English Dub Review: My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! X “I Avoided My Doom Flags, So I Got Carried Away at the Cultural Festival…”

Overview

Catarina Claes, the daughter of a duke, successfully avoided all of her doom flags and is now enjoying her school life. One day, she learns that the school festival is coming up, and she’s psyched to experience it…


Our Take

With a four-minute recap which made things easier as a jumping-on point for newbies of this “Isekai” adventure story, in combination with several still-image montages and a few long panning shots off-model already (notably Catarina when Mary and Keith are talking about how Catarina feeds him food), it’s understandable this could be for budget reasons as this felt like a recap episode which works for those who haven’t watched this in a while.

Catarina as a character remains popular as ever as her so-called “anime harem” of both genders continues to grow. But much much like a Black Clover character, she obliviously misreads every situation and fails to reciprocate when it comes to romance partially due to nobody within said “harem” being outright honest or direct with her regarding their actual feelings.

Overall things feel like business as usual with things picking up right where we left off, this premiere did a good job of reintroducing all our main characters so we are fresh on who they are and their relationships. Outside of that, I don’t think there’s much to take note of here besides the introduction of new characters, but I’m sure this is just the calm before whatever storm this new season has potentially planned out for our titular “Villainess”.