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I'll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History's Lackluster Visuals Hide Potential

I'm a big fan of this recent trend in anime that focuses less on the standard fantasy theatrics of being a hero and more on trying to exist in these worlds uniquely. Not everybody shares the same fantasy about being born or sent to an alternate world. Some people want to gain power in a specific way, while others don't even want to be a hero. At first, I’ll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History appears to be one of the more bland attempts at being unique, and the presentation does not help that. This is probably one of the whitest shows I have ever seen, with incredibly washed-out colors and skin tones so that almost all the characters practically glow on the screen. There are some cute visual quirks here and there, like our heroine having a chibi version of herself annunciating some of the action. But aside from that, for a premiere episode, there's very little to engage the audience at first glance, narratively or visually.

So, if the premise seems lazy and the presentation is poor, why was I still interested to see more after the credits rolled? I'll Become a Villainess wastes no time establishing its premises and where it wants to go. However, whether or not that's the actual direction the story is headed might be entirely different. This is a classic isekai series where a girl wakes up in the body of a seven-year-old born into a noble magic family. She knows the main route of the video game story and knows that it'll be her job to take on the role of the villain. However, because our protagonist never liked playing as the hero, she instead wanted to be the best villain she could be. A whole year passed by the time we reached the halfway point, with her training physically and mentally to accomplish that goal.

However, the story seems to be planting the seeds that her behavior directly impacts the scripted story. One of the main love interests who is supposed to be with the heroine seems to have taken an interest in our lead (it feels a bit weird for a twelve-year-old to be so infatuated with a seven-year-old, but whatever). There is even a scene where the king of the land specifically asked her, at the ripe old age of eight, how he should improve the economy. It's bizarre when you say it out loud, but in the show's context, this might be building to something. Maho Film has picked up a lot of unique shows that, more often than not, go against the grain of what you would typically see. Sometimes they're interesting, and sometimes they're boring, so I wonder which side of the pendulum this show will swing past this first episode!