Rekishi ni Nokoru Akujo ni Naru zo

5/10 By the time I was on the third episode, I was completely tired of her insisting to call herself a villainess. The character is obviously at least as heroic as the main character from her game, but it just doesn't stop. Villains don't help people. Just stop stop stop with the villainess garbage. We can all see you are a kind person, who cares for the common people. It is just so irritating after about 2 episodes. Start calling yourself a heroine who cares for the people, and ditch the villain garbage on the side of the path where it belongs. No one buys it anyway, so just stop repeating it over and over again.

What I liked:

• It shows different life-episodes of the characters (infant to teen)
• It is an Isekai but with focus on romance and playing the villainess and making sure to annoy the heroine, which is a refreshing storyline for me
• Got hooked with the story development, which is a mix of genius battle and romance
• It focuses only on the main characters without unnecessary sideplots for secondary characters

What I did no like:

• The ending was rushed and couldve span across at least 3 episodes
• Reconciliation between female characters who were enemies before are always annoying for me and I consider it unrealistic
• Even though the MC was developing her magic abilities to a max she barely uses them. Instead the story is more of an intellectual chess match

Overall: If you like a mix of romance and genius battles/confrontations with an outside the box romance storyline, then this is for you.

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.

(12+) Ugh. Another series that could have been a lot better. The premise was fine, the voices and animation is great, but some of the female protagonist's actions are just over the top stupid and make no sense. I am all in for a sacrifice for a worthy cause, person, or goal - but hers just doesn't have a lot of wisdom (or reason) to it in my opinion. Not sure if there will be a second season or not, but I believe the writers have a lot to work with if so and the series could easily improve. If you are a fan of these types of tropes, you will like this series just fine.

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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.