My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! (Anime Series) Review

 

This is a review of the first season as a complete experience. The second will be looked at later.

 

It's been a struggle of late to feel things openly. I'm not happy about it, but it is true that to cry, to feel deeply and to possess emotion outside of tired has been a bit difficult. So it means all the more when something comes along that actually helps me find the path forward.

 

My Next Life as a Villainess I've remembered fondly since the first time I watched it beside my spouse and brother and upon rewatching in a time where it's hard to muster feeling, it's what anchors me both to the grief I feel and I hope I well, hope I can cultivate for myself. For others. The story, of a girl who dies and is transported to another world as the villainess character of her 'otome' or fem led visual novel and awakens and fearfully tries to prepare for the chance of death, is a premise I found original when it came out and played on the 'transported to another world' or 'isekai' formula with a different setting, idea and vibe behind it. A woman leading the story feels a little rare in this genre; especially when the focus, the goal is pure, unadulterated kindness.

 

See, the show's central conceit is that Catarina, the main character who our protagonist inhabits, was a bad person. A spoiled child who did cruel things, whose family was also swayed to cruelty and whose future death guaranteed; it is in her rejection of that and the application of a single minded hope and gentility that rails both against a system she is born into and the roles others are expected to play into. Regardless of gender.

 

You see, as a queer woman, it is hard not to love a show that underscores be it by chance or deliberation, that love cares not for your identity but sometimes who you are. The characters of the series all seems to adore or will adore Catarina for who she is, her gender either not mattering or simply something that find charming in their own way. She's beautiful to boys and girls for who she chooses to be. It's something I myself need to know, to feel despite the worries and pains. It's a show that dances along this alongside one other powerful element; music.

 

The classical feeling music of this series dances in accompaniment with its scenes of vulnerability masterfully. The rise and falls of song for the tears and shared emotions of those who open up to Catarina is palpably beautiful. And in turn, it helps me open up at a point where it feels really really hard to. In moments I really really need to. And that’s been of late.

 

I'm tired and this anime reminds me I'm a person, that I am thankful for the people in my life, my experiences and who surrounds me now. A truly heroic move, out of a barely villainous anime.