I'll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History

This anime series opens with a girl finding herself in the body of Alicia Williams, the villainess in a game she used to play. Knowing this destiny she determines to become the greatest villainess in history. Her preternatural wisdom leads to her gaining the ear of the king and befriending many of the nobility. She also takes a surprising interest to the poor in one particular village. When a prophecy indicates a saint has been born she is given the task of watching over her... of course this saint was the heroine of the game, an instantly popular girl.

Recently there have been quite a few anime series centred on a reincarnated villainess. This may not be the best but it is an enjoyable addition to the genre. The characters are solid and nobody is really unlikeable. As seems to be common in this genre our protagonist never seems particularly villainous; she is just in conflict with the designated heroine. This isn't really a problem as Alicia is a likeable character and other characters are fun to watch. Character designs and animation are both pretty good. The final episode seems more like the end of a chapter than an end of the story; if there is more I'd certainly watch. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to fans of the genre.

These comments are based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles.

She always liked the Villainess more. The heroine is dopey. She's phony. SHE'S BORING! And she does NOT deserve the prince.

Now that Alicia is reincarnated into her favorite otome game as the strong, smart, capable MEAN girl, she'll go down in history. She's got big plans for a little girl: She's 7. She's got lots of time to get strong: Swords, Magic (green, light, fire, wind, water), general learning... she's gonna learn it all. She's absolutely gonna go down in history!

Based on a light novel by Hoshi Akari & Ookido Izumi, IBAVWGDIH is a 2020 Maho Film studios release that is rated 7.33 on MAL. It is 1 season consisting of 13 23-minute English dubbed episodes with CC available. For a first published work, this is pretty good. Sure, I didn't give it a top rating, but there are plenty of solid elements to complement the solid story-telling here.

Alicia devotes herself to study, magic, and swordcraft. Her family notices the change from what was a bratty girl to total workaholic. She starts to visit Roana, the impoverished town of exiles, and she's been helping people there. Roana's first citizens were criminals who were trapped in the town by a magical barrier. Most of the people there now are children of the criminals, but not criminals themselves. They don't deserve to live in the deplorable and harsh conditions of Roana, a land of NO: NO food, NO clean drinking water, NO such thing as doctors, NO medicine, NO escape, and NO law enforcement - NO one is keeping the crime in check. Word gets out about how exceptional Alicia is, so the king wants to meet her. She speaks bluntly to him, but her methodology is sound, so the King respects her. Prince Duke, 5 years her senior, won't take his eyes off of her.

Meanwhile, Cather Liz has been identified as the nation's heroine. She's destined to save the country, along with Prince Duke, who is supposedly destined to marry her. Liz is hard to take; she's vomit inducing. She's wholesome and good, but it's to the point where she's entirely too naive. She doles out kindness when she should be meting out justice - "her head is quite the field of flowers," as Alicia puts it. The signs that Liz is the nation's heroine are irrefutable, but her head's so in the clouds that the king decides to set up Alicia (who is level 80 by age 13, an astounding achievement) as a "watcher", of sorts. Alicia is supposed to beat the nonsense out of Liz. They decide to make a special exception and send Ali to school early. All this is hush-hush. Duke knows because he's the prince, but nobody else knows.

Liz is so popular that people hate Alicia for merely disagreeing with her half-baked notions. She has a cult following of devotees. Alicia wonders if there's magical manipulation going on. Her own brother's personality completely changed around Liz. There is one person who doesn't seem utterly enthralled with Liz: Prince Duke. He only has eyes for Alicia.

Alicia takes on an aide, Gill, an intelligent & gifted child from Roana. It's a good thing she was working on her sword skills, because they are both immediately kidnapped, and Ali's magic was neutralized by a magical suppression relic. Alicia fought their way out of captivity with a sword! Liz came upon the scene and all she saw was Alicia attacking, as it looked to Liz, an unarmed man. Liz restrains Alicia, and the villain takes that opportunity to nearly kill Ali. Only Prince Duke stepping in prevented tragedy.

The gist of the story, plot, and our "Villoine's" motivations are that Ali has rejected being a goody-2-shoes and has embraced the role of villainy. What the story feels like is that it's a good plot on its own, and forcibly wedging it into a "villainess" motif did not improve it. Most everything Ali does is heroic, but what she says is not as admirable. Just like Ali is too invested in the villainess trope, so is our author. It's getting in the way of an otherwise good story.

Idk where the novels are going or whether Alicia ever renounces villainy, but she's nothing like a villainess. The obfuscation of terms and definitions amounts to a grand bait-and-switch. Ali is not a villainess; she's a force for good. She doesn't follow the crowd, she's strong, she's smart, and she's totally villainized for it. A poignant message is there, but the author doesn't actualize it, at least in eps1-13. Sure, we aren't supposed to get too caught up in fiction, and I do have a tendency to overthink some things (while under-thinking others😟) but I really can't stand mixing strength of character with villainy. Yes, people do that. People are controlling and small-minded by nature. They hate those who are different because it's a disruption of their comfort, and a challenge to their worldview. It's fair that /others/ see independent Ali as a villainess. I just hated Ali seeing herself that way while continually committing non-villainous acts. She should have more insight.

However, our Ali is hooked on the idea of being a villainess. It's her life's mission. She even claims to be evil incarnate, which is horrible. It's irresponsible to tell young girls that being strong and independent makes them evil incarnate. That is an AWFUL message. We're all sickened by the overly sweet, overly apologetic and too-too nice heroine, Liz. The problem is not Liz's kindness, it's that all that saccharine niceness MUST be phony. We'll learn that it is. Liz will later admit that she was terrified of expectations placed on her as a heroine and equally trepidatious about being the only commoner in a school of nobles. She couldn't relax and be herself. Liz was weak. She did weak things and played weak games and ended up causing strife and misunderstandings. Weakness always enables evil, so weakness is as villainous as evil - the results of each of them are usually the same. Ali's strength and wisdom are what's making things better.

The author deftly handles the subject of pride. Pride is just about e'erbody's biggest problem. Liz seems to be a person who is sincerely motivated to do good, but she doesn't realize how little she understands and perceives. There's many people like Liz. Sure, there's villains and villainesses who revel in their wickedness, but the majority of people overestimate their own goodness, skills, and influence. Many convince themselves that they're doing "The Lord's Work" in trying to help, but what they're doing is inserting themselves into the middle of everything ~ as if they can make everything better. There can be a fine line between kindness and hubris. We'll hear about a king and his brother who had a falling out. The brother was so focused on his own relevance, and coming up with reform programs, that he failed to tend to the personal relationship between him and his brother. The king felt alone and threatened, so the relationship fell apart. This particular failing is not about "right and wrong". The brother is more "right" as he was only trying to do good. The King's reaction was childish - he was "wrong". However, the brother realizes this was, indeed, /his/ failure and the score is irrelevant. Pride always insists on keeping score. In that way, it's a self-deceiving distraction. We tell ourselves what the score is, but our perception is rarely the truth.

All the while, this is a romance. The prince takes notice of Ali soon after her reincarnation, when she's 8. Suddenly, the Williams residence is his hangout, 'Why's HE here all the time, now?' Ali's brothers wonder why this change, but they aren't close to the truth of it. Ali never takes much notice. She's /busy/. In an effort to convince her brother to teach her swordsmanship, she slices a falling apple in half. He agrees to teach her, so she runs off to get changed. The prince picks up an apple half and it looks like a heart in his hand. That's a nice touch.

People are drawn very prettily. These are some attractive anime characters. The weird bifurcated eyes are a lowpoint, artistically, but everything else is nicely done. They utilized a big color-palette of skin tones, eyes, and hair.

This simple series is more for kids than adults. It's a touch nonsensical, but it's on the high end of average. It's important that kids understand to not confuse or equate evil with strength. In fact, to be good, one MUST be strong, and Ali deftly demonstrates that.

QUOTES🗣

No matter how much you may learn from books it's meaningless if you don't use it to improve the future.

True growth comes from being honest with ourselves.

IMHO〰🖍

📣6.8 📝6 🎭7 💓6 🦋6 🎨7 🎵/🔊5 🔚7.5 ▪ 🌞4 ⚡3 😅3 😭2 😱2.5 😯2 🤢2 🤔4 💤0 🤗5

Age 12+ Language: $h!+, b!+ch, but there isn't much of it. Some will think this show is sexually inappropriate . After the prince rescues Ali from the kidnapping and murder attempt, he carries an injured, a very beat up Ali to his room. They end up waking up in the same bed the next day. Poof! There's the little devil and angel, each occupying the airspace over her shoulders. One encourages her to "go for it" and jump on shirtless Duke, while the other one encourages her to be restrained and respectful. When he wakes up, he attempts to kiss her. She's 13. He's 18. It's content that is not fit for young kids. Additionally, a word about our statutory r@pe laws is in order here. Rated: PG-13

Re-📺? This one's in the good-to-pass-the-time category, but I may never pass this way again....

From lite&trite to heavy&serious, here's some recs ~

💘 Ouran High School Host Club-8,, Ao-chan Can't Study-7.8, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! X-5.6, I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss-7, Special A Class-8.2, Maid Sama-10, Why Raeliana Ended up at the Duke's Mansion-8.6, Mischievous Kiss, Sugar Apple Fairy Tale-7.5, True Beauty-7.5, Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun-7.7, Doctor Elise-6.5 (tweens) 7th Time Loop-7.9, Toradora-8.5, My Happy Marriage-8.3,

The plot started with clear motivations, and the female lead had clear intentions of what she wanted and what she needed to do. The plot followed this quite well for the first three-fourths of the show. However, the last third became quite dumb for me. It had so many inconsistencies that I just had to turn my brain off!

I watched it till the end and would probably watch the next seasons if they ever made them because I like to see it more as a chill and average show that can run in the background. I'm not too crazy about it, but I'm not too ignorant of it either, because the show doesn't go to extreme measures, making it a pretty chill anime.

The lore is very heavy for me, which made it feel like many things were left unanswered or uncatchable by me. The pace didn't help either; it was a bit fast-paced. The romance was the one thing that made me start watching this show, to begin with, and I have to say it felt like a secondary priority, which I didn't like at all.

The opening and ending songs were decent enough for me but forgettable, to be honest. Well, that's just my taste. The animation is okay-not too great and not too bad, just average.

If "villainess" was part of a drinking game, you'd be out cold by the second episode., it's villainess every other word. I have mixed feelings about the storyline. It's engaging but:

Annoying Heroine: The heroine's voice is intentionally made high-pitched and fake, immediately making her unlikable.

Misleading Villain: The so-called villain, who is actually the protagonist, behaves heroically rather than evilly. She's just portrayed as a rude and spoiled child. Essentially she is stealing the heroine's place in the storyline.

Problematic Age Gap: The five-year age difference between the protagonist and her love interest is questionable. She's 13 when she starts school, while he is 18. A closer age gap would make more sense.

Straight away, this is one of the "relabeled Villainess" type animes where Hero and Villainess basically switch the meaning. However, in my opinion this Anime actually portrays the proclaimed Villainess actually somewhat as one through their speech and actions. Further, the characters are generally well written, just the age difference and ages for the characters for certain events and actions are somewhat inappropriate for modern standards. However, ignoring that fact, the portrayal of the romantic relationships is written in a nice way.

Coming to the story overall - it is a great written story but at some points it was bit bumpy with rather harsh cuts between events. Still smooth enough to follow without problems but enough to notice.