English Dub Season Review: An Observation Log of My Fiancée Who Calls Herself a Villainess Season One

Overview:

Cecil Glo Alphasta’s life is always utterly unchallenging. The heir to his father’s kingdom, he is known as a genius in everything he accomplishes. However, nothing interests him until he meets his fiancée, Bertia Ibil Noches.

Our Take(Spoilers):

I think we can rule out a second season of this show. I don’t mean that as negatively as I usually do because this had a fantastic conclusion. Would I enjoy more? Of course! But it doesn’t need it, and I think that’s important. From what I can tell, the story is continued in a spin-off fashion that follows Cecil and Bertia once they have children. I would love to see that, but I’ve recently learned that most of the things I like don’t have mainstream appeal.

The animation for this anime is good but not great. I wouldn’t say it’s low-budget or anything, but there were more than a few times when background characters had almost no detail. A lot of shows do that, and if that’s the most egregious mistake, then I think that’s a win.

I loved the voice cast for this show, especially our two leads. The show follows Cecil and Bertia from childhood into young adulthood. When Cecil is still a child, he has a different VA than when he’s older. I loved it when they did a scene of Cecil growing up, and the voice slowly changed from the previous VA to the new one.

Cecil is voiced by Donna Xia when he’s younger and Blake McNamara when he’s older. They both did such a fantastic job and were part of what made this show such a treat. But this anime has two leads, and that voice will matter just as much. Bertia is voiced by Kelly Greenshield, and I’m ashamed to admit that I was unfamiliar with her work up till now. She made a new fan in me with the way she was able to endear me to Bertia.

I put a spoiler tag just in case, but I’d rather not say too much about the story. I suppose I did give away the ending, but trust me when I say that’s a small part of what made this story great. Unlike other villainess anime, Bertia tells Cecil straight away that she’s an isekai protagonist, and she explains that their world was an otome game in her world.

This frames the story in a way that is fairly unique for the genre. We don’t follow the villainess per se, but we follow Cecil and his fascinations with Bertia. What they do with the heroine is also different from what I’m used to seeing. So long as you can get past her dumb name, she’s called Heronia, by the way.

Bertia embraces being the villainess in the kindest way possible. She tries to set things up for the heroine to win, but we are led to believe that Heronia is also isekai’d and has knowledge of the game; because of that, she doesn’t trust anything Bertia does.

Cecil also grows in a lot of ways, and while the villainess being a positive change isn’t new in the genre, I liked how it was explored here. The things he does for Bertia are adorable, and I love that Bertia is such an exciting influence on his life.

I’m not always the biggest fan of villainess shows, but this one was a standout. While I would love to see more, I am more than satisfied with the conclusion. Mainly because, unlike a lot of shows, this actually has a conclusion. That’s getting rarer and rarer these days. So do yourself a favor and watch this show, and thank me later.