Answerman

What is the Villainess Isekai Trend Actually Parodying?

RW asked:

Lately, there's a huge trend across multiple forms of media (manga, web novels, light novels, etc.) of stories of people getting reincarnated into a villainess character from some book/game/etc. they had read/played/etc. A couple of these have gotten made into anime, such as My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! and this season's I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss. The thing is, these stories all seem so extremely similar, as if they're all parodying one very specific thing (like how Space Balls was mostly specifically parodying Star Wars rather than sci-fi in general.) I haven't seen anything in any media that hits the same genre tropes but is playing it straight and predates this trend. So I was wondering what specifically are they parodying/subverting, or is this some weird trend where there isn't anything specific they're parodying even though they all feel so similar?

To answer this question, I'd like to direct your attention to this article I wrote about the trend in 2020. To summarize what I wrote then, the trend does not appear to be inspired by first-hand experience with otome games other than the basic visual novel setup of multiple love interests and routes. The closest analog is perhaps Rosalia, the rival character in the classic 1994 SNES dating sim Angelique, but most otome games don't actually feature a “villainess” character!

So, where does that character trope come from, and why is it now associated with otome games generally? In 2019, manga artist Michiro Ueyama drew a web comic regarding his interpretation of its origin. The manga's protagonist, a middle-aged man, remarks that the stereotypical villainess design with the blonde ringlets reminds him of Eliza from Candy Candy, a classic shōjo manga from the 1970s, along with the rival characters from Aim for the Ace! and Glass Mask.

As for the “reincarnated as the rival character” part, the initiator of that trend may be the popular 2013 web novel Kenkyo, Kenjitsu wo Motto ni Ikite Orimasu! (My Motto is Living Honestly and Humbly). Rather than an otome game, the girl gets reincarnated as the catty rival character in a shōjo manga. Still, the story's progression should be familiar to anyone aware of the “villainess” trend: The heroine tries to avoid a bad fate by exploiting her meta knowledge but unwittingly attracts the attention of suitors.

Next came My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! in 2014, which was easily the most influential series in the subgenre. It transplanted the familiar premise of Kenkyo, Kenjitsu wo Motto ni Ikite Orimasu! into a video game, allowing it to tap into the ongoing LitRPG web novel trend. Until then, most of the “villainess” stories stuck to pure fantasy settings; even if the heroine originated from another world, the stories did not incorporate video game meta. After My Next Life as a Villainess, there was a notable shift toward isekai stories with game elements, which you can see for yourself by searching the “villainess” tag on Shōsetsuka ni Narō chronologically.

In other words, the most likely explanation for the current “villainess” trend is that it's an amalgamation of old shōjo manga tropes and popular web novel trends. That's probably why the setup instantly feels familiar despite not referencing anything specific.

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