The Spring 2025 Anime Preview Guide

I'm the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire!

In his last life, Liam lived as a moral, responsible person…but died deep in debt and betrayed by his wife. Reborn into the ruling family of a vast interstellar empire, Liam knows that life is divided into the downtrodden and the ones who do the stomping, so this time, he's going to take what he wants and live for himself. But somehow, things refuse to work out that way. Despite doing his best to become a tyrant, Liam's decisions lead to nothing but peace and prosperity for the empire under his rule, and he just gets more and more popular.

I'm the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire! is based on a light novel series by Yomu Mishima. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Tuesdays.

While I understand why I'm the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire! opted to start with two episodes, I can't say I'm happy about it. While not strictly true of all isekai or reincarnation stories, this one did need to show us what Liam's life was like before, because it's integral to the choices he makes in his new one—and just leaving us with one episode about the absolute disaster he lived in Japan would be too depressing. But that doesn't make it feel like his decisions in his new science fantasy life are exceptionally well thought out, which I'd say is a problem in a revenge story. Yes, what he went through before with his cruel wife and boss was undeniably terrible. But that doesn't give him the right to do the same thing to an entire galaxy of people he's never met and who have done nothing to him. Edmond Dantès' story works because he exacted his revenge on very specific people. If he'd gone on a world-conquering spree, I'm not sure The Count of Monte Cristo would still be a classic.

However, Liam's overreaction is just the tip of the iceberg with this show. There's a distinct lack of sensical storytelling across these two episodes, most of which appear in the second, which details the start of his new life. We no sooner meet him at age five (apparently when he awakens to his past life memories, as is required by isekai law) than his mother presents him with a ridiculously complete AI maid order form before his parents summarily abandon him after requesting an allowance for the rest of their lives. Liam freaks out over his mom showing him a character creation menu that includes choosing his new maid's nipples and vulva, only to immediately decide to inspect the goods upon her arrival, with the implication that they did something overtly sexual in the playroom, if not actually had sex. (He's physically five, I'll remind you.) He goes from confusion to world domination in about two minutes flat, with basically nothing in between.

I'm the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire! feels like an exercise in extremes. Everything, from his wife's infidelity to his choices with Amagi the robo-maid, is dialed up to an eleven, and none of it has any natural story flow. It's entirely possible that the plot is simply trying to get somewhere before slowing down, but between Liam's decision to just be as much of an ass as possible and a princess who makes her mech stand in clichéd lady poses with her knees together and toes turned in, I can't say I'm particularly interested in letting it get to that point. It doesn't make much sense, doesn't look great, and is all-around irritating, which is a firm “no, thank you” from me.

As I always say, “Fun” goes a long way in this industry. That goes double for steaming hot trash. Take this anime as a perfect case study. On paper, I'm the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire! has all of the components of a show that I would be primed to hate right from the get-go. It stars a self-righteous and egomaniacal little twerp who's isekai fantasy is based on getting revenge on the life that did him so dirty back on Earth, including the wife and the daughter who ripped out his heart and stomped it into pieces before the drudgery of modern capitalism unceremoniously murdered him. Now, reincarnated as a ridiculously rich and entitled Space Billionaire, Liam Sera Banfield will use his rage and his wealth to fuel a galactic takeover the likes of which this new universe has only ever had nightmares of. Of course, he's going to do it with the help of his dutiful and amply endowed sexbot maid waifu, not to mention whatever other warrior-maiden mecha pilots he adds to his harem along the way.

Here's the thing, though: That description I just gave up there is so ridiculously and self-indulgently stupid that it has the potential to be pretty damned entertaining if the show is smart enough to simply have a little fun with it. Thankfully, that's exactly what Evil Lord does. Don't get me wrong; I was completely straight with you when I said this anime is flaming hot garbage. It's the kind of flaming hot garbage that knows what it is, and it's simply out to be the most entertaining garbage it can be. That extra dash of self-awareness is the key distinction between insufferably incompetent trash and trash that you are almost ashamed to admit that you love. Think of Evil Overlord as one of those glorious exploitation drive-in flicks from the '60s and '70s. It will never pretend to be high art, but it'll get butts in seats with all of the sex comedy shenanigans and edgelord violence it brings to the table.

If I'm being honest, I was biased in this show's favor from the start. We've been drowning in self-seriously crappy fantasy isekai for a decade now, so I was all too happy to indulge in a self-aware-but-still-terrible space-opera isekai with giant robots. Plus, this show's sense of humor is just my brand of too idiotic to live but too shameless to die. It's one thing when the female characters of one of these revenge isekai exist solely to fulfill the childish fantasies of the emotionally stunted main character. Evil Lord steps up its game by making Amagi the Sexy Robot Maid Waifu a literal sex-doll-slash-royal-advisor-slash-evil-general. She even comes in an oversized figurine box, complete with swappable lady bits. It's still crass as hell, but it isn't pretending that Liam's story is anything but a silly Saturday morning cartoon that facilitates some cool robot fights. I will take that over a cheap, overdramatic portrait of dudebro suffering any day of the week.

Look, I'll be the first to admit that you need to have a relatable protagonist in any work of fiction. For a revenge story (which this is, even if said revenge is aimed at the world in general), you need to make the audience sympathize with all they have lost. This way, even if the hero goes outside of both morals and the law, it is understandable, and you root for them regardless.

However, I'm the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire! goes way too far with the tragedies of Liam's first life that supposedly force him down the path of an “Evil Lord.” He works at an exploitative company, his wife cheats on him, he's forced to raise another man's child, he is framed by his boss for embezzlement (and said boss also happens to be his daughter's real father), and then he is worked to death doing manual labor to pay back his old company and pay child support. I mean, come on. His past is too dark to feel real or even relatable. It's so far over the top that it almost feels comedic.

What's worse is that this backstory is little more than an excuse to rationalize him getting a literal “bang maid.” An android designed for him by him, she is his ideal woman. And since he can program her, she can never betray him like his wife did—especially after he perverts the three laws of robotics to control her even more strictly.

Then we have the whole in medias res space battle going on. It's set up to make him look evil, but there are more than a few hints that this is not the case. We get no context as to why the battle is being fought and who Liam is fighting against. For all we know, this is a defensive battle, not an offensive one. In other words, we have every reason to believe the title is a false one—that this is just a show about an insecure man who is trying to be evil but sucks at it. That's not the worst setup, and it's nice to have an isekai set in a sci-fi world for once, but I'm not sure there's enough substance here to hold any real interest.

Why does every anime season insist on putting its worst foot forward? I swear the first preview guide entry I write is always for some stinker, and woo boy, is I'm the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire! ripe.

I will grant that it has some interesting ideas. Instead of a lazy LitRPG setting, the story takes place in science-fiction space travel society recovering from an AI revolution; as mediocre as the mech battles may be (and oh, they are so very mediocre), they're still more interesting than a guy standing with his hand out reciting the names of spells. The entity that sends Liam into this world isn't a benevolent god that wants him to experience happiness, or a klutz who did an accidental whoopsie-doodle, or some uncaring divinity who accidentally brought him over with a bunch of “better” heroes; it's a malicious being who plans to feed off his suffering.

But ideas are only worth as much as their execution, and when the third episode came out, I thought of offering executive editor Lynzee money to not have to watch it, rather than the other way around. The release schedule has been utterly baffling; two episodes were posted on Crunchyroll without any previous announcement two weeks before the show was due to premiere, and then a third episode hit only a few days later. Luckily, I didn't have to sit through that last one, because the first two were an incredibly unpleasant experience. The first episode is twenty solid minutes of misery porn as Liam, in his previous life, works long hours to pay rent for his family in a small apartment, only to find out his daughter isn't actually related to him and to get fired for supposed embezzlement. That's one thing; people get cheated on and fired for trumped-up reasons all the time. What pushes it over the edge, however, is the malicious glee with which his scheming harpy wife and his bullying boss conspire to frame him and ruin his life. Why? Who knows! But they take great joy in cackling over it.

The second episode, after he dies of a preventable illness in a dark and dirty apartment, is less of a relentless bummer. However, even if it wasn't miserable, the story's events are covered in a thick layer of sleaze. Liam may not be running out to buy slaves, but he spends his fifth birthday customizing a robot slave meant to replace his parents as part of their plan to goof off to god knows where and saddle him with their debts, including selecting a vagina for her. So he can have sex with her. Which he does the moment she arrives. At physically five years old. Augh. Every single moment of the two episodes was over-the-top cringe, leaving me begging for the suffering to just end. I'm a good woman! I take care of children, am kind to animals, and don't litter! I don't deserve this!

At the very least, it looked terrible. Quad has a short history as a production studio, but they're at a 100% hit rate for awful animation and nonsensical storyboarding. Which isn't a good thing, but at least I know no talent is being wasted on it from a studio that has skilled workers.

Life is too short to fill the time until you die with bad anime. It's spring! Instead of watching I'm the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire!, I recommend taking a walk around your neighborhood without your phone and enjoying the nature that's all around you.