English Dub Review: I’ll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History “The Villainess and Sleeping Side by Side”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Alicia is kidnapped and fights her way out and protects Jill from her attackers, but when Liz catches her about to fight back, she chastises her in front of other students, forcing Duke to step up in Alicia’s defense.

OUR TAKE

Since Liz’s introduction in the third episode, I had wondered where she was going to land on as a character. As mentioned, she is who was meant to be the protagonist of this story, at least in the version that is a game where the person who became Alicia comes from, so she is at least on paper meant to be the hero and voice of reason in certain situations. In the other type of this story that I previously reviewed, the protagonist character of that game world ended up being one of the actual protagonist’s many romantic admirers, so I kind of expected something like that to happen. But since Liz first appeared, we’ve seen more of her being an alright person who is slowly gaining a cult following as she preaches her well meaning but naive worldview, with only Alicia providing pragmatic pushback that thankfully Liz herself has been receptive to even if her followers haven’t. So, I haven’t been sure of how exactly to view Liz since I still don’t know what the story wants me to see her as. Is she a well intentioned savior who needs guidance or a villain in the making herself? Well, it turns out the answer to that was that she’s an almost destructively naive idiot who almost let someone die for her pacifism.

We still don’t know if this was whole kidnapping was staged or arranged to make Liz see Alicia being violent in public to admonish her, but the fact of the matter is that Liz’s response to Alicia protecting herself and a friend from unprovoked assault is to restrain and lecture her about attacking someone, even while people are STILL ATTACKING HER. It’s still somewhat ambiguous whether or not Liz is malicious or naive here, but we have most definitely crossed the line where her preaching has actually put someone in danger while they were trying to defend themselves and others. And frankly, I don’t know how I like either option. If we’re saying Liz is actually the villain and Alicia is the hero, that seems like a pretty uninspired subversion that I can’t say I’m very much looking forward to. But in the more interesting option, maybe Liz is being manipulated and can still be guided to make better decisions for herself and others, whether that’s by Alicia or others. Oh yeah, and Duke is most definitely in love with Alicia, but we knew that from the OP.