**Disclaimer: This review will focus on many of the problems I had with the show and has a relatively low score. Before you blindly downvote this review, please at least skim through what I’m saying.
This is the first negative review I will be publishing on AniList, but I think it’s important to acknowledge why you may want to watch this show. For me, it came down to the premise. The MC is transported into the body of a dating sim antagonist and becomes Katarina Claes. In the game, Katarina suffers a horrible end whenever the protagonist gets an ending with the love interests. The show’s plot revolves around attempting to avoid these “doom flags”. This is a great premise, and pairs well with Trapped in a Dating Sim so I decided to give it a shot. It also presents itself as a sort of “turn your brain off” type show, so I could understand it checking that box off for some.
Spoilers, but generally chronological. This is going to be in a rant format. It doesn’t deserve anything better. As I hinted at earlier, I watched this show because of Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs. That show was a “turn your brain off” type show for me. It was “trashy”, so to speak, but I’ve really enjoyed it so far. While waiting for the next episode to come out, I watched this show. While the two are both set in a dating sim, I thought the premise of being a villainess was better. I was excited to try it out.
The first couple of episodes were quite good. The show had a clear goal – Katarina was to do everything she could to avoid doom. This initially involved meeting and befriending the cast of the game. These early episodes had suspense, stakes, and a focus on Katarina and one or two other characters. Unfortunately, each of these episodes resulted in the same thing: the character falling in love with Katarina. In this show, that development is a death knell for any future changes to the characters. What makes this worse is there was a time skip. During this 8 year time skip, nothing changes about the characters. Because of this, we are left with 6 characters who have 2 character traits. If you list the traits out, it gets worse. The second trait for everyone is that they love Katarina.
Then they go to the academy. I thought Maria was a pretty good character. In fact, her, Katarina, Anne, and Alan are just about the only interesting characters in the entire show. I’m sure I’ll get to that later. The first two episodes at the school were interesting because of the new setting, ages, and characters. The summer vacation episode was fun because the lack of depth to these characters fits the shorts format much better. The desire episode was also enjoyable, as it followed a similar format. Then it goes downhill.
Now that Maria and Katarina are friends (and the fact that everyone and their mother is in love with Katarina), it’s apparent that none of the doom endings Katarina knows about will happen. There is a perfect chance here for the show to make a new route where Maria and Katarina end up together. It would fit the show and provide some much needed character development. Instead, they use a cheap bait and switch. The bully girls call out Katarina for bullying Maria, which clearly didn’t happen. They play the idea that Maria could believe them up for suspense, obviously she wouldn’t believe them. They had another chance here to have a steins;gate-esque point. No matter what she did to prepare, the show would follow the events of the game to some extent. They could even play off the response as dark magic. Katarina could lose her reputation. Then her friends could work to get her back and clear her name. Instead, it gets resolved in a meaningless way.
When we finally get to a doom ending, it just feels lame. My dude could have just killed her or Maria anytime he wanted. But he didn’t. Katarina just had to comfort him over his mommy issues and he was all good to go. The worst part was episode 11. This was the most disgusting episode of anime I’ve ever seen. Like half of the episode was spent showing each character’s reason for wanting to be by the unconscious Katarina, but we already knew the reasons because THOSE WERE THEIR ONLY TWO CHARACTER TRAITS THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE SHOW!
#Good:
#Solid:
#Meh:
#Bad:
#Trash:
I do not recommend this show. The premise is promising, but the intrigue elicited from it fades as early as episode 5. The show has too many things going for it to call it exceptionally bad. The first couple of episodes in particular were enjoyable. But it certainly isn’t good, and it certainly disappointed me. If I had to compare this show to something, it would be a large burger at a cheap restaurant. It looked good on the menu and I was really craving a burger. Once my hunger receded, the burger was just okay. Then, I got to the last ⅓ of the burger and started to feel full. I was close enough to finishing that I didn’t want to put it in a box or leave it. I forced myself to finish it and felt sick with the result.
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