The Villainess Is Adored by the Prince of the Neighbor Kingdom

Not to yuck anyone’s yum, but of all of the otome villainess stories, this had enough of a following to be adapted into an anime? Frankly, the review that called this “otome slop” hit the nail on the head; the characters are wildly one dimensional, and the plot is just so nothing burger. Most of the time I was watching this, I wanted her to just run away with Keith because then she wouldn’t have had to go through all of these random contrivances related to “game events.” I don’t think this is anything offensive, but now that more and more villainess stories are beinganimated, I’d recommend picking up literally any other one (especially because you’ll get more of a villainess out of those stories than this one).

TLDR review: Yeah, this is pretty much Otome slop. the villainess aspect is hardly relevant on top of that. The art is beautiful and the animation is average but it has some cute moments that made me a bit giddy. If you are in the mood for something to turn your brain off to and like Otome or romance, then this is probably for you. This is in no way an anime to praise seriously or even really make sense of. The dialogue can get quite bad and a lot of times the Heroine just repeats everyone's names back to them as a reaction hahahah.Its a huge whatever burger but its cute.

> A problem occurs > MC worries about it > MC does nothing > Situation solves itself > Repeat Basically the whole anime summed up. The "villainess" is just a plain npc that doesn't do anything, hasn't anything for her and clearly is nowhere near a villainess. And the other characters are as boring as her, even in the worst animes there's always one good character but no, everyone is just... bland. While it is not the worst anime out there, you're gonna either be bored to death or shaking your screen while screaming "DO SOMETHING" with frustration. Either way, not the best moment of your life. Hard pass.

First frame: "oh, it looks decent enough, it might be worth, watch..." * rest of episode happens* "Wft did I just watched?" Luckily (for me), there's no need of a detailed review, people seem to already know that its not a great one. But I had to suffer and I also had some weird "images" planted in my head, so I decided to help other feel the same :) So. Visuals. I'd say: meh, or the basic stuff. But not the one we usually get. We have nice backdrops, nice details, nice landscapes, nice everyday stuff, basically everything under Team B was good work. Then, you getthe stuff that moves. Well, the character design is not consistent. We do get some nice ones (or even amazing, sure), but mostly it might also be reduced to meh (bro, wtf was that king's beard when he's on the throne?? in ep3 maybe?). The animation is passable. Oh, before I forget again, I'm not gonna talk about that 3D rendering for the carriages that kept appearing.... So, yeah, decent artwork, nice colour palette, lots and lots of pink stuff and shiny and sparkles VFX. Basically wallpapers all-around. And here comes the kicker. It made me feel like I was watching a hentai. I know, I know. You'll go "wait, what?" Yep. And I think it was because of how her eyes are drawn. She looked like she was brainwashed, or always sad etc. Also, paired with the B-list voice timbre that you usually hear in said movies, didn't help. I kept waiting for tropes like NTR, ffm, mmf etc. Not my fault. Truly! The FL's design, expressions and especially her voice, all of that made it feel like I was watching some goo-- ahem, some different stuff. I'm a man a culture, so give me a break, ok? Moving on. Audio. Decent sound design. The OP and ED are somewhat on par with this anime's themes, both audio and visuals. I could even go crazy and say that the ED was rather catchy and I was letting play for full 10-20 sec before hitting <Next>. The VAs were ok-ish, probably something normal for this kind of anime, when you don't have dialogue to work with. Or even amazing, like Pearl, who has scenes that helped. Apart from FL, (like previously mentioned) hers felt too much of overacting. And on a personal note (not fair for her, I know), I really hated her timbre, and that "wow" of hers (more so when we got it 3 times in 30 seconds!!). The soundtracks were ok, it felt like the person in charge had a lot of fun in selecting the tracks; I really loved the one resembling a soap drama :)) Basically decent production value. Next, all that is wrong with this thing. The premise might look similar to other titles, but the execution was poorer. The script is a mess. The writing makes no sense for a lot of stuff. The dialogue is boring (or even cringe, if you're not in the mood). Full of plot holes and plot contrivances. There's no logic whatsoever in regards to her previous and actual life. She (the player) JUST remembered, but also she (Tiararose, the marquis' daughter) ALWAYS loved the same stuff. Being it stuff like the prince or baking cookies. You must understand something: this all happens in the first half of the first episode. She (the player, the one who remembers) goes "maybe I was too strict with her/him?" when she never were the one. Tiararose did all those things, not her. Fine, I'll be a nice guy and say that maybe the sauce is better. But also, I don't fking care. When adapting stuff, when changing media, the studio in charge is meant to handle "translating" the information for the silver screen. Anyway, this review starts getting too big, so, here's an example of dialogue (the same 1st half of the 1st episode mostly), which also could be an insight into the character work. FL: "Prince 1. He's main route in the otome game that I loved so much I couldn't put it down. He's truly gorgeous.[..]the character that I loved in the first life [.......] Prince 2. He's the main character of the game's sequel. I fell in love the moment I first saw his design. But I died before the sequel was even released. [...]I can't believe my fav char blah blah blah." Great writing, I know. Ok, fine, the story becomes a bit (a tiny bit) better after the 4th (or maybe 5th?) episode. Still not enough. Also, the last 2( maybe 3?) episodes are sht, so not a great ratio altogether :))) Damn, there was also the part about character development and world-building and all the other cool stuff. Right? Can you guess how that would've went? :))) Ok, fine. I might've said some good stuff about those. Not that it would change much, because the FL has no character. It is presented like she has an arch, sure, but not really. (Also, she remembers, but how did she died? What about her family? What is she feeling about that? We never got stuff like that). So. An anime for... ok, I dunno who this is for. I haven't played any otome games, but previous anime titles with the same setup used its potential better. Plus, its 2 biggest points are wrong. Villainess? Except she isn't one. Was not one before "awakening", none after. Being assigned a role and playing the part for the assigned role are 2 different things... More so when she was and still continues to be kinda liked by almost everyone (except those 2-3 characters that aren't supposed to). Romance? Really? Just like that? Ok, lets pretend that might be. But even then its a kinda "meh" romance. While stuff was happening and my "brain" was trying to come up with different scenarios for fixing the story, ideas like "you could let her in, on the hush side. It could be a nice ffm part", "hmm, I'm not sure, but the maid could go with both those guys", "hmmm, Pearl, Claire and Tiara? Or maybe Keith? For the lolz? I mean, long time together. It might've gone this way once or twice...", "Oh, not really, but I guess even Keith plus Prince 2, plus Tiara. Yeah, It might be a bit interesting, with all that competing. Yeah... Or Prince 2 with Tiara and both the chicks for some 'happy endings' all around? :))) Yeah, even that. None for the Prince 1, fk that guy." kept flashing by. Ahem. As you can see, this anime was kinda lacking. Its not about me. *cough* So, again, its an anime full of shiny things. If you don't care about logic and stuff like that, you'll be ok. Nice, catchy ED, some cute wallpapers, if you're into that. It gets a rating of 4. I could've went for a 5, because of some decent world-building or character dev of some supporting cast, but those points also did nothing for the story in any way, so no. Not recommended. I might've if it had those "action/romance" scenes I mentioned, but again, no. No return value. Have a lovely day.