I put this on in the background while transcribing old military discharge documents (weird time to be split-screening and watching anime, I know). To be honest, I expected to like it a lot less than I did. There are so many isekai villainess animanga that I'd probably go insane before I managed to consume all of them, but it's still a niche I appreciate. Within this genre, there's a smaller subset of villainess who are dedicated to the role of being villainesses (I'd say half want to not be executed, a fourth want to "go down in history," and the last fourth want to enjoy their lives as a sidekick). This anime is basically dead dove. She's a villainess, and she wants to be remembered as the best one.
The worldbuilding is basic and uses the same old setting all the other isekai villainess stories do. There's canon classism that just goes unaddressed. The characters are all tropes, and aren't inherently charming. The protagonist, Alicia, refuses to be remembered in tandem to someone (which is why she refuses to entertain the future prince's courtship in the earlier episodes), and yet she's placing her entire future on antagonizing the Saintess of the story. Hypocritical, but fine, it's a heterosexual story, we get it. She has a peasant boy aid, who worships the ground she walks on for her villainess charm and willingness to save his home village, a magically isolated town of outcasted criminals and their offspring. The future king, AKA the original happy end from the game, ends up falling in love with her, because she's brash, smart, and talented. The Saintess, Liz, is actually a good person but she's naive and can't do anything useful even though she's blessed, blah blah blah. On all of those fronts, it's as generic as generic gets. There's not one single unique thing, from the character designs to the voice acting.
That said, somehow, this story is quite charming. Liz's unnatural ability to charm the people around her is acknowledged by not just Alicia, but also the people around her---the king himself appoints Alicia as Liz's watcher, to make sure she's growing and becoming more mature as a person, and refuting her points since nobody else can. Liz seems to appreciate this later in the story, even though it takes her a while to get over herself. Because I'm pretentious, while watching (I think it was episode nine), a Dostoevsky quote appeared in my mind. Alicia's entire role is to "destroy her desires" and "eradicate her ideals," tearing her away from her good-feelings echo chamber by force, and causing her to embrace a more active role in aiding society as a whole instead of bumbling towards a "happy end" with no real plan or drive. Despite the fact that Alicia constantly "antagonizes" Liz, Liz seems aware that Alicia is the only person who's willing to do this, and almost appreciates it. Green Hair and Yellow Hair, original capture targets, (who are always together; if I cared about this series more, I'd probably ship them) are both immune to Liz's unconscious, magical charms, as well as the future king and his little spy. Indirectly, Alicia's presence counteracts the passive brainwash effect Liz has on everyone. They're perfect foils, except that part's not interesting, because once again, none of the characters themselves are unique enough to warrant further analysis.
There's enough yuri bait (between Liz and Alicia's weird thing, and Mel-Mel's---the future prince's spy's--intense crush on her, so that even the future prince tries to keep them separated) for me to care about the characters' relationships (shallow reason, but hey, I take what I can get).
What's interesting is the progression of the story. The characters are led down a relatively unique plot. It takes characters' disabilities (like the fake Saintess who only has one leg, and the blind man) and injuries seriously, unlike most of its brethren (even if it never acknowledged how Alicia can swordfight with only one eye and no depth perception) (when I say seriously, mostly I mean that it doesn't magically heal them). I don't even know if I can explain why it's so much more captivating than it should be... Apart from the fact the anatomy in the last episode got all weird like it was outsourced to another animation studio, the end provided a delightful emotional catharsis to the buildup of the other 11 episodes (episode 12 I consider as the climax and part of the falling action, so I'm counting that in "the end"), and Liz and Duke (future prince) in particular were redeemed.
I have more to say, but I'm not so sure how else to say it. Is this worth watching? Yes. Are you missing out if you don't? Nope. But it was spectacular background noise as I worked on transcription, and I'm sure Corp. Louis Williams will forgive me! (It's not like he has a choice, on account of the fact he's dead. RIP Louis Williams. I promise I paid half-attention.)