English Dub Review: My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! “I Visited the Heroine’s Parents’ House…”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Catarina and Mara continue to grow their friendship. In fact, it seems Catarina is the one paying the most attention to her, even defending her from bullies (who were incidentally led by Catarina in the original game scenario). This is a bit concerning, as it doesn’t look like any of the conquerable guys have approached her to begin building their affection, not helped by Catarina stepping on more important scenes that would have gone to one of the boys. But surely they’ll get in line eventually, she thinks, not knowing that she’s basically assured that will never happen.

Later, Catarina and Keith go out to look at farms to learn more about gardening and end up going to Maria’s hometown, eventually going to the house she lives in with her mother. The mother is surprised by Catarina’s visit, especially hearing that she’s taken up making sweets again. Turns out that Maria’s been bullied and gossiped about ever since she gained her rare Light Magic abilities. Because of that rarity, it’s rumored she’s the illegitimate daughter of a noble, which has made it hard for her to make friends or for her mother to keep her wits about her. Thankfully she’s glad to hear that Maria’s gained a good friend in Catarina. Though that doesn’t stop Catarina from getting an earful from her own mother about gardening at the academy.

OUR TAKE

I can’t help but feel like we’re treading water here. Seems like lthe ast episode was about developing Maria as a character and then having Catarina inadvertently take a crucial bonding event from one of the guys, but this episode seems to be more of that. I mean, we do get more insight into Maria’s own backstory, which is important seeing as she’s the only one of the EIGHT MAIN CHARACTERS who didn’t grow up with Catarina, so that is certainly a step forward. But I also feel like there isn’t a ton more to pull from that we didn’t cover when talking about last week’s episode. I’m guessing her having light magic is going to be significant as we continue to go through what’s left of the game’s scenarios, but that’s probably the only thing that’s really catching my interest here.

The novelty of the rival character accidentally hijacking the harem was pretty neat for the first few episodes, but it’s starting to wear off as I more clearly realize that the available outcomes don’t look to be landing in very interesting places. If I had to make a guess now as to where things were headed (which I may be off considering we’re not even at the halfway point), it seems like we’re going towards Maria ending up with not one of the conquerable guys, but Catarina herself. In which case, it seems like just about every other major character (who all currently are smitten with Catarina and don’t seem to have much personality or development outside of that) are basically Dead On Arrival as potential love interests. And I have to say, that kinda deflates a bit of the tension out of the romantic side of this series. But again, that’s only coming from five episodes in, so things could be switched up any moment, not to mention I’m sure that the romantic aspect of it is likely not to be the only thing going on.

I do hope that the rest of the cast gets more opportunities to grow as people and not just be spectators who all perform the same collective joke of being incredibly forward with Catarina, only for her to have what they’re really saying fly over their heads. It’s one of the pit falls I often see with these sorts of stories and I’d certainly not like to see it here as well. But then again, maybe twelve episodes is simply not enough time to develop eight people. Maybe if it had been twenty four?