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I’m in Love with the Villainess starts out as a silly isekai romance but grows into a story that earnestly advocates for queer people, taking on complex subjects like homophobia, transphobia, and classism. However, the story’s reliance on messy tropes can sometimes muddle its messages.
Despite its enthusiastic embrace of playful exaggeration and dramatic pageantry, Baki the Grappler shouldn’t be written off as mind-numbing entertainment for the masses. A critical analysis of Baki as contemporary anime, and a part of pop culture more broadly speaking, can help us all better understand how performative masculinity functions—and why it is so potentially dangerous.