Today was the day we’ve been waiting for! I’m In Love With The Villainess anime has premiered on Crunchyroll. With an English dub, as well as the Japanese audio track.

As I said in a comment on the first episode, this is the Yuriest anime that has ever been made, since it is literally centered around the romantic relationship of two women right from the first moments. As those of us  who have read the novels know, it also becomes progressively queerer as it unfolds. We should find out next episode how much of that is retained. For these things alone, I would love this anime.

The narrative  – especially in these early scenes – are wholly character-driven, so it’s a pleasure to know that the voice cast really made it all work. I actually laughed out loud twice watching this first episode, even though I anticipated the gags. inori-sensei commented on her Pixiv Fanbox that at the live premier event in Japan, she was worried that people might not react to the jokes, but there was plenty of laughter. The funny bits were, genuinely, funny. I’m going to rewatch the episode later this week as a dub and see how the jokes land.

Serizawa Yuu as Rae and Nanami Karen as Claire have really dug deep on these characters and made them come to life. Of course the supporting cast is also terrific and it felt very comfortable to hear the three Princes, Pipi, Loretta and Misha all sound, well, like they sounded in my head, honestly.  Kenn’s Rod Bauer was so full of bonhomie, I kinda sympathized with Rae’s dislike of him. ^_^

The one real weak spot of this anime is the animation. I have a number of thoughts about that. First, let’s just acknowledge that there’s a good chance that it simply was given a limited budget. That happens and I would not hold it against them any more than usual. I’d rather the animators get more time and money every time, but no one asks me. That said, we can do some justification …and projection…without too many mental calisthenics.

To begin with, this story begins in the world of an otome game, so the animation might be reflective of that. Otome games are, like other sims, usually pretty flatly animated in a puppet show kind of way. The backgrounds here are often ignored for sound effects and other gimmicks, which are, yes, money savers, but also give this early phase a gag manga feel. It would be kind of cool if, as the story developed, so did the animation. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I’d love to see it.

We can see a little bit of the initial arc of the story from the opening credits. At the very least we can see that the Commoner Movement arc will be included and, with the addition of Mizuki Nana to the cast as Manaria, it’s a good bet that it will go through the Scales of Love arc. That means we’re definitely getting into more serious territory before the season ends. And here, I am going to digress, but I will be back to conjecture further.

Today on Twitter, the official wataoshi account announced that Blu-Ray Box pre-orders are available at various Japanese anime outlets. (That link will take you direct to King Records to pre-order.) Different stores have different extras, as usual, and folks who pre-order will get a special copy of “Rae’s doujinshi” story that she wrote for Revolution, of course, written by inori.-sensei herself. The BD box is slated for a February 2024 release, so that’s an extremely early pre-order period. inori.-sensei commented on Twitter that expectations for success were very high so the BD Box was arranged even though the anime had not yet aired.

So, back to conjecture. I think that pre-orders for the box set may well be used to determine if a second season will bring it to the end of the Revolution arc. Sales for that could determine whether we ever see a Nur or DQ arc – highly unlikely, but not wholly impossible. Sure, the anime also may exist in part to bump up sales of the ongoing manga and the print volumes of the novel and I hope they do! There’s nothing wrong with that. Ichijinsha’s done a decent job extending the life of several series that way.

Definitely give the series a watch. It’s fun and goofy and deep and serious and very queer and we’ve never seen an anime like this before, really. As we discussed on the Okazu Discord as I typed, if you want to get someone into Yuri, this would be a good place to start! Like isekai? We have series for you! How about high fantasy?  We got you covered. Looking for LGBTQ+ anime – it’s here. Oh…you like Sci-fi….well, sit down and let me tell you….  Looking for something with social consciousness? This is what you’re looking for !

So grab your friends and get them aboard the Yuri train with I’m in Love With the Villainess, streaming now on Crunchyroll.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 9
Characters – 100
Yuri – 8
Service  – This is a complicated question… Let’s take a look at it again later

Overall – 9

A fun start to what I hope will be a story that takes audiences to very gay places they have never been before. ^_^

Next up for us, would be to pressure Crunchyroll to provide us with premium BD box sets so we can get that doujinshi, too!  I mean, I can see myself pre-ordering the JP set just for that….please don’t make me do that, Crunchyroll.