OTOME GAME NO HAMETSU FLAG SHIKA NAI AKUYAKU REIJOU NI TENSEI SHITESHIMATTA…

DESCRIPTION

CAST

NOVEL ComedyOtome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shiteshimatta...
MANGA ComedyOtome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shiteshimatta...
ONA ComedyKatarina Nounai Kaigi
MANGA ComedyHamefura x Arte
ONA ComedyKatarina to Manabou
ANIME ComedyOtome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shiteshimatta… X

REVIEWS

• 

  raichudoggy

  97/100
  An indefinitely dense Black Hole has been spotted. Grab some Popcorn

  Genre: Comedy / Romance / Fantasy / Slice-of-Life
  Also: Shoujo, All-encompassing Harem, Isekai

  Introducing Bakarina: Destroyer of Death Flags

  This is another story I've covered that's very simple to Understand: Our Protagonist, Katarina Claes, has been reincarnated into a fantasy world after dying a tragic death to none other than Truck-kun in her previous one. After regaining her memories in a fortunate accident, Katarina realizes that she's playing the villain from an Otome game she's played in her past life! And no matter how this game ends, she's either getting killed or exiled! Katarina, not wanting to die early, must find a way to either avoid her doom entirely or prepare to survive in case of exile!

  Katarina's mind is pretty simple: Avoid doom at all costs. To achieve this goal, she uses the game knowledge of what she learned in her past life to change the people around her. For Example, Keith, her adopted brother, will be super lonely after an event early in his life, leading to him becoming a playboy later. If he's a playboy later and he attracts the horine of the game's attention, Katarina will be lead down a route of either exile or death, and we can't have that! So Katarina concludes the best thing to do is to shower Keith with attention! If Keith isn't lonely, he won't seduce the Heroine down the road, avoiding her doom!

  Everything Katarina does is to avoid her doom... so much so, that she's completely oblivious to everything else. Katarina doesn't realize that by giving Keith the attention and love he deserves, that Keith has completely changed to love Katarina. And it's not just Keith. All in all, Katarina will change the destiny of 4 guys and 4 girls (one of which is the Heroine of the game) to avoid her doom... and gain their admiration, unbeknownst to her.

  This show is 90% Comedy and 100% Wholesome. Don't expect anything super romantic, though those elements are there. It might look like there are stakes and danger at first, but it should quickly become apparent, esp. once the cast falls in love with Katarina, that the stakes are very low. Also, after the ensemble's cast have their initial developments, don't expect too much character growth, either. This show is, honest to goodness, not trying to make you cry (much) or get invested into a grand story. It's here to make you laugh, and let me tell you, it's pretty funny, thanks to Katarina Bakarina.

  The main thing to avoid going into this show is having too much expectations. The show is rather repetitious when it wants to give all of the cast near-equal screen-time, but the comedy is definitely fresh throughout, usually delivering variations of similar jokes, but not relaying the same ones so often that they get stale and giving all-new, unexpected variations of jokes when you least expect them for maximum effect. The entire cast is like-able, and there will likely be at least 1 more member of this black hole's harem that you will especially like.

  If you're familiar with other Shoujo shows (Like Ouran High School Host Club, Ore Monogatari), you can expect an even more comedic take than them, while still getting a lot of the usual Shoujo messages concerning how to treat other people and Shoujo imagery / storytelling tropes. And, just like other Shoujo, there really isn't any fan-service to worry about, though there are plenty of pretty boys and girls to look at.

  I'm not one that's really affected by the technical stuff, but you can expect lively imagery and an acceptable (if completely forgettable) accompanying soundtrack, with definitely good enough animation for the kind of show it is. The Opening Song for the show is also incredible and helps set it's lively, comical tone exceptionally well.

  Verdict

  If you're capable of sitting back and relaxing, this is a comedy routine you won't want to miss! I'm well aware of the many potential pitfalls this show can have (Especially since it's mostly a comedy), but I overlook them, because the problems I did see really didn't bother me at all. Above all, this show is just dumb fun! Look forward to the kinds of antics that only come up when one worries they're heading toward their doom!

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• 

  planetJane

  79/100
  All you need is Love.

  *All of my reviews contain __spoilers __for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.*

  ---

  In the best way possible: nothing about In My Next Life As A Villainess (also known semi-officially as Bakarina for reasons that we’ll shortly get into) feels like it quite makes sense. The otome genre has its following, but it’s never been a truly huge force in the TV anime mainstream, especially not over here in the Anglosphere. Similarly, it feels like we’re in the waning days of the die-and-reincarnate narou isekai wave. A story that is both of these things seems, taken all this, like it should be both unremarkable and unpopular. Yet, by a twist of fate and strength of writing, Villainess stands strong as one of the most purely enjoyable shows of the Spring 2020 anime season. The question remains though, why is it able to hit so well above its weight class? The series' source material is something of a cult favorite at best, and while its production values are solid, they lack the flashiness of many of its contemporaries. So what's the secret ingredient?

  *Here's a hint: It has something to do with this picture.*

  ---

  There is, firstly, the obvious: that Villainess’ protagonist is a woman, as opposed to one of the many Protagonist-kun archetypes that permeate the genre. This dynamic inversion alone does wonders. Indeed, if you can praise-slash-accuse Villainess of one thing and be right on the money, it’s that it is in part a wish fulfillment fantasy for women. Our lead, Catarina Claes, has an astounding seven would-be suitors (boys and girls alike, so take your pick) vying for her affections, chows down on sweets with no obvious effects on her figure, is kind, but sees her kindness rewarded in turn, and gets to be amusingly dumb without anyone ever trying to insist she should be wiser just because she’s a woman. It really does seem laser-tailored to the bisexual disaster otaku girl demographic. Something that is by no means a negative. If anything, the TV anime mainstream could use more of this general energy. It helps that the original novels were written by a woman, so there’s not even the faintest trace of projection that there might be from a male author here.

  

  Villainess isn’t entirely an innovator here, but it’s doing this setup better than many others right now. Even as “stuck in an otome game as the evil one” (the game is called Fortune Lover here if you’re curious) has become a viable sub-subgenre of isekai all its own. As we’ll get to, there is actually more going on here than just this power fantasy, but it’s the groundwork on which the series’ more impressive achievements are built, and is its core appeal.

  Much of the show’s forward momentum especially in its forehalf comes from the simple joy of just watching its characters play off of each other. Catarina, denser than a neutron star, is the grounding rod, and out from her you have several other flavors of otome-genre personality. Geordo is the shameless playboy. Keith is cute and demure but has a hidden manipulative side. Alan is a bad boy with a sensitive core. Nicol is so comically stoic that that’s the entire joke on its own and it works.

  

  For the girls; Maria’s gentle warmth tempers Catarina’s own more bombastic variety. Sophia is Catarina’s fellow nerd and has a brain that tends to wander into fantasyland. Mary, lastly, shares Catarina’s love of gardening and seems outwardly friendly like Maria, but this is in many ways a facade that hides the shockingly cunning mind of a certified chessmaster.

  

  Much of the characterization has a subtle touch despite dealing in broad archetypes that feels like it may come from the original light novel. It makes all of these characters (even occasionally Nicol!) feel layered and three dimensional. (Although as an aside, the occasionally-brought-up siscon aspect of Keith’s characterization could’ve been written out of the show with little impact. It feels like the one place where the series panders to its audience in a bad way.)

  *You stop that.*

  ---

  On top of all this comedy, the series dips into more serious territory several times, especially toward the end of its run. Some of the shows strongest turns are when it reckons with the implications of its premise. Two episodes devote screentime to Catarina’s past life, and that of her best friend Atsuko (AKA Acchan. Who was also, we learn, reborn in Fortune Lover, as Sophia). These moments, which briefly explore Acchan’s grief at her friend’s passing as well as her strong desire to one day see her again, are just wonderful. I’m unashamed to say I found them tear-jerking.

  

  But none of this would matter if we didn’t care about these people. The show’s great strength is that Catarina’s personality, her deep, genuine kindness, is the sole tool in her arsenal. What starts out as simple self-preservation instinct as she strives to avoid her own demise eventually turns into her befriending each and every one of the game’s “love options”. Sophia’s case is the most remarkable, as the link between her own past life as Atsuko and how she feels now is the most explicit. But it’s true of the entire main cast. What Catarina provides in these relationships is love. The kind of love that’s easy to under-write and over-look. The kind of love that inspires people to be their best selves and love themselves for who they are.

  In anime without strong dramatic plots, emotional hits that resonate well and feel meaningful are everything. Villainess, put simply, excels at this. And that is what pushes Villainess over the edge from merely pleasant to being among the best shows of the first half of 2020.

  

  If the series does have a pair of fairly noticeable writing flaws, it’s that it doesn’t actually spend enough time on this aspect. More episodes dealing with Catarina’s past life directly (or with final arc character Sirius Dieke, who, goodness, what a name), would’ve helped. The other is that it does have a tendency to explain itself a little too much. Often spelling out things that are obvious in-context. Still, while you can certainly see these flaws while watching, they feel more mildly annoying than catastrophic. Room for improvement, at worst.

  It feels as though this review should conclude with some acknowledgement that Villainess is a hidden gem or overlooked seasonal highlight that more people should check out. But it isn’t those things. Perhaps surprisingly, My Next Life As A Villainess has stood up in popularity alongside peers with far higher-profile source material, bigger budgets, and flashier adaptations. A second season is on the way, and why shouldn’t it be? Simply by being herself, Catarina Claes has taken the anime industry and snapped it over her knee. If we get more of this, all the better.

  

  ---

  And if you liked this review, why not check out some of my others here on Anilist?

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• 

  ThyMrMan

  60/100
  Decent enough gender swapped harem, not amazing but not terrible

  My Next Life as a Villainess started off really slow for me, got a really good mid-season peak, and then dropped hard and fast. Following along with many predecessors in the Light Novel anime adaptions, I feel like it must have had way too much content from the books to successfully reduce to a 12-episode show. Now I have not read the books, so this is just a general feeling I’m getting of course.

  You start with the short prologue, didn’t do anything amazing for me at all. But it introduced the basic concept of the show and the characters. Your fairly standard stuff, and I didn’t have any real issue with it at all. Wasn’t amazing, wasn’t terrible, just kinda standard.

  Then you get to the meat of the show, that rather good middle section. You get some more character introductions, and a bunch of enjoyable slice of life stuff. Character building and world building, and I loved most of it. But at this point I also had my major issue with the show appear, and it never got solved. Way too many characters to ever develop over the course of 12 episodes. I still don’t really remember half the characters names outside of the two main male leads Gerald and Keith. I couldn’t tell you who they were, or what they added. Guess I could say the general trope the characters fill, but even than I forget a number of them because they just don’t get enough screen time. I feel that if you want to have a massive harem cast of seven people, you need to have a ton of episodes to fully explore everyone and really make me remember them. They each need to be unique and interesting in their own ways, and fully explored. But as it stands with 12 episodes, most of them just weren’t. They got a trope assigned and figured the audience would recognize the trope and understand who they were meant to be.

  To wrap up the show we get the final arc, which was the most whiplash moment in a show I’ve felt in some time. You go from enjoyable slice of life fun stuff. To suddenly having kidnapping and the evil villain and dark magic. This didn’t feel like the natural progression of the show at all, and instead felt out of place. Like I was missing 6 episodes of slow progress of dark and evil things slowing progressing in the background that slowly starts to interfere with the fun slice of life stuff. It just generally doesn’t work well, and really hurts my thoughts of the show.

  Onto characters for a bit, general trope characters to fill the harem spots. Not in any way super amazing or special I feel like. Katarina being a dense idiot is just a gender swap of the normal male isekai lead. Really for characters in general I guess I could say that is what the show was. They took the classic isekai harem and just gender swapped everyone and called it good.

  Visually the show was rather good. I don’t think it stood out in any outstanding way, but I wasn’t annoyed or disappointed in the visuals at any point. Don’t think it will win any awards, or be remembered in the future, but it works well enough for a current show.

  Overall, the show didn’t do anything new or special for me at all. You have a traditional isekai harem but now gender swapped, it works fine. I don’t think it has any massive issues, but don’t go in expecting the best harem you have ever watched. So yea, gets average scores from me for being a competent show but not overly great.

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