English Dub Review: My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! “Met a Beautiful Brother and Sister…”

https://youtu.be/BjuJD74X2XI

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Catarina is still learning how to exist in the world of Fortune Lover, but she has no one to bond over trashy romance anymore. Luckily she happens to meet Sophia, another fan of a book series she likes, along with her brother Nicol, who turns out to be the fourth of the four conquerable routes in the game. And it seems that Catarina never played Nicol’s route in her past life, she only learned about some of it from her Otome game loving friend Atsu, but the main detail was that courting him came through befriending his sister, who he has a unique relationship with. Luckily it seems that Sophia and Nicol don’t really overlap with Catarina’s character, so befriending them should have no consequences towards her doom, though Nicol is pretty difficult to hold a conversation with.

Seven years pass, with all the kids growing up to their ages in the game. At last, the events that Catarina has spent her new life preparing for has arrived, though it seems she’s unaware of just how different things have turned out, as both the boys and girls in their group has fallen for her.

OUR TAKE

This concludes the introductions of all the main characters as kids, leaving the rest of the season to go into the events of the game, or at least the modified version of events. We do still have one more character to meet, the heroine Maria, but introduction is tied to the beginning of the next arc naturally, so we’ll get into that next week. I do think it’s a bit too much time to take a whole quarter of the season just to have a prologue, since I feel it belabors the point of Catarina’s good nature is changing these people, but we’re past it now at least. We’ve given each of the four male protagonists time to set up their own personalities and how they’ve been tweaked from the game version, as well as showing how Mary and Sophia will be prominent in events going forward. But beyond just the usual “okay here’s this one and this one and now the story can start”, there isn’t much of a plot to speak of here, at least so far.

The focus of the series is decidedly about Catarina trying to avoid the outcomes of either dying or going into exile that the character she’s been placed in is usually subject to, but instead accidentally shifting the attention towards herself. It’s because of this that this series is considered one of the biggest harem comedies in terms of cast, having six suitors established in only three episodes, with more on the way. And while that’s impressive in its own way, I do worry if having all of these characters to balance and juggle will lead to pretty thin characterization across the board. Sure, each of the cast has their specific quirk that sets them apart from each other well enough, but having them all set their sights on wooing Catarina kind of ends up undoing that by making them feel samey. I do hope that their relationships outside of her are elaborated a bit, which should be easy since at least a few of them are siblings, but that could get left by the wayside if the writers aren’t careful. So far, this series is doing well enough that it’s still plenty watchable, but the main plot still hasn’t really gotten going yet and we’ve introduced quite a few people. We’ll have to see how the now matured versions of these characters play ball when things start getting underway next week.