English Dub Review: The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess “Magical Ability Is More Important Than Study Ability”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Office worker Satou Konoha dies in an accident and is reborn as a character from a story she wrote as a student—The Dark History.  Instead of reincarnating as the heroine as she’d hoped, she’s the hated little sister, Iana, and, according to the story, she’s destined to perish early on at the hands of her butler!  There’s only one way to survive—remember the plot of the story and avoid her fate!

Our Take:

In most cases, we see protagonists reincarnate into the stories they created as heroes.  However, some of them are reincarnated as their heroes’ devious enemies, who are prophesied to meet their demise.  One such case is Konoha Satou, who created a fantasy world that includes the heroine named after her.  However, instead of being reincarnated as the main protagonist she created, Konoha is now stuck in the body of the heroine’s villainess sister, Iana, who was recently arrested by her former fiancé, Ginoford, and sentenced to imprisonment.  What’s even worse is that Iana is about to be assassinated by her own butler, Sol.  To prevent this from happening, Konoha, now as Iana, would have to do whatever possible to stay alive.  However, this also resulted in her stopping Konoha from gaining powers due to their uncle’s attempt to rape her.  That sounds pretty dark for a story written by a teen.

The first episode of Reincarnated Villainess pretty much sums up any other anime that involves a reincarnated villainess seeking redemption.  It’s been quite a while since I last watched something with a similar concept, even though that show’s execution was hit and miss for me.  With this episode, Reincarnated Villainess may provide an opportunity to reignite my intrigue in the premise.  One reason is that the show didn’t hold back with its goofy tone, with Iana’s wild imagination playing a pivotal role in its humor.  It may not impress everyone with its swift pacing and eccentric aesthetics, but it provided enough fun moments for me to join in on this latest reincarnation adventure.  One of them includes Kelsey Cruz, who conveyed plenty of energy and pizazz into Iana’s dynamic reactions through her vocal performance.  Despite the title containing the phrase “Dark History”, the show may have a chance to provide a much lighter history worth changing if the later episodes are as tolerable as this one.