Post by Rune Lai on May 6, 2020 21:32:27 GMT -5
Like (probably) most people, I'm tired of isekai series. Protag dies in our world (usually, more rarely not) and then gets reborn in or transported to another world where they get to live a new life. Some of it's wish fulfillment. Some of it is just trying to find the most ridiculous premise possible (like the one about the guy reborn as a vending machine, which has not been animated yet, but I wouldn't put it past a studio to license it).
Before there was a genre name, I didn't mind what now would be considered isekai (like Fushigi Yuugi), but now so much of it has been codified that there are certain expectations, like the fantasy world often being based on a game or having game-like functions. Even though That Time I was Reincarnated as a Slime does not exist in a game, the characters have skills and level ups as though they do.
Which is all a lead-up to me enjoying My Next Life As A Villainess even though it's isekai. And I think there's enough here that I can say while it's different enough to get me interested.
1) The fantasy world is not generic European fantasy world that the protagonist happens to wind up in, but a specific world that she's already aware of because she was playing the game before she died.
2) The protagonist is reborn as the villain/rival, rather than the hero, which makes for a nice twist.
3) Because she's played the game, the protagonist is aware that there is no good ending for her! She's either exiled or killed in every canon ending, so she has a lot of incentive to change her fate.
4) Unlike a lot of MMORPG-inspired isekai, which work under mechanics that no RPG actually has or would shortly have patched out of it (surprise skills on level-up, unbalanced abilities, special gear that literally only player can ever get, etc.) My Next Life As A Villainess's world is based on an otome game, and because it's all story based, there are no game mechanics in the world itself. The closest it comes is Katarina remembering how scenes played out in the game, but there's no recreation of dialogue trees or event markers in the world itself.
5) The protagonist does not mysteriously zap Katarina out of existence when the anime begins (unlike some isekai where they are inhabiting someone else's body with no clue as to what happened to the original occupant). She has always been Katarina in this world, until Katarina hit her head and got memories of her previous life in our world.
6) This doesn't necessarily make it different from other isekai, but watching Katarina is funny as hell. Because she knows her potential futures, she's preparing for all of them, which includes learning how to farm in case she gets exiled, learning to fight with a sword (in case the prince tries to kill her), and making sure she's on good terms with all of the love interests who might otherwise have reason to get rid of her. Probably one of the most hilarious ones is her adopted brother who grows up to be a playboy in the game, but because of her interference he grows up to have a sister complex instead. But because she's a little dense (maybe a lot?) she doesn't fully realize the ramifications of everything she's done and is constantly experiencing one kind of terror or another even when she's doing such a good job of disrupting the timeline.
I'm kind of wondering how the show's going to wrap up. Obviously surviving to the original game's end date would be one of the criteria, but being such a character based show I wonder what Katarina will want for her future once she realizes she's able to have one.
Before there was a genre name, I didn't mind what now would be considered isekai (like Fushigi Yuugi), but now so much of it has been codified that there are certain expectations, like the fantasy world often being based on a game or having game-like functions. Even though That Time I was Reincarnated as a Slime does not exist in a game, the characters have skills and level ups as though they do.
Which is all a lead-up to me enjoying My Next Life As A Villainess even though it's isekai. And I think there's enough here that I can say while it's different enough to get me interested.
1) The fantasy world is not generic European fantasy world that the protagonist happens to wind up in, but a specific world that she's already aware of because she was playing the game before she died.
2) The protagonist is reborn as the villain/rival, rather than the hero, which makes for a nice twist.
3) Because she's played the game, the protagonist is aware that there is no good ending for her! She's either exiled or killed in every canon ending, so she has a lot of incentive to change her fate.
4) Unlike a lot of MMORPG-inspired isekai, which work under mechanics that no RPG actually has or would shortly have patched out of it (surprise skills on level-up, unbalanced abilities, special gear that literally only player can ever get, etc.) My Next Life As A Villainess's world is based on an otome game, and because it's all story based, there are no game mechanics in the world itself. The closest it comes is Katarina remembering how scenes played out in the game, but there's no recreation of dialogue trees or event markers in the world itself.
5) The protagonist does not mysteriously zap Katarina out of existence when the anime begins (unlike some isekai where they are inhabiting someone else's body with no clue as to what happened to the original occupant). She has always been Katarina in this world, until Katarina hit her head and got memories of her previous life in our world.
6) This doesn't necessarily make it different from other isekai, but watching Katarina is funny as hell. Because she knows her potential futures, she's preparing for all of them, which includes learning how to farm in case she gets exiled, learning to fight with a sword (in case the prince tries to kill her), and making sure she's on good terms with all of the love interests who might otherwise have reason to get rid of her. Probably one of the most hilarious ones is her adopted brother who grows up to be a playboy in the game, but because of her interference he grows up to have a sister complex instead. But because she's a little dense (maybe a lot?) she doesn't fully realize the ramifications of everything she's done and is constantly experiencing one kind of terror or another even when she's doing such a good job of disrupting the timeline.
I'm kind of wondering how the show's going to wrap up. Obviously surviving to the original game's end date would be one of the criteria, but being such a character based show I wonder what Katarina will want for her future once she realizes she's able to have one.