subject entirely. The only ones who truly knows about where he came from are Aqua, Eris, Vanir, and fellow otherworlders.
• Nervous Wreck: If we look at why he became a Hikikomori in the first place, and believe in what Aqua says about how he died, he's very bad in handling shocks, something he fortunately outgrows of as the story progressed.
• New Life in Another World Bonus: Out of irritation at Aqua, the Goddess in charge of reincarnation, he choose her to be his "reincarnation perk", with mixed results.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • When Verdia intended to kill all the inhabitants of Axel, the other adventurers were planning to delay his assault until Kyouya could arrive and One-Hit Kill him with Gram. This would have been a fine strategy had Kazuma not stolen and sold it off earlier, leaving the latter powerless and unable to save everyone. This is still the case during the battle against the Destroyer.
    • To be fair to Kazuma, though, Kyouya tried to take Aqua away from Kazuma by dueling him for her, with the caveat that if KAZUMA wins, he gets any one request from Kyouya. Since Kazuma knew with his Cursed Sword Gram, that Kyouya was tilting this to be heavily against him, Kazuma knew the only way to win against such odds is 1) a quick attack that would taken Kyouga off-balance off the bat, and 2) take Gram away from Kyouya with "Steal." So Kyouya only had himself to blame for being stupid enough to challenge the master of the Indy Ploy. Kyouya could also have easily lost a LOT more than just the sword to Kazuma: he could have forced Kyouya to trade his armor (which was better than Kazuma's gear) with Kazuma AND take Kyouya's coin purse for paying Aqua's bills (a take on "Put Yourself in MY shoes" routine).
  • Willingly opening a door (that only he can open), which leads to a weapon for a Demon King elite who wants to destroy Axel really wasn't that great of an idea (although he was being threatened with death by constriction or assimilation, depending on Sylvia's mood, at that point, and used the opportunity to seal the boss in the room).
  • A more straightforward example is what occurs in Volume 6. Despite knowing that touching any of the treasure in the castle vault would set off an alarm, he takes an unidentified book from the vault (described as a "peerless treasure" that would get him arrested "just by holding it" in Japan).
  • When the party takes on a quest to kill Lizard Runners, Megumin is unable to cast Explosion due to low mana... after Kazuma used Drain Touch on her earlier that day while trying to keep her and Darkness from forcing him to share his kotatsu.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Frequently, with his attempts at doing good only serving to bring him more trouble and debts, like the time he defended the succubus he hired from his party instead of abandoning her, and got beaten up for it. It can make one wonder if he really does have a high Luck stat. However, he often has less-than-noble motivations for his good deeds, such as rallying his party to defeat the Destroyer not so much out of heroism as much as it was a matter of preserving the mansion they all live in.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: In Season 2 Episode 4 he is flabbergasted at how hopeless Darkness is when she describes her ideal type of husband, completely unaware that she stated it in terms that closely resemble Kazuma himself (or at least her perception of him).
• Oblivious to Love: Subverted at first with Megumin and Darkness, then played straight later with Iris, or maybe even Chris/Eris and Yunyun.
• Official Couple: The epilogue of the final volume confirms that, while the matter with Darkness was never really dealt with, Kazuma and Megumin are openly together.
• Off with His Head!: Suffers this at the hands of the Winter Shogun. Aqua puts it back on and revives him, without as much as a scar on his neck.
• Only Sane by Comparison: For all his snarking and groaning at the uselessness of his companions, he has a lot of issues himself.
• Only Sane Man: Out of the party, he's the one with the most common sense.
• Oxymoronic Being: Darkness and Megumin's opinion on him. He openly sexually harasses his teammates at any opportunity but gets cold feet the moment it looks like he might actually get anywhere with them. He's lazy in times of plenty, but hard-working in times of want. He's unpleasant to and exploitative of his teammates, but when push comes to shove, he will come to their rescue, even going so far as to offer 2 billion eris to save Darkness from her Arranged Marriage to Alderp. He's often the first to run at the first sight of danger, but given the right motivation, such as protecting a child, he will march into harm's way and not stop until the threat is gone or he is dead (and thanks to Aqua, that last part may not be enough).
• Panty Thief: The conjunction of Steal and a ridiculously high Luck sets him up as this. Every time he uses it on a female, he ends up stealing their undergarments—the only exceptions are Aqua (as he stole her raiment in Season Two's fourth episode), and Iris, as he accidentally stole her betrothal ring.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: As the "Masked Chivalrous Thief", his only disguise was the mask Vanir gave him, a cape, and matching black coat and gloves. While it did fool Kyouya, Claire, and Rain (mostly because they cannot imagine this skilled bandit to be the same loser newbie they knew), both Darkness and Iris instantly saw right through it. As for the others, Megumin was too busy fangirling over his ridiculous attire, and Aqua is, well, just being Aqua.
• Paranoia Fuel: He Invokes this: when Rain and Claire are about forcibly repatriate him to Axel, he reminds them that he can easily infiltrate a noble's mansion or snipe them from afar.
• Perverted Sniffing: In the Season 1 OVA, he admits to smelling Aqua's hair while she was asleep, when they shared a room in the stables. However, the bickering disrespect he has for her, made it impossible for him to have lustful feelings for Aqua. Even when presented the opportunity, he gains no satisfaction exploiting Aqua from a sexual perspective.
• Platonic Life-Partners: While they also count as Vitriolic Best Buds, he and Aqua eventually become thick as thieves.
• Power Copying: His Adventurer class allows him to acquire skills this way. He simply needs to have the skill pointed out to him, used and named before him, and allot some skill points towards its initial activation, and he can use it almost at will from that point on. Barring higher skill point requirements compared to other classes, this is one of the reasons (besides having to leverage his allies' Crippling Overspecialization) Kazuma largely remains an Adventurer.
• Punch-Clock Hero: Kazuma's general attitude towards danger is that if it's not going to pay rent, hurt him, or hurt someone close to him, then it's someone else's problem. Though he will put himself in harm's way if he feels he or his party is responsible for the problem at hand.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: In Volume 7, Kazuma snaps and yells at Megumin when she berates him for not rushing to Darkness's rescue.
  Megumin: "Is it fine? Is it really fine? Is it, really, really, truly fine with you that she's marrying that guy?"
  Kazuma: "IT! IS! NOT! FINE!"
• Rags to Riches: Kazuma starts his new life with nothing but the clothes on his back and Aqua. A few adventures later, he has become a billionaire (in spite of his party members'—especially Aqua's—screwups).
• Reading Lips: He learns Lip Reading between the ninth and tenth novels to try to detect new Malicious Slander about him going around the Adventurers' Guild before it gets too out of hand.
• Red Baron: The "Billionaire Adventurer."
• Refusing Paradise: Every time Kazuma dies. In order to return from the dead, three conditions must be met: a deity must cast Resurrection, the deceased must refuse being reincarnated or enter the afterlife, and the deity in charge of the world (not necessarily the same who cast Resurrection) must open a gateway to allow the deceased's soul to return. Deities despise the undead for violating these rules.
• Reincarnate in Another World: After his untimely (and incredibly humiliating) death, Kazuma gets the chance to reincarnate in a fantasy world and he takes the goddess who granted him his new life with him.
• Retired Badass: He wants to become one, since he sees little point in risking his life in fighting the Demon King when he's already filthy rich.
• Rousing Speech: Kazuma is very good at inspiring the girls at critical times with his well-chosen words... by mocking them and mercilessly pushing their Berserk Buttons with pinpoint accuracy.
  • During the battle against Beldia, he attacked Aqua's pride as a divinity by calling her a useless water goddess who should be at least able to cast one spell of the element. An enraged Aqua ended up calling forth a deluge that almost defeated Beldia in one shot and caused substantial property damage to a big chunk of the Axel's walls and part of the city proper.
  • Same thing against the Destroyer. Megumin panicked at the sight of the gargantuan mobile fortress and the realization of just how much was at stake if she failed. Kazuma "inspired" her by denouncing her love for Explosion as half-assed and taunting her that Wiz's version of the spell would surely outdo hers anyway. Incensed, Megumin matched the much higher-level spellcaster perfectly from the power output, timing and down to the pose, crippling the Destroyer in one try when their attacks hit both sides of the walking machine at the same time.
• Running Gag: One of Kazuma's running gag is to answer any shouts of his name with "yes, I am Kazuma" or "yes, Kazuma speaking".
• Sacred First Kiss:
  • There was a brief moment when he thought Wiz was going to give it to him in Episode 10. Instead, she used Drain Touch to borrow some of his magic.
  • In Chapter 12, Darkness steals his first kiss in the heat of the moment. Hilariously, Megumin is more offended by it than he is.
• Sarcastic Devotee: To his party members. He constantly mocks them for their quirks and stupidity, mainly Aqua's, which are endlessly irritating to him. However, he wouldn't seriously change his teammates for anything in the world and would sacrifice anything to get them back if he's at risk of losing one of them.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: While Kazuma is greedy, he always refuses rewards for fixing any problems he or his party cause.
• Secret Identity: The Chivalrous Masked Thief.
• Sensor Character: Because he has Detect Enemy, he fills in this role for his group.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Has a really tough time convincing Megumin's parents that he isn't interested in her romantically. He also had to repeatedly tell Ignis and Walther, Darkness's father and fiancé, respectively, that he had no romantic interest in her. It didn't seem to get through to them in both cases because, as he later comes to realize, it's not true for either and he does like both girls. And this is ultimately subverted as he begins to take pride in his relationship with Megumin and frequent near-sexual encounters with Darkness once they become common knowledge.
• Showing Off the New Body: While there's no malice in it, one of the first things he does as a result of the "Freaky Friday" Flip with Princess Iris is flip the skirt of her dress right in front of Iris, now in his original body, and "showing off the goods," much to Iris's chagrin.
• Skipping School: In Volume 9, he explains to Megumin that he started slipping out of class to relax at home. He did it once, then occasionally, then ignored school entirely. Since both of his parents had jobs, he just had to act like he was heading to school before coming back once the house was empty. He admits that he was ungrateful for wasting the money they spent on his private school.
• Signature Move:
  • His Steal skill is infamous within the Adventurers' Guild for its high frequency of targeting women's panties.
  • His favorite trick in battle is to use Create Earth to create a pile of dirt, followed with Create Wind to blow it into his opponent's eyes.
• Sommelier Speak: He delves into this once he becomes an Explosion connoisseur, because he knows from experience he quality of each one from always accompanying Megumin on her training. They bond over the descriptions of different explosions.
• Spanner in the Works: His bringing Aqua into Axel certainly counts for the Demon King's army. This also saved Megumin and Yunyun during their fight with Anis, since the demoness got distracted by Aqua's divine aura.
• Squishy Wizard: His stats are abysmal to the point where he's shocked to learn that aside from his Luck, even Megumin has higher physical stats than him. His own magic isn't even that powerful.
• Stock Light-Novel Hero: Kazuma is a light-hearted parody of the trope. When he first arrived in his new world, his thinks he'll be overpowered, but turns out to have some of the weakest stats, aside from Luck. And his teammates form the very definition of an Unwanted Harem, each girl being hilariously incompetent except for very specific circumstances, as well as having character flaws which indicate very questionable levels of sanity. Kyouya, his rival and foil, is the epitome of this trope: an extremely attractive Chosen One with an overpowered sword and his own adoring harem. The irony is that Kazuma's "harem" includes Aqua, who Kyouya thought was his destined heroine only for her to mention that she forgot him in the meantime, and that Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness despise Kyouya and would much rather stick with Kazuma, verbal (and sometimes physical) sparring and all.
• Stripped to the Bone: In the anime, Kazuma suffers this after allowing Hans to devour him. He considered it an acceptable sacrifice knowing that he wouldn't be digested too quickly for Aqua's Resurrection.
• Stupid Sacrifice: He first died pushing a girl out of the way of... a slow-moving tractor that would have stopped well before making contact, and he just fractured her leg when she otherwise would have come out unscathed. Then he succumbed to shock thinking that the slow-moving tractor was about to run him over.
• Supernormal Bindings: At one point he learns Bind, a spell that infuses a rope-like object with magic, strengthening it and making it restrain a nearby person. It's a tad impractical in Kazuma's opinion because it takes too much of his limited mana pool to cast and it can be neutralized by Dispel Magic.
• Sustained Misunderstanding: With Megumin for most, if not all, of Volume 7. Megumin thinks Kazuma is outright abandoning Darkness because he refuses to come to her aid until Darkness comes to him, "begging for help." In reality, it's not that Kazuma is ignoring Darkness out of pride, anger, or resentment, but that he can not help her unless she actually asks for his aid due to the necessity of having to work around Alderp's influence. When Kazuma makes that clear to her, Megumin's attitude changes dramatically.
• Swallowed Whole: He dies while fighting a hydra when it swallows him in one bite.
• Taking You with Me: Kazuma does just this to take out the Demon King at the end of the web novel, by using Explosion while fighting the Demon King in the deepest part of his dungeon and collapsing the entire dungeon around the two.
• Technology Uplift: He introduces some Earth technology with with Vanir's help. For the most part everyone seems fine with his creations except Megumin when he introduced dynamite, which could threaten the supremacy of Explosion.
• Teeny Weenie: Judging from Aqua's smirk at the end of Season 2 Episode 6, his physical endowment as a man is as impressive as the rest of his appearance. His luck didn't help him here.
• Thanatos Gambit: One of the perks of rubbing elbows with the two main local divinities is that Kazuma can work the fact he can be resurrected more than once into his strategies. He exploits it towards the end of Volume 4/Season 2, when, after learning that Aqua can resurrect a person from their skeleton, and noticing that Hans's gastric acid only works on flesh, he deliberately got himself Eaten Alive and digested to the bone just to herd Hans into the right place where Megumin's Explosion and Wiz's ice magic could harm him the most. Come The Legend of Crimson, he allowed himself to be fused with Sylvia, in order to make her vulnerable to a Light of Saber/Explosion combo from Yunyun and Megumin, taking him with her..
• They Killed Kenny Again: He tends to die and be brought back to life in nearly every volume. While, per the rules set out by Eris, resurrection is normally restricted as a one-time perk, Aqua frequently flouts them due to her hierarchical seniority over Eris.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: An interesting variation. Since his only experience with romance comes from manga and visual novels, he only thinks of the females around him as Love Interests from a Dating Sim with affection values to be raised. So, while he is Genre Savvy enough to know when a character might be falling for him (averting being Oblivious to Love), he has absolutely no clue what's going on when he starts thinking about his own feelings towards Megumin.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After his hopes for an adventure in another world got him stuck with a party of idiots while living in a stable, he managed to get a nice mansion that allowed him to stay out of the cold, and eventually get rich.
• Touch of Death: He eventually learns Drain Touch, which allows him to drain mana and/or HP, as well as transfer it to others.
• True Love is Exceptional: His various internal monolgues make it clear that tall women with large breasts are the kind of women he pines for, but not only is Darkness (who fits his type perfectly) just barely on his radar, and only because of those traits, but the girls he has the closest relationships with are the short and petite Iris and Megumin. He even ends up becoming an Official Couple with Megumin, in spite of her being almost everything he didn't want in a woman initially.
• Tsundere:
  • A very harsh type towards his party. He has a tendency to pretend to not care for them, yet he always goes out of his way to help them when push comes to shove, and despite his attempts to get rid of them, more often than not he often feels guilty whenever that opportunity comes.
  • In a more specific example, in Volume 8 he and Eris are searching through a noble's treasury for an artifact, when Kazuma spots a shiny rock. The first thing that comes to his mind is that it'd make a great gift for Aqua. Come the end of the volume, instead of giving it to her normally, he ends up bullying her over her refusal to tell him her age or her birthday.
  • He always chooses returning to the fantasy world when Aqua casts Resurrection on him, instead of taking Eris's offer to reincarnate back on Earth.
• Undignified Death: A frequent victim of these.
  • The circumstances surrounding his first death (dying of shock when he thought he was going to get hit by what turned out to be a slow moving garden tractor, which wasn't even remotely close to hitting him) left even his parents laughing over his corpse.
  • His most shameful death afterward was in Volume 6, when he joins a fight against the Demon King's army... only to wind up killed by a bunch of kobolds. While his party played pivotal roles in protecting the capital, Kazuma was either mocked for his pitiful performance or just ignored.
• Ungrateful Bastard: He entered the world with the best healer in the world, a goddess who can cast magic as powerful as Resurrection and Sacred Break Curse as if they were party tricks. This is a setting where Healing Magic Is the Hardest, but he never has to worry about injuries. Yet he never acknowledges Aqua as more than a "useless goddess", despite how her power is essential for defeating the demon generals. Granted, she does cause him a lot of trouble outside of dangerous quests and he doesn't want to go on quests dangerous enough to require such a liability-prone healer.
• Unwanted Harem: Oh, how happy he would be to get rid of even one of his "problem children". Unfortunately for him, the girls tend to team up to dissuade him from even thinking about disbanding.
• Useless Useful Spell: Inverted. Elementary magic spells like Wind Breath and Create Water are seen as useless overall, since they have no offensive power, but they cost next to nothing in skill points and mana cost. He uses them to blind his opponents by creating sand and blowing it in their faces, blowing arrows off-line to avoid them, freezing the ground under his opponents so they slip or end up frozen in place, and so on.
  • Played straight when he later learns Intermediate magic in Volume 16. While he can use traditional combat spells like Lightning and Fireball, he lacks the mana for them to pack much of a punch in combat.
• Utility Party Member: Kazuma is this to compensate his teammates' Crippling Overspecialization. He knows a lot of diverse skills, from Create Water to Steal to Drain Touch, which enable him to answer a wide variety of problems and support his party members. This is unusual as he is the protagonist in the franchise, but he is rarely a staring figure in strategies.
• Video Game Stealing: Steal is pretty much his trademark skill. Using it against automatons and Golems allows him to steal important pieces of their machinery, shutting them down. However, using it on a big machine means that he suddenly has a heavy object in his hand and he may end up being crushed beneath it. Likewise, if it's too hot then he'll get burned.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Defines his entire relationship with Aqua (and, to a lesser extent, Megumin and Darkness). The two are almost constantly fighting and making jabs at each other, but it's pretty much impossible to separate them at this point, and they have a strange mutual understanding between them.
• Voice Changeling: He can perfectly imitate others' voices while buffed by Aqua's Versatile Entertainer spell.
• We Can Rule Together: Thanks to his resourcefulness, questionable morality, and general scumminess, he has been offered multiple times the chance to join the Demon King's army.
  • In Volume 5, when Sylvia takes him hostage, she offers him a position in the Demon King's forces, and he accepts totally not because she's exactly his type and is delivering him Marshmallow Hell. Though he rescinds his acceptance after he learns the truth about her...
  • In Volume 15, Serena gives the Demon King a sob backstory and offers Kazuma the chance to either defect or desert the fight against the Demon King. He almost accepts... until Wiz and Vanir show up and reveals Serena's true identity, and he pieces together that it was all bunk.
  • In Volume 17, the Demon King himself is impressed with Kazuma's resourcefulness and tenacity while Kazuma is cornered near the end of their fight and offers Kazuma a chance to join his army as long as he accepts a curse of loyalty.
• Weak, but Skilled: Aside from his slightly above-average Intelligence and extremely high Luck, his other stats are just passable, he sticks with the most basic Adventurer class while rarely obtaining enough experience points to capitalize off its quick level growth, and his arrogant, lazy attitude further hinders his development. He was once appalled to learn his physical stats fell below Megumin's. On the other hand, the Adventurer class allows him to learn a variety of skills to compensate for his party's Crippling Overspecialization, and whenever he's forced to get serious, he can get really creative, allowing him to surpass people of better classes and even some of the Demon King's best warriors. Kazuma trading parties with Dust for a day further highlighted how good he actually is as a Utility Party Member when his party is actually competent.
• Weirdness Magnet: Vanir notes that he has a strange habit of attracting trouble no matter where he goes.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Has the odd ability to never lose at a game of rock, paper, and scissors, even before being reincarnated. The ridiculousness of this is lampshaded by Aqua. Until he actually does lose to Chris in Volume 6.
• Willfully Weak: He has no desire to advance into another class, due to the Adventurer class having potential access to every skill in the world.
• Wish-Fulfillment: Subverted. He is very much not the typical isekai protagonist, which he is aware of and lampshades. He expects a grand and exciting adventure where he accomplishes great things, is praised as a hero, isn't bothered by mundane nuisances like daily labor, and starts a relationship with a beautiful, kind, and otherwise ideal girlfriend party member. All he got at the start is having to work construction, sleep in a barn, and get stuck with a Brainless Beauty, and what he does get by the end of the series is very long in coming, and required forcing him out of his comfort zone.
• Would Hit a Girl: He's made it clear that he will not abide "Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male", and is too pragmatic to be concerned about the gender of his opponents in battle. He sees no problem hitting Aqua for costly mishaps, got into an endurance contest against Darkness, and even won a free-for-all with his party members. That said, he's actually decent enough to not hit a girl if he feels she doesn't deserve it. If you definitely deserve it though, he will not hesitate to dropkick you in the face. Just ask Celestina.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: While his otaku and gamer knowledge does often prove useful, the world where Kazuma was sent by Aqua is just different enough from his experiences as an avid gamer and manga fan that it frequently lands him in trouble. Prime examples are when dealing with the Orc tribe, and fighting the shape-shifting slime that is a Demon King elite.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame:
  • Played for Laughs when Megumin implies that his name fits with the ones used by the Crimson Demon race. It turned out to be one of the potential names for Chomusuke.
  • Also Played for Laughs during their journey to Alcanretia, where the party successfully defends the caravan against the attack of a Hawkite stampede and a horde of zombies. The members of the caravan are more than eager to reward Kazuma and his party, unbeknownst to the fact that they were the ones that attracted the trouble in the first place, as the Hawkites were attracted to Darkness' armor, and the zombies were attracted to Aqua. Kazuma is so ashamed of this that he actively tries to refuse the rewards.
  • Upon saving them from destruction, he's unwantedly blessed as an honored inductee of the Axis Cult. That makes him a valued worshipper of Aqua in their eyes.