My Reincarnation in an Otome Game as the Main Villain (hereafter Bakarina) starts out as a standard isekai and dating simulator. But the longer you watch, the more the anime breaks genre stereotypes.
All dating simulators have one goal: establishing a romantic relationship with your chosen target. The ways to achieve this goal are limited only by the imagination of the developers:
- In Doki-Doki Literature Club, the player selects words that a certain girl likes;
- In Monster Girl Quest you need to fight monster girls. If you lose, the main character will become a dating target;
- Sucker for Love involves reading forbidden books and performing rituals;
- The mechanics of Brave Soul are similar to most classic role-playing games, but the choice of partners also affects the development of relationships with them.
Otome games are intended for a female audience. They have a simple gameplay: you read the text and choose answer options. To increase the degree of drama, they can add a rival villain so that she can carry out intrigues. An example of an otome game is Hatoful Boyfriend, where you need to build relationships, and the wrong choices can lead to death for the main character. But even such a simple mechanic can be destroyed, which is what our anime does.
Isekai is a genre of anime where the main character finds himself in another world. This is usually a fantasy world that functions according to the rules of the game. Every first protagonist of the genre is ambitious, possesses dishonest abilities and begins to rebuild the world for themselves. Often such changes are accompanied by cruelty and bloodshed. “Bakarina” begins with the main character getting hit by a car and becoming part of a dismembered family.
All further events unfold in the otome game Fortune Lover. The main character studies at a magic academy. She needs to diligently learn the basics of magic and choose answers in dialogues in order to make one of the handsome men fall in love with her. The bullies and Katharina Claes, the daughter of the Duke and a villainess, will interfere with her. Katarina is our standard antagonist: stupid, narcissistic, selfish, evil and bad at magic.
It so happened that a schoolgirl from another world inhabits Katarina’s body. But she played through the game and knows that all endings lead to her death or exile, and she does not intend to allow this! After listening to her own schizophrenia, the girl decides to start pumping. To survive, it was decided to devote time:
- Fencing – to repel sudden attacks;
- Studying – she is zero in it, but it shouldn’t be that way;
- Throwing toy snakes;
- Getting closer to her native element in order to strengthen her mastery of magic – for this, Katarina decides to grow potatoes and tomatoes. In fact, it didn’t help, but agricultural skills will come in handy in exile…
The days of the villainess passed during these activities until the events of the game began.
Without realizing it, the new Katarina broke the game. During leveling, there was no one to intrigue the main character. The incentive for romance in the person of the villain was lost. Events where the antagonist attacked the main character or set bullies on her were not triggered, which is why she was not saved by the goals for the novel.
All the many years of pumping up were not even necessary – instead of the duke’s spoiled daughter, those around her saw a noisy glutton and an idiot with no manners. This behavior not only saved people from death and execution, but even attracted people.
Katarina dragged the blanket over herself and assembled a harem, which only became larger over time. But the strong frontal armor did not allow the girl to notice the advances from the characters. She even tried to pimp people who loved her, which drove them into depression. Her spontaneity conquered even villains and murderers who tried to harm her.
The main factor in the mechanical breakdown was ordinary kindness. Katarina was surrounded by ideal characters who were oppressed by their own exclusivity. The meaning of their existence was to meet and become a couple with the main character. An ordinary heart-to-heart conversation opened them up and made them happier. Katarina’s responsiveness and ability to treat everyone as equals showed even the background characters – the gardener and the maids – in a different light.
In many ways, Katarina’s uniqueness is similar to Kobayashi, the main character of Dragon Maid Kobayashi-San. There, an ordinary office worker keeps powerful dragons in check. Ancient lizards can easily destroy the Earth and love to harass the girl. But they could not resist her authority, kindness and adequacy. “Bakarina” can also be compared with the heroes from the anime “Trigan” and “Grenadier – the Smiling Warrior,” where they bring love and peace to a cruel world.
Diagnosis
“Bakarina” destroys established cliches and lifts the mood when watching. The anime amazingly shows that you can complete a dating simulator without intrigue, leveling up, or dating itself. There is an emphasis on the importance of a well-developed villain to advance the plot, as well as the moral of being yourself. Here, kindness reveals the characters as more than just targets for loving accomplishments. Even in a seemingly simple game with dialogue choices.
If you like anime, then read the manga “My reincarnation in an otome game as the main villain… My life is on the verge of destruction?!” This is a separate story, where the main character captured Katarina’s body a year before the events of the game (before that she had more time left). New conditions and characters make the work sparkle with new colors. In addition, due attention is paid to Katarina’s parents.
