Though I am an Inept Villainess – Episode 1

Content Warning: depictions of chronic illness

What’s it about? Reirin Kou is a court lady who is the current object of the Prince’s affections. However, the night of a comet, her rival Keigetsu Shu pushes her off a building, and somehow, they swap bodies in the process! How will Reiren Kou deal with being in the body of the woman who assaulted her—and is now a disgraced villainess?

When I first watched this show, I found the writing rote. We meet a series of court figures with their exposition dumped with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. We find out about a clear villainess and heroine, and the villainess might as well be wearing a giant “kick me I’m evil” sign. It had all of the signs of a Naro adaptation that I tend to roll my eyes at. I had to turn it off for a bit.

Then I read two words on the Anime News Network encyclopedia entry that made my eyes open wide: Mitsue Yamazaki.

For those unfamiliar, Mitsue Yamazaki is one of the most consistently brilliant female directors working in the industry, and one of the most booked and busy ones. Just last year, her show Zenshu stole the hearts of the entire AniFem team as one of the most moving, thoughtful representations of artmaking in anime, and of course Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle and Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun are masterpieces of comedy.

The next day, I decided to give it a second shot. It felt the second time around like the opening sections almost felt like obligatory table-setting before we get to the actual meat of the episode. What makes this show feel different, ultimately, is the character writing. Reiren is astonishingly unpredictable, often in escalating ways—one moment, she is befriending little rats, and the next… well, I want to leave the punchline of the episode for the reader to discover. She is definitely in the same lineage as our good friend Bakarina, as a Villainess whose unVillainess-like traits are so idiosyncratic as to be hilarious.

Keigetsu Shu is one of the rare “evil” women in anime to actually feel legitimately frightening. Her lack of empathy and shock over the experience of being newly disabled give her many potential avenues for a character arc, and based on many sequences in the opening, it seems like her less-than-noble background is going to play a huge role in the story. There are questions here about whether her newly disabled status is supposed to read as karma on some level—her getting exhausted by being worked up into a frenzy, and then her lack of empathy leading her to ignore Reiren’s advice about how to survive being disabled could lead to interesting discussions of the care networks disability requires.

On the other hand, Reiren’s knowledge of her own disability at times borders on canonization, where she is presented as almost preternaturally wise in situations of danger. While there is a distinctly mindful quality to her approach of “until I am actually in pain, there is no reason to be in distress,” at times it can feel like it robs her of true interiority. Her reaction to suddenly not being disabled, on the other hand, is painfully relatable as somebody who for many years suffered from chronic migraine and then found treatment. While I would not want to give up my body, the idea of suddenly never having to worry about what I eat, how much stress I put on my body, or if I have access to my medications is quite alluring.

Overall, Inept Villainness is a delightful, well directed show. While it is unlikely to rise to the heights of Yamazaki’s greatest properties, it can be recommended to those who want a better version of the villainess fantasy that has become all the rage lately.