If you think that Kazuma is weak for being an adventurer, think again as it shows he could do pretty well. It just that his teammates always screw things up as it was shown on Volume 2 of the Light Novel. After Dust insults him for having a harem party and being the weakest member in their group (since an adventurer is considered the weakest class or job), Kazuma decides to trade himself with Dust to prove him otherwise.
At first Dust's three members Taylor, Rin and Keith were surprised and in disbelieve that Kazuma's the leader of his own party due to his adventurer job. But after Kazuma shows off his beginner magic skills against the Goblins, they are convinced that he's strong to the point they laugh about the fact that he uses beginner magic in the most unique effective way. They even apologize to Kazuma for looking down on his job and respect him.
This also includes their encounter with the Rookie Killer, TWICE, which looks like a large black saber-tooth tiger. Their first encounter is Kazuma using Hide skill among the party after convincing them not to ambush it. But the second encounter makes it more epic. It was considered a bad timing since Taylor was injured and they're almost near Axel. How did Kazuma save them? Use Create Earth and then Wind Breath so it would blind the Rookie Killer and run for their lives. It worked.
After the two incidents, they laughed on their way back that they couldn't believe that an adventurer like Kazuma could pull off such awesome moves and have such high luck, seeming to have more respect to Kazuma than their team leader, Dust. As for Dust, he ends up begging Kazuma to trade back to his original team.
Volume 6:
Kazuma and Chris attempt to steal a divine relic that Alderp is going to use to swap bodies with Iris. Things very quickly go wrong and they get surrounded. Chris opts to retreat and try again later but Kazuma can't help but remember all the fun he had with Iris and that, her being a princess and him just an adventurer, he's probably never going to see her again. Then, Kazuma, for the first time in the series, gets serious. He then proceeds to go through half of the royal guard and defeat Mitsurugi a second time and is only stopped when he runs into Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness and even then he manages to complete his objective and escape.
His second fight with Mitsurugi is definitely this. After learning that Steal won't be as likely to work, he just uses magic to freeze Kyouya's sword to its sheath, lunges at him, uses magic to shoot water at his face, then freezes his face, leaving him to suffocate if his comrades don't help thaw him out.
Volume 7:
Kazuma and his friends crash Alderp and Darkness' wedding, pay off Darkness' debts and escape with her.
Turns out the whole thing was a plan by the resident Magnificent Bastard Vanir. Knowing that the Dustiness household was going to fall into trouble soon he gave Kazuma a warning to continue designing items that would sell easily. Once Kazuma learns of the debt, he puts his creative talents into overdrive, coming up with every idea he can think of and sells the intellectual properties to each and every single one of them to who else but Vanir. Because of this, Kazuma has enough money to pay off Alderp preventing the wedding from happening and creating some very lovely dark emotions to feed on. Even if Kazuma failed in his endeavor, Vanir at the very least got the intellectual rights to some very useful items.
However, perhaps Vanir's greatest moment is at the end of the volume where he shapeshifts into Lalatina so that he can make out that the one Alderp desires is here to pleasure him, only to laugh in Alderp's face and reveal himself. Even better, he chose the exact moment to appear so that Alderp would break his contract with Maxwell.
Meanwhile, Aqua, despite holding the Idiot Ball as usual, gets to be surprisingly awesome in this installment. Her Versatile Entertainer spell ends up saving the day more than once, and it's implied that she knew it would; she "infiltrates" Darkness's wedding by being the priest; and she's sharp enough to figure out one of the villain's schemes and foil it when nobody else could, thus turning the Bittersweet Ending into a happy one. Not bad for an allegedly useless goddess!
In Volume 9, Megumin revealing that she has learned to cast Explosion without chanting just before obliterating a flat-footed Wolbach. Sure, in retrospect the implications of such deed are kind of sad, but damn.
In Volume 10, there are no words of how amazing Princess Iris' power is since she's the descendant of previous heroes who have defeated the Demon Lord.
She manages to defeat ALL of Prince Revi's subordinate knights without Kazuma's help. The sheer moment where the knights ridicule her says it all when they've witnessed her strength.
She manages to slay a Golden Dragon in Elroad. Repeat: SHE SLEW A GOLDEN DRAGON WITH ONE HIT!! And thus she was given the nicknamed "Dragon Slayer".
She manages to recognize Ragcraft, one of the Demon Lord army's leaders, who uses his Doppelganger powers to disguise as Kazuma and kills him with one hit... AGAIN! Kazuma is glad that he considers Iris as his little sister since flirting with her will end very badly.
Other than losing in Rock-Paper-Scissors to Eris, who happens to be the Goddess of Fortune, Kazuma amazing luck status always saves him in the end. Case in point, in Volume 10, during his negotiation in Elroad, Prince Revi was so persistent into not giving financial aid to support the Kingdom of Belzerg that even killing the Golden Dragon doesn't seems to convince him. What forces him to give up? Kazuma asks him to let his party play at the country's largest casino with a free pass. Prince Revi agrees. Long story short, Kazuma nearly manages to bankrupt the casino to the point that Revi and his prime minister spill the beans on why they cut off Belzerg's financial aid.
In volume 15, Kazuma brings the Demon Lord General Celestina to her knees all on his own:
His campaign against her starts after her plans cause Aqua to cry. In response to this, he asks Aqua to give him every buff she can, then runs up and demonstrates his belief in Gender Equality by dropkicking Celestina in the face. Keep in mind, Celestina has an Attack Reflector that causes any pain inflicted on her by someone else to be inflicted in turn upon those responsible, and Kazuma knew this, but still went for the double KO anyway.
After a week of spreading rumors and harassing Celestina, she eventually manages to corner him by tricking him into thanking her, which allows her to turn Kazuma into her puppet. However, even as a puppet, Kazuma is able to exploit the terms and conditions of his "servitude" to essentially turn Celestina into his servant, destroy her reputation in town, free all her other puppets and render her near powerless. In the end, Celestina is forced to beg Aqua for the potion to cure Kazuma's "puppetry" because she's unable to do it herself.
After breaking the puppetry, Kazuma caps off his retribution against the dark priest by force feeding her a level reset potion, knowing that while his own levels will be reset, Celestina stands to lose far more from the reset. There's a minor hiccup due to Celestina managing to fire off a Death spell, but it's nothing that Aquacan't fix.
The web and light novel's final confrontation against the Demon Lord:
Before the assault on the Demon Lord's Castle, Kazuma uses all his money buying a small hill of manatite crystals of the highest quality for Megumin, allowing her to easily chain-cast Explosion over and over on the Demon Lord's Castle, wiping out his army and breaking the barrier. It is mentioned that at that moment, Megumin became the most powerful arch wizard in the world.
How does Kazuma turn things around against the Demon Lord in his underground dungeon? By casting Explosion, causing the entire place to cave in. Sure, he killed himself as well, but a win's a win.
Anime
Megumin is essentially a chuuni, that is, an otaku that incorporates mannerisms of the media they consume. However, she puts her money where her mouth is when she goes to confront the Dullahan, admitting that she was the one that was blowing up his castle. It is exactly what an anime character would do and Megumin, above all, acts like an anime character. Of course, that being Megumin, she quickly reframed it as strategy, but still, it is gutsy.
The Final Episode of Season 1.
Aqua manages to break the Destroyer's magic barrier via what is essentially a Beam-O-War. It even has a scene of Aqua struggling a bit before digging deeper and intensifying her beams to overcome the Destroyer, and it is played gloriously straight.
The dual "Explosion" spell from Wiz and Megumin, bringing The Destroyer to its many knees.
Aqua's The Dog Bites Back moment at the end of the first OVA. Kazuma had put on a cursed choker that would tighten until he chokes, unless his wish he had before it was put on was fulfilled. Kazuma being unsure of what he wished, decides to put Aqua, Megumin, Darkness, Wiz and Yunyun through all sort of humiliating servitude in hopes that it was that he wished. It doesn't work. Near the end the choker does fall off and Kazuma then remember that he wished for something unrelated to all the shit he put the women through. An angered Aqua then puts the choker back on and the next we see is Kazuma meeting Eris again. It's a pretty satisfying punishment for Kazuma due to putting the girls in humiliating ways which only end up revealing that it was All for Nothing.
We see Kazuma coming to understand his party members better, and how to bring their absurd specialties into a balance. For instance, Megumin can cast extremely powerful attack magic, but only once. Aqua has tremendous magical power, but can only use it for support magic. So when Megumin is taped out, he uses Drain-Touch to charge her up from Aqua's reserves.
Episode 2 of Season 2 has Kazuma spitting on the Double Standard when Megumin tries to invoke it, even giving a speech in which he declares that, if Megumin developed a crush on him and tried to attack him out of jealousy in the event that another girl flirted with him, he would fight back withouthesitation.
(sub) "I'M A GUY WHO DOES WHAT HE HAS TO DO! YOU'D BETTER DO WELL TO REMEMBER THAT!!"
(dub) "CAUSE YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME, I'M THE BOSS OF ME! AND DON'T YOU EVER FORGET THAT!!"
Episode 5 of Season 2 provides a multitude of awesome moments for Darkness of all people.
One of the mask-monsters exploding is enough to knock Aqua on her ass and cause significant damage. Darkness then immediately walks forward and lets one explode on her... and doesn't even get her clothes scuffed. Masochism aside, Darkness isn't the party tank for nothing.
An equally-understated one is when, dealing with many of said monsters, Darkness tries to kill them as they flock to her... and actually hits a good portion of them. Needless to say, her ecstatic reaction is well-deserved.
Even MORE understated is what happens when Vanir possesses Darkness and leaves the dungeon. Vanir comments on her high strength, stamina, durability, and magical resistances and then, utilizing Darkness' own strengths, proceeds to curbstomp every adventurer and was about to kill Aqua if Kazuma hadn't intervened. If Darkness ever learned to properly attack instead of staying clumsy to sate her masochism, she'd be quite the badass!
Episode 6 of season 2
It is played for laughs, but Kazuma is successful at defending his Hikki-neet kotatsu fortress. Neither Darkness nor Megumi can pull him out of it because of his skillful application of his cold spell and Drain Touch. Then the girls realize that they can chuck him and his fortress out the window.
The plan to deal with the Lizard Runners was sound, enabling a quick and safe execution and accounting for several points of failure. Even when Aqua throws a wrench into it (immediately), Kazuma is still able to adjust enough to complete the quest successfully. A pity he dropped his guard at the end, then.
The Final Episode of Season 2.
Wiz learns that Hans ate an innocent person and proceeds to show why she was feared by their army before she switched sides. Her anger freezes the ground below her, trapping Hans in a crystal prison twice, the second time destroying what's left of his giant body after Megumin devastated it.
Wiz can't freeze Hans entirely, so Kazuma devises a strategy to reduce Hans in size, luring Hans far enough for Megumin to use Explosion. He does this in a matter of seconds and without any regard for his own well-being, fully trusting in Aqua's ability to bring him back.
Aqua: The sin of corrupting the hot springs of my beloved faithful has earned you certain doom! Seek God's salvation and repent! Hans: It can't be...! Aqua:GOD REQUIEM!!*cue her striking with the force of a nuke*
The second opening shows the party using a combination of their abilities, helping to gather golden apples from a tree growing on the back of a giant turtle. First, they place an iron door on top of a group of explosive rock monsters and sit atop the door. Darkness strikes the rock monsters, launching them into the sky. Megumin casts Explosion to create a massive updraft of hot air, while Aqua uses her hagoromo as a makeshift balloon and cushion to help slow down the party's descent. Kazuma then uses Steal to take the apples, allowing the party to complete the quest.
Adaptational Badass hit Sylvia with full force in this movie. In the light novel, all it took to kill her was one fully charged blast from a weapon that was admittedly specifically designed to counter the Mage Killer. However, in the movie, she not only survives but she brings Verdia and Hans back from the dead and assimilates them. What ensues is her unleashing a Curb-Stomp Battle against not just the main protagonists but also the entirety of the Crimson Demon village as well as former generals Wiz and Vanir.
Just the fact that Kazuma was able to easily come up with a backup plan to defeat Sylvia after Plan A failed. Said plan entails:
Having Wiz gather the mana reserves of the entire Crimson Demon clan and transfer them to Megumin and Yunyun.
Megumin and Yunyun delivering a massiveCombination Attack against Sylvia using their respective signature attacks amped up by all the mana. Made more awesome by the fact that both of them, being chuuni by culture, actually make very apropos chuuni speeches while using their power; it all just works with the scene.
It's also an awesome moment for Sylvia, who manages to generate a barrier powerful enough to repel this ultimate attack. At least until Kazuma uses the aforementioned fusion to "bring down the barrier in her heart", allowing Megumin and Yunyun's attack to kill the both of them.
Kazuma using the Konami Code to seal Sylvia, even just temporarily. You can hear how much his voice tone changed from panicky 'I don't want to get raped' when entering the code for the first time into the ominous 'You activated my trap card' when entering the code for the second time.
The fact that Aqua was able to buff Kazuma's luck so much that it allowed his body to not be completely blown to smithereens, though judging by Eris' reaction, his body still wasn't a pretty sight.
Megumin's final explosion (or rather what she thinks is her final explosion). After Kazuma upgrades the skill, Megumin unleashes an explosion powerful enough to be seen from space.
As Sylvia is unleashing a Curb-Stomp Battle, Darkness steps up to face her, and is actually holding her own. Everyone is shocked until they see she is wearing Vanir's mask. The moment nicely demonstrated just how formidable a fighter Darkness would be if she could actually hit things, as her body was strong and fast enough to take on a giant monster made up of three of the Devil King's Generals, with all the combined power that implies, and who Wiz and Vanir weren't doing much damage to beforehand.
