Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Oji-san, episode 1
Alternative Names
The Middle-Aged Man that Reincarnated as a Villainess
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| 1 | Link |
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The comedy bits of this were typically pretty good (not sure how much staying power they have), but I just can’t really get over how much of the episode was devoted to the lives and backstories of the otome game characters. Either make the characters interesting and unique or let them be just tropes and let us already be familiar with them because they are tropes; don’t waste time explaining the backstory of the copypasted commoner protagonist with rare magic powers going to a school for nobility as if we’ve never heard of that before.
I also may have made the mistake again of imagining a better anime and then being disappointed with the one I actually got (though I’m not wholly convinced I’m wrong - I’ll explain in the spoiler below). If it does turn out to have an interesting twist, it might end up being pretty good, but just from what we got this episode, I give the premiere a 2/5.
speculation / hearsay
So, the impression that I got from the OP (specifically the shot of the daughter and wife sitting down on the couch to play the game together) was that the protagonist girl is being played/controlled by the daughter, and that once the two of them figure out about each other, they can use the game in order to talk to each other, say their goodbyes and whatnot. I thought this would be very touching and meaningful and was sort of disappointed when it turned out not to have happened.
However, I saw someone mention that there was a major twist spoiled(ish) by the OP, if you know what you’re looking for, and my guess is that I was right after all and that it’s just going to happen a bit later. Even if that’s true, I’m not sure I’d have the patience to get through the necessary buildup to get there.
I think that was part of showing the protagonist’s level of familiarity with otome games (a genre your average 50-something male Japanese bureaucrat isn’t likely to care about) in general and the game he’s stuck in in particular. They did spend more time than was perhaps strictly necessary on ramming that point home, but given how much of what’s premiered so far this season has been trash, this show is still looking pretty good by comparison.