I’ve recently finished watching ‘I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss’ in my never ending quest to watch every isekai anime that comes out. Based on the title of the show, it may sound like it is just a clone of ‘HameFura’, but it is not. While the premise does revolve around a girl who finds herself in the world of an otome game that she had previously been playing and she is reincarnated as the villainess of the story, requiring her to try and avert her death in the game, how she goes about it is quite different. Compared to Katerina, Aileen is much more intelligent and aware of her surroundings. Her strategy to avoid her death flag involves courting the demon lord and avoiding the final outcome of the first game in the series.
The series is broken into three acts. The first involves Aileen trying to woo the demon lord Claude and avoid everything converging on the eventuality of her death. The second surrounds the plot of the second game in the otome series that Aileen played, and involves her attending a school dressed as a boy to destroy a plot to use demons to destroy the empire. The third act involves lord Claude losing his memory and the royal family trying to break off their engagement, loosely based on the fan disc of the first game, and includes the climax for the entire series.
Unlike Katerina in HameFura, it is repeatedly shown that Aileen, while familiar with the plot of the games isn’t fully aware of every route and the minutia involved in taming each character.
In the first act, after breaking off her original engagement, Aileen heads straight for Claude’s castle in the forest and begs him to marry her, repeatedly until he gives in. The manipulation that Aileen utilises is an interesting approach to take, that is quite a refreshing take to have associated with a main character's personality. Her use of her knowledge of the characters, such as baking biscuits for Almond to bypass him to achieve her goals, and to win their favour and befriend them is a clear example of this.
Throughout this act Aileen repeatedly encounters issues that mirror the events of the game, but did not reflect the actions that Aileen had been taking. It becomes apparent over the course of this act that Lilia, the protagonist of the original game and the new fiancé of Aileen’s previous fiancé was the one that had been orchestrating all of these issues with an aim of forcing Claude to take his demon form and go berserk. Based on Lilia’s actions and what I know from previous isekai series, it seems that she is also knowledgeable about the world she is in, and was probably also reincarnated in that world. Over the course of this act Aileen and Claude slowly fall in love with each other, ending with Aileen professing her profuse love for Claude in the climax of the first act, saving Claude and bringing him back from his dragon form, and creating an interesting scene. The climax built up here is quite intense and is probably one of the most fierce of the entire series. The idea of another character using their knowledge of the game world to manipulate it to the detriment of the protagonist, which will become a running theme over the course of the show doesn’t come off as a completely original idea, having been previously used in MobSeka as a main plot point, even if even if the source material technically did come out earlier.
In the second act, we see how her actions of saving Claude impact on what would be the plot of the second game. Claude has to attend to an arising problem, but Aileen wants to use her knowledge to solve the problem in secret at the school. Aileen has to dress up as a boy due to the prevalence of misogyny in the area. If this is how the series attempts to tackle a social issue, it comes off as just an excuse to set up some jokes based on her gender later on in the act and not any social commentary. It is fascinating to see how the changes that have come about due to the changes Aileen has already made combined with her trying to make changes as a character who wasn’t originally in the story result in her plans not going as she intended.
At the end of the second act Aileen confronts Lilia and confirms that she was reincarnated. We also find out that Lilia only thinks about the people in the world like the game characters and not like actual people, treating her whole time in the world just like a game to be won, which sets up the third and final act of the show.
In the third act, we encounter a Claude who has lost his memories. Obviously the first thing a viewer would think at this point is that Lilia is probably the reason that Claude lost his memories. The Queen, who we also meet is also incessantly trying to call off Aileen’s engagement and make things difficult for her, which also makes her come off as an evil character. Through meeting Claude in secret and using some of the same techniques that she originally used, Aileen gets Claude to fall for her again. This act starts off rather uneventfully other than Claude’s memory loss.
Throughout the series as the stakes begin to get higher and higher, the reliance on deus ex machinas increase dramatically. In the second act, the ending is only resolved when it turns out that Claude is controlling the demons and not the demon snuff. In act 3 there are even more deus ex machinas. Act 3 even starts off with a deus ex machina when Levi helps Aileen escape from a ‘secret mission’.
Almond ends up getting killed by Levi, who is a recurring character in act 3, who you kind of assume is being influenced by Lilia. Almond’s death comes off as needless because it doesn’t really add anything to the plot. Even though Almond is a recurring character and a relatively large part of the overall plot, as a viewer you don’t really build up any emotional connection with the character and his death is similarly not very emotional. Other shows such as ‘Tenkyou no Alderamin’ are able to effectively set up an emotional connection with a character of the course of an episode just to kill them off, even if it does come off as cheap.
Lilia gets her saint sword back and the final episode contains an epic battle between Aileen and Lilia. Lilia references the fact that the other people are just ‘characters’ and that Aileen is the ‘main character’ in front of Levi, and Aileen uses the ‘power of love’ justification for her winning that is such a common trope at this point. Lilia tricks Aileen and almost kills Levi.
By the way, apparently Almond is back again and saves the day. It isn’t really explained how Almond is resurrected or how the climax is actually resolved.
The ending of the series involved yet another deus ex machina. Despite all hope appearing lost and it looking like Lilia was going to win, somehow Almond has the power to break Lilia’s magic wall, allowing Levi to put his eye gem into the Queen’s clock. This also makes Claude wake up and regain his memories for some reason. The guards come to arrest Aileen and protect Lilia, until Claude comes to be Aileen’s deus ex machina. The Queen turns out to actually be evil, and at the end she starts to age as a result. Lilia is caught and people finally see her as the true villain she was. This whole ending is just a series of deus ex machinas. The series at no point establishes any reason why any of this is even able to happen.
The soundtrack used in the series, not the opening or ending themes, reminds me of the music used in the American sci-fi television series ‘Stargate Atlantis’. Talking about the actual themes for the series, the ending for the series has an interesting aesthetic that portrays the themes of the series well, while in itself being unique.
Overall, the series is a pretty unique take on the isekai genre with some interesting ideas. I’d give ‘I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss’ a rating of 8 out of 10.
