English Dub Review: My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! “The Moment of My Doom Arrived… Part 2”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Catarina awakens back in her past life as if she never died with only vague memories of her time in Fortune Lover, though in reality she’s in some sort of coma and has been asleep for two days. Everyone is worried to death for her safety, with the doctor’s prognosis not looking good if she doesn’t wake up. Though unbeknownst to Sophia, the spirit of Atsu, Catarina’s friend from that life, resides within her and goes into Catarina’s mind to save her. After finding her and rekindling her memories, they discuss Sirius and where he’s hiding Maria. Before she disappears, Atsu tells Catarina to call Sirius’s real name. Catarina then awakens and tells everyone where to find Maria, rescuing her too (huh, I guess it WASN’T the last time they’d ever see her!) and then going to confront Sirius. Meanwhile, Sirius’s dark magic begins to overwhelm him, but he tries to keep it together in order to avenge his mother.

OUR TAKE

The penultimate episode of the series ends up adding WAAAAAAAAY more questions than answers, mostly in regards to the presence of Atsu within Sophia. We did check in with her once a few episodes back and set up that she was connected to Sophia, but that still leaves a lot of holes that I guess just aren’t going to be filled in. For one, how did ATSU die in order to be reincarnated as Sophia? Was she also killed as a high schooler? We saw her pretty distraught over losing her friend, but she couldn’t have killed HERSELF, could she? Why has she been lying dormant inside Sophia all this time instead of reaching out to Catarina? How did she know she’d be able to go inside her head like she did? If she could do that all this time, why are they acting like this is the last time they’ll see each other? And does this mean that Catarina is actually also living alongside the soul of Catarina from the original game? Or did that fall that knocked loose those memories actually KILL that Catarina? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!

And sadly, that’s also really the only thing of note to bring up in this episode that won’t be probably covered better in the season finale next week. All the love interests mope about how much they love Catarina, then steel their resolve to help her…even though she ends up waking without any of their help, and then they go to fight Sirius, who doesn’t get a ton of time to flesh out his own motivations despite him now being the final boss. Let’s not forget how much of a left turn it was to suddenly make him the big bad after nine episodes of spinning wheels and treading water when we COULD have given him more focus over time to help this big battle coming up hit that much harder. Not necessarily all the episodes, since he wouldn’t show up until Ep 4 anyway, but at least to help better parallel him with Maria, considering they have the exact opposite magic. Hindsight is twenty twenty I suppose, but as a viewer, I can’t help but look at what we have and wonder what could have been with a little bit more forethought. But after next week, I guess it won’t really matter much anyway. Oh wait, they’re getting a second season?