(CR) Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I'm Not the Demon Lord

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by stray

VN + RPG hybrids are definitely a thing but generally (sadly) otome isekai aren't really representative of many actual otome games.

Is there an otome villainess isekai that started it all?

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Kanon

Is there an otome villainess isekai that started it all?

I feel like My Next Life as a Villainess definitely started the anime boom.

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Frontier

I feel like My Next Life as a Villainess definitely started the anime boom.

For anime, that's definitely it. I was wondering which one started it for LNs.

[stray]

Originally Posted by Kanon

For anime, that's definitely it. I was wondering which one started it for LNs.

I don't think it was the first 'villainess' series but Hamefura definitely popularized the otome game premise while Korea stuck with the romance novel setting so you've got a mix of influences. I'm not sure where the RPG thing came from but I think it draws more from RPG galge like Utawarerumono and Evenicle and stuff like that. IIRC in Mobuseka it was specifically a galge/RPG developer that made an otome RPG as a shitpost.

[Greenish Growth]

I don't know the first Otome Isekai Villainess but one of the early stories that got me reading Japanese novels was "An Otome Game’s Burikko Villainess Turned into a Magic Otaku" after it was posted here and you guys were talking about it. That was in Jan 2015. Villainess stories were stuck in my head after reading that.

I think I started reading Japanese novels in mid/late 2015. I didn't put dates on the earlier stories I read so I can't tell.

In the mid1980s to mid 1990s I complied a list of all of the stories I knew of with interesting phenomena in them - time travel, invisibililty, time loops, history being changed, time freezing, stuck in a weird time zone, gaining powers, reliving your life, etc. I always wondered what it would like being stuck in a story and knowing things ahead of time and now we're inundated with those types of stories (most of them not being that good).

[Frontier]

Well, there's no hiding it! Yumiella Dolkness is Lv 99! Nobody can really believe it, but now Yumiella has totally stolen the show from the actual protagonist of this Otome game both in-universe and out. Though she's also caught Patrick's eye, it seems .

Jeez, it seems when you're not Alicia the conquerable targets are a bunch of jerks who immediately confront Yumiella and call her out as a liar and beneath them, Edwin even makes a crack at her family, though no better way to distract a Harem than by directing them towards the girl they're mutually into even if it means their relationships are progressing much faster than in the game .

What noble girl protagonist is complete without a cute and loyal maid? Well, "loyal" to Yumiella's father rather than to herself, possibly, especially the way she's trying to push Yumiella to meet prominent men as her future suitors...though it gave Yumiella the chance to confirm her family are a bunch of people who do nothing but flaunt their wealth. Also is Rita voiced by Hisako Kanemoto or Megumi Han ?

Ah yes, swordsmanship practice! Yumiella is just happy to get to wield a sword, the dream of any RPG gamer, but no surprise William would take this opportunity to go after her...even if it leads to him missing her and making a fool of himself, or getting tossed into the air from just a casual sword swing from Yumiella. What a chump! Oh and the best part is Yumiella lifting up his body like he's a piece of paper .

Next up it's magic class and Oswald is all set to see Yumiella demonstrate how weak she truly is...only to cry and run home to mommy when Yumiella erases a specially prepared magic suit of armor down to its boots with just a little Dark Flame. No surprise when she's maxed out both her muscles AND her Darkness magic .

Do Edwin and the principal have nothing better to do than trying to expel Yumiella from the school? She hasn't even done anything other than "insult" people "better" than her by being Lv 99...though at least that one teacher is on her side, which was nice .

Though nobody would have expected that her demonstrating her true power would involve her using her special unique True Final Boss skills to create LITERAL BLACK HOLE IN THE SKY above the kingdom. I have to assume her holding back just a little is why no one got sucked into that thing. And then she just casually smiles and asks Edwin if she's properly demonstrated her powers leaving the prince to cry like a baby. Serves him right .

Fairouz AI and Rina Hidaka deliver a cute ED with Yumiella and her future Gal Pal! Seems like this girl is crushing hard on Edwin and wants Yumiella's help to woo him! But it looks like they're going to become really close friends, especially the way they're dancing together in the ED! I also noticed in the montage of men Yumiella doesn't care about any of them until a picture of Patrick shows up .

[SamCurt]

Originally Posted by Frontier

I'm reminded of Lieselotte where it seemed like the game also had stats and levels for the cast despite being an Otome game.

Well, MagiKoi in TsunLiese is... halfway through. Yes, the latter half of the game is RPG, and the PC (Fiene in this case) can be level-grinded (and is supposed to be level grinded). But in that one, the boys are not supposed to be grinded, their stats depends strictly on relationship points. While the mechanics here isn't very clear, I feel that the boys can be grinded separately, in the traditional way, given the universe mostly run on RPG mechanics.

Yumiella's asocialibility is starting to look kind-of neurodivergent to me.

[Greenish Growth]

Hmm....I don't even remember who the blonde girl is now.

I'm not good at remembering what I read (assuming she was even in the web novel).

[stray]

Originally Posted by SamCurt

Yumiella's asocialibility is starting to look kind-of neurodivergent to me.

That's... a good way to put it.

Originally Posted by Greenish Growth

Hmm....I don't even remember who the blonde girl is now.

From the ED? Eleonora was definitely in the WN. Most of the WN to LN changes came after the first volume, and I'm not sure the adaptation is going farther than that.

[Strahan]

At the end she should've said to the prince "actually, I still was holding back; I didn't want to accidently destroy the city" and when they accept her strength, be like "You know? I think moving to another country sounds grand. They may actually appreciate me rather than act like assholes" lol

PS: When the maid was like "oh, you don't need to know that" or whatever, I'd have shut that down quick. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but I just personally hate when people do that. So if my freaking maid of all things had the audacity to say that to me, a noble, it'd be super irritating heh.

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by SamCurt

Yumiella's asocialibility is starting to look kind-of neurodivergent to me.

Originally Posted by stray

That's... a good way to put it.

She kind of reminds me of Inaho from Aldnoah Zero.

Anyway, lots of fun in this episode as well, so this is a lock for the season.

[Kanon]

It was a lot of fun watching Yumiella put those douchebags in their place one by one. They probably appear to be nice in the game because the heroine's POV is biased, but it's clear here that they are extremely arrogant and stupid.

Rather curious about the girl in the ED, I'm guessing she is the main villainess (supported by the fact she's after the prince), since Yumiella is supposed to be the hidden boss.

[AC-Phoenix]

The red haired guy.... Looks like Cu is spreading his appearances

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Kanon

It was a lot of fun watching Yumiella put those douchebags in their place one by one. They probably appear to be nice in the game because the heroine's POV is biased, but it's clear here that they are extremely arrogant and stupid.

Rather curious about the girl in the ED, I'm guessing she is the main villainess (supported by the fact she's after the prince), since Yumiella is supposed to be the hidden boss.

In the VN intro the blonde was described as a "vixen" though it feels kind of funny that the game had two Villainess characters .

[SamCurt]

Originally Posted by Frontier

It feels kind of funny that the game had two Villainess characters .

I think this has something to do with LMH's dual Otome-RPG nature. The usual Akuyaku Reijō is socially closer than that blonde, but usually that type isn't RPG-boss material (even if you consider people like Lieselotte in TsunLiese--you know, she needs to be possessed by a supernatural entity to be the boss). If they want a human woman to be an RPG boss, it's more likely to be an action-girl type, not unlike Yumiella.

[Frontier]

Well, yeah, I guess you can't just casually summon a black hole in the kingdom without getting brought to the king...and unlike his son the king has enough sense to actually apologize for Yumiella's treatment and not get on the bad side of the Lv 99 lady who could level the whole kingdom if they're not careful .

Is that Adolf guy Williams' dad? I love how Yumiella needs to demonstrate her power but can't fight or pull off one of her smooth moves, so she just...bows. Which is still super impressive and proves her power. And that's before she summons dark spikes out of the floor .

Nobody other than Yumiella understands the gamer grind mindset...though to be fair, it helps that she's super OP .

The king knows not to look a gift horse in the mouth and realizes the kingdom will need Yumiella's power to help overcome future conflicts and wants to ascertain Yumiella's loyalty. Yumiella, for her part, is willing to swear allegiance to the kingdom but would rather not get too caught up in it because she'll totally bail the moment things get to be too much trouble. She just wants to live a life of peace and quiet after all .

Tea time with the queen! The queen herself is pretty shrewd and insightful, though I love how she suggests marrying Edwin and Yumiella instantly replies no because of just how much she's against it .

With the Demon Lord set to revive in two years, the kingdom needs Yumiella's help to bolster their forces, lead by a group of students headed by Edwin, to defeat him. That's why Alicia was enlisted in the school in the first place. Though while at this point Yumiella could probably solo the Demon Lord, Edwin needs to do it for optics. No big whoop, I'm sure Yumiella will be able to keep herself on the down low .

Though she has more to worry about than just the Demon Lord what with various factions and nations having an interest in her power, including an anti-king faction that counts her own family as members. I'm assuming all the men her father want her to marry are part of the anti-king faction as well. Though it seems like sweets are enough to get on Rita's good side so she stops pushing .

Well, at least Yumiella is now popular in school thanks to her audience with the king, though Alicia still is terrified of her. Meanwhile Edwin apologizes like he's pulling teeth and the boys still hate her, but that's no problem for her .

Various noble boys, including the anti-king faction, are trying to woo her though and use her power for their own purposes...but if the idea that she'll only be with someone who is stronger than her (which is impossible at this point) doesn't dissuaed them, she'll just use facts and logic !

Yumiella finally meets Eleonora, part of the anti-king faction, who the original Yumiella bullied Alicia to get in the good graces of...but instead of being concerned over that, Eleonora just has Edwin on the brain and is only concerned about if Yumiella is actually interested in him. I love how Yumiella actually points out how on paper Eleonora seems more like a Villainess character than Yumiella does. What were the game designers thinking ?

I love how Yumiella has mastered the art of idle conversation and how to respond to people without listening to them .

So Eleonora is crazy about Edwin and while twirl around in her love for him, but that makes it easy to get on her good side so long as you compliment her chances with him. Though I'm curious to see if Yumiella and Eleonora will grow closer from this because Yumiella seems as annoyed by her as she is everyone else .

Dang, Alicia finally talks to Yumiella and it's only to go straight for the jugular and accuse her of being the Demon Lord !

[magnuskn]

Wow, Eleonora looks like a future "condemnation event" candidate...

I would ROFL if she is secretly another reincarnator.

[SamCurt]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

Wow, Eleonora looks like a future "condemnation event" candidate...

I would ROFL if she is secretly another reincarnator.

I'm of the opinion that Eleonora is based on Catarina Claes.

---

I'm wondering about this "hair color discrimination" plot device. While I'm sure is a real thing nor is it otome Isekai-exclusive (the first time I read it was in Detective Conan), I have a feeling that it's used far more frequent in this genre and, given the isekai escapist element, is an allegory for a different type of prejudice. I'm not sure which kind(s) of prejudice the authors are aiming for, but the other time I saw it in an otome isekai, it's still about neurodivergence... Spoilered due to it being LN-only.

Spoiler for Hamefura, Novel 2:

While the anime's S1E07 did show Atsuko was friendless when she first met the Monkey, the reason she's in that state is only explained in her story in LN2... and it's one that is easily seen as neurodivergence-coding.

Originally Posted by Atsuko Sasaki's inner monologue

I want to have a nice group of friends to spend time with, too... but it seems that I’m not very good at that sort of thing. I don’t know how to speak to my classmates... or how to try to be friends with them. I don’t understand things like that.

It was the same in grade school — I didn’t know how to interact with people, and before I knew it, I was all alone. The other girls saw me as weird and often ignored me. Sometimes they would bully me, or even hide my things... As this went on, I eventually realized that I had become afraid of people. I started keeping to myself, never speaking to anyone around me.

And as people in this thread should know already, Atsuko's reincarnation is... Sophia Ascart, who is albino and is looked down on by society for that. Although it needs to be said, owing to the way Atsuko was reincarnated, Sophia does not appear to be neurodivergent, at least not in the same way. The Ascart parents are also far more supportive than the Dolkness parents are.

[Kanon]

There were so many hilarious scenes in this episode, it's hard to pick my favorite.

Yumiella is a huge dork but she's also quite smart. She understood the King and Queen's intentions very quickly. While they may appear to be a lot nicer than their jerk of a son, I thought the way they're attempting to cling to power to be rather disgusting, going as far as to tell Yumiella not to kill the Demon King just so their son can do it and cement their authority. I'm leaning toward them being smarter/shrewder rather than nicer.

Eleonora is definitely closer to a typical villainess, but she seems like a pretty nice girl.

The male lead still hasn't even talked... maybe next ep.

[SamCurt]

Originally Posted by Kanon

There were so many hilarious scenes in this episode, it's hard to pick my favorite.

Yumiella is a huge dork but she's also quite smart. She understood the King and Queen's intentions very quickly. While they may appear to be a lot nicer than their jerk of a son, I thought the way they're attempting to cling to power to be rather disgusting, going as far as to tell Yumiella not to kill the Demon King just so their son can do it and cement their authority. I'm leaning toward them being smarter/shrewder rather than nicer.

Yeah. However, for all their pragmaticism, it's still better than her own parents, who didn't (and probably still don't ) care for her a bit.