Series Overview

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! (Otome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shiteshimatta… / 乙女ゲームの破滅フラグしかない悪役令嬢に転生してしまった…) has an extremely long title as many light novel series do. But what’s surprising is that this isn’t even the longest title on a series I’ve reviewed.

The length of the title aside, I didn’t think My Next Life as a Villainess looked very good at the start of the season — so I didn’t watch it. But as the season progressed, people kept telling me it was actually good. Against my better judgment, I picked it up and promptly learned that I was right all along.

For all you fans of this series, I’m not saying that it’s bad. I’m just saying that it’s not good.

The premise of this series is that a high school girl dies and is reincarnated as the villain(ess) of an otome game. An otome game is a type of visual novel that’s basically the female version of your standard dating simulator. Rather than a male player trying to “conquer” female NPCs, an otome game has a female player and male NPCs.

That might not sound like such a bad world to be reincarnated into, but our protagonist is the villain of this game. And the villain of this game is either killed or sent into exile (where she then dies) at the end of the majority of the routes if the player character is successful.

So the entire first season of this series involves Katarina (or Catarina) attempting to prevent herself from getting killed or exiled by coming up with contingency plans for all the possible routes.

Male Leads

The four main male characters are Gerald and Alan Stuart, Nicole Ascart, and Keith Claes. I’m sorry if any of these names are incorrect. I’ve seen multiple spellings for half the names in this series, so I’ve decided to stick with the spellings listed on MyAnimeList.

All four male characters are pretty equal in their importance, but if you had to rank them, Gerald (I think he was called Geordo or something on Crunchyroll) would probably be number one. He’s the crown prince of the kingdom as well as Katarina’s current fiance.

Alan is the younger brother of Gerald. While Gerald is your typical princely prince, Alan is the edgy troublemaker. If you’ve seen Fruits Basket, you can think of Gerald and Alan like Yuki and Kyo respectively. Alan is a bit standoffish and dresses like a punk, but he’s a good guy deep down.

Nicole (I think Crunchyroll called him Nicol) is the least interesting of all the male characters simply because he doesn’t do or say anything. He only has a few dialogue lines throughout the entire series, and otherwise stands there with an expressionless look on his face. He’s also older than all the other characters and is the brother of Sophia.

Keith is the adopted brother of Katarina. However, I wouldn’t exactly say this is a case of “not related by blood, so it’s okay.” While he isn’t Katarina’s real brother, I’m pretty sure he’s her real cousin, which isn’t that far removed. Keith is very protective of his older sister, especially when it comes to prince Gerald.

There’s also a fifth male character who isn’t as important as those four. Sirius Dieke is the student council president. If you’re into shouta characters, this one’s for you. Personally, I like Alan the most.

Female Leads

Katarina Claes is the protagonist of the series and the titular villainess. However, just because her character is supposed to be a villain in the game doesn’t mean she is in reality. Katarina wants nothing more than to continue her fun life with all of her friends. And for this to happen, she needs to prevent herself from being killed or exiled.

This fear of death or death by exile is the driving force behind everything Katarina does in the series. Many of her quirky traits, such as learning how to farm despite being a member of the nobility, are directly related to this. She wanted to learn farming so she could provide for herself in the event that she gets exiled.

Maria Campbell is the heroine and player character of the game this world is based on. So if Maria ends up with any of the four main male characters, that could lead to Katarina’s death. However, just as Katarina isn’t the same person as she’s supposed to be in the game, neither is Maria since she isn’t being controlled by the player.

Sophia Ascart is Nicole’s younger sister, and I believe she’s supposed to be the youngest of the main characters. She’s obsessed with romance novels, and this is something she and Katarina bond over. Sophia’s character is weird because it really seems like she’s supposed to be more important than she is.

Mary Hunt is the final of the main female characters and is also the least important. I think she’s supposed to be engaged to Alan, but aside from that, I can’t think of anything special about her character. She’s basically just there to round out the number of characters so there are four main males and four main females.

Conclusion

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! is a 5/10. I almost gave it a 6, but after thinking about it more, I realized that I always dreaded watching the new episode each week. I didn’t particularly enjoy the series; it basically just existed and I watched it.

There isn’t a single thing I can point to in this series and say that it was done better than any other series. And I can’t even say anything about it was really above average. I guess you could say the premise is unique, but even as far as isekai series go, this is a pretty boring concept.

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My review of the next season is available now.