English Dub Review: My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! “The Final Event Has Begun…”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Catarina tries to talk Sirius down, but he insists he’s too far gone and that he should only be feared. He then reveals that Sirius Deke isn’t even real name, but rather Raphael Walt. When he was a child, he and his mother were taken by the wife of a lord, who his mother had an affair with to have Raphael. The wife of the lord was jealous of his mother and, using dark magic, sacrificed his mother in order to transfer Sirius’ memories from his dying body into Raphael’s healthy one. However, while the memories were transferred, Raphael stayed the same person. But to cover up the ritual, she then killed the mage who helped make it, but that mage then entered Raphael’s body to give him dark magic but also drive him towards vengeance.

In the present, Raphael, now Sirius, tells Catarina that she can’t save him like she did the others. She agrees, but does say that she can try and be his friend and that she won’t let him cry alone. This is enough to help him realize that his mother’s last words weren’t to avenge her, but that she would always love him. With that, he breaks free from the mage’s control and forces him out, getting rid of the dark magic within him. Later, Sirius turns himself into the authorities and accepts his punishment, which seems to just helping them investigate dark magic.

Finally, the day of the second years’ graduation party, where Maria picked her love interest in the game, arrives. Catarina fears the worst…for some reason, but heads in with a head held high. What she somehow does not expect is that all of her friends confess feelings for her, including Maria who says the exact line she would say to the one she conquered. But because Catarina is SUCH A FUCKING DUMBASS, she thinks they’re all just being friends. Fuck this. Fuck it all.

OUR TAKE

Yeah, I think the main thing about this that really sours all the sweetness in this is Catarina’s sheer denseness. I know it’s supposed to be played for comedy, that much is clear, but there are so many things that end up contradict this expected tone and only imply terrible things about everyone involved. Catarina, from the moment she realized she was in the game, has feared ending up killed or exiled because of the nature of her character within the narrative of the game. She’s practically an expert on just about every route, to the point she has consciously noticed when she’s done something to force a deviation from the expected paths. But despite living in this world for several years AND getting to know these characters as real people, she somehow does not understand that the doom ending for her stopped being a possibility a LOOOOOOONG time ago, to the point she is still expecting to be exiled or killed even after EVERYTHING she’s done for and with these people.

So either she has no faith and them to not betray her no matter what she does, or she doesn’t see them as people but game characters, OR she’s just a colossal waste of brain space. None of these options say anything positive about her, but this is where we leave her at the end of this season. Perhaps the promised second season will finally rub two brain cells together and realize that she’s going to actually have to think about what SHE wants to happen in this world, not what she wants to avoid. Because still avoiding the doom flag at this point just means she hasn’t changed as a character in any meaningful way since the first episode and that the story is leaving plenty of potentially interesting characters and plotlines on the table just for THIS ONE STUPID OVERUSED GAG. But more on that in the Season Review.

As for the stuff with Sirius, AKA Raphael, it’s certainly interesting enough stuff on paper, but it’s just crammed so much into this one episode that it’s all irrelevant by the time you catch up and understand everything that’s been thrown at you. And it’s unfortunate but not surprising that this means that Sirius actually gets more of a fulfilling plotline to resolve this season that any of the main characters, including Catarina. But fine, screw it, that’s what they went with and I’m glad to be washing my hands of this series, at least for the time being.