Rekishi ni Nokoru Akujo ni Naru zo – or I’ll Become a Villainness – is a fantasy/isekai/shoujo anime that began airing on October 1st, 2024. Today, I’ll offer my notes and recap of the first episode. While I was not impressed with the objective quality of this pilot overall, I’ll probably keep watching a few more episodes before I decide whether to drop it.

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Episode 1: The Villainess and Working Out: Recap

Alicia Williams is a seven-year-old girl in a noble family of dark magic users in a fantasy world. She was a normal girl who reportedly lazed around and was quite cheeky. But that was before she remembered her past life.

One day, Alicia suddenly recalled that she previously in a modern, non-magical world where she played video games. In her favorite Otome romance game, she always admired the villainess more than the heroine. She wished she could be reborn as Alicia Williams, and apparently, her wish magically came true. Now, the little girl is determined to become a villainess that will go down in history.

The first thing Alicia wants to do is gain strength, knowledge, and a noteworthy reputation. She begins behaving politely and getting up early to study in the library. In addition, she asks her three brothers – Henry, Alan, and Albert – to teach her how to use a sword. The only one who at least pretends to take her seriously is Albert. He tells her that he’ll teach her if she can do 50 sit-ups and 50 push-ups every day for one week.

Alicia works hard and meets this goal. At the end of the week, she approaches her brothers. Along with the brothers, there are five boys from other noble families. I didn’t learn their names yet, but they were all “dead-end” options in the Otome game. They’re all going to grow up to be extremely attractive men. Among these five is Duke Seeker, the son of the realm’s King. In the original story, this princely figure is the “happy-end” option for the heroine.

When the boys still won’t take her seriously, Alicia grabs a sword, kicks a tree, and slices an apple in half as it falls to the ground. This finally convinces Albert to start teaching Alicia swordsmanship. Over the course of the next year, they start training together. Duke also comes over a lot that year, clearly taking a liking to Alicia. Soon, it’s time for Alicia’s eighth birthday, which she will spend with the boys.

Much to Alicia’s surprise, the King pays a visit during her party. He came specifically to meet her and ask her questions about the politics of the country. Alicia believes this is a “villainess test,” and proceeds to outline a smart but conniving plan for improving the country’s economy. It involves taking advantage of other countries. The King is impressed. Whether he was really there for a test or not is unclear. After he left, Alicia got to eat lots of her favorite sweets. Also, Albert gave her a diamond necklace.

The episode ends with the King meeting with the fathers of the other noble families. He announces that the Golden Rose has been found. In this world, a magical gold rose blooms on the day and the in the location of the birth of the Saint. According to prophecy, the Saint will lead the kingdom to prosperity alongside a member of the royal family. A magical blue rose will bloom near the royal figure, marking him as the one to work with the Saint.

The blue rose has already bloomed on the day of Duke’s birth. He is the one destined to save the kingdom with the Saint. As for the Saint, she is a poor baker’s daughter from a village full of thieves. She is obviously the heroine of the original Otome game. We’ll probably meet her in the second episode. To be continued.

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Episode 1: The Villainess and Working Out: Notes

The aesthetic of the series is very classically shoujo, with music that sounds fancy and noble, and visuals full of flowers and fencing. I actually like old-fashioned shoujo, so this is nice. The lore about the magical gold and blue roses is also very classic shoujo, and I like it. Speaking of lore, the magic system is likely to be boring and/or underdeveloped based on what we’ve seen. The exposition of it was poor. Alicia’s narration explained away the basics of magic instead of letting us see it in action and piece the information together.

I find it strange that we didn’t see Alicia’s death in her old world. She doesn’t seem to remember much of anything about her old world except the Otome game that she played. The synopsis on MAL mentioned that in her past life, “Alicia” was killed by a truck. (Big surprise.) But there was nothing about that in the first episode. I expect it will be explained in the next installment.

I wonder about the morals of Alicia. She says she sympathizes with the classist, verbally abusive villainess from the game. She also made up her mind right away to play the part of a villainess as soon as she remembered the game. She could have instead tried to shape her own role that wasn’t necessarily villainous. Her choices and thoughts suggest that she is a character with the propensity to be evil.

All I really want to see from this anime is an assertive and domineering character. If she manages to be more on the good side that would be fine. It’s also fine if she becomes a legitimately cruel villain – that will still entertain me most likely.

The music is alright and the voice-acting is good. Alicia’s voice actress, Kanna Nakamura, is completely new to me. However, she has a voice that sounds very familiar. It’s sort of the generic energetic heroine voice. We’ll see if I like this choice or not for the main character as time goes on.

It was cool to see Alicia take action and prove to her brothers that she was serious about learning to use a sword. Slicing the apple in half was bad-ass for a little seven-year-old girl. If there are enough victorious moments like that in the series, I may keep watching. On the other hand, this episode is definitely making the show seem shallow and predictable, with weak storytelling.

One other issue is that there isn’t enough detail about Alicia’s life. Who teaches her school subjects? Does she have a maid? Doesn’t she have any female friends? This continues to bother me as the episode goes on. She only hangs out with the boys of the Noble Families and her brothers. That’s pretty strange. Anyway, my notes end here. As I mentioned in the intro, I’ll probably watch one or two more episodes and decide based on that if I want to keep watching or drop the anime.

Episode Rating: 6/10

~Thank You for Reading~

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