I heard that it was a good game. Katarina should try it one of these days. Y’know, mix it up a little. Can’t be playing visual novels all the time.

— Alright, let’s just get Sirius’s backstory out of the way. You know it’s coming.

— Sirius is not actually Sirius. His real name is Raphael, and he was living a peaceful life with his mother until the bad guys showed up. In reality, he’s the illegitimate son of a philandering marquis, and his wife is not happy about this one bit. As a result, his mother ends up being murdered so that a mage could acquire dark magic. The dark magic would then be used to transfer memories from the marquis’s sickly son over to Raphael, thereby allowing the real Sirius to continue living. Obviously, that’s not gonna work. Did nobody consider the fact that Raphael wouldn’t actually lose his current memories of himself? Like c’mon, is everyone in this universe as dumb as Katarina?

— What’s also interesting is how dangerous this world really is. Y’know, behind all the sunshine and rainbows in Katarina’s life, there’s a seedy underbelly full of adults murdering each other. And when they’re not busy murdering each other, they’re using their rank and status to coercively rape their servants. This aspect of the story, however, hasn’t been explored at all until now.

— With her last breath, Raphael’s mother told him to avenge her… which doesn’t seem like a very motherly thing to do. But as you can see, his vision here is clouded with dark miasma, so his memory of this event has been tampered with.

— The mage who performed the ritual ended up being betrayed by the marchionesses, ’cause y’know, adults are evil.

— Back in the present, Raphael talks about how he plans to destroy everything that the marchionesses holds dear. I’m not sure I understand what any of this has to do with Katarina and Maria, though. I must be missing something…

— He also calls Katarina a hypocrite for trying to save his soul. I’m… not exactly sure why that makes her a hypocrite, but okay.

— Like most goody two shoes, Katarina continues to approach Raphael anyway. She even claims that she’s the villainess. Boy, that must have been confusing for her friends to hear. Villainess? Wha? Who? What are you even talking about?

— Ultimately, Katarina’s ability to unconditionally love everyone reminds Raphael of his mother. So just like that, the dark magic that has had such a strong hold on him is shattered. He suddenly remembers his mother’s actual last words. Boy, that easy, huh? Well, it’s kind of a cop-out, but Raphael isn’t truly evil. In fact, you would argue that he isn’t evil at all. He’s just tainted! What would Katarina actually do in the actual face of evil, though? Well, we’ll never know. Not in this season, anyways.

— Alright, so if Raphael isn’t truly evil, then why is he doing evil things? Well, it’s because that dead mage has been haunting him ever since! An evil adult was behind this all along! Argh, damn those evil adults!

— And in just mere moments, the dead mage is going to go away for good. Raphael simply takes Katarina’s hands and declares that he no longer needs the dead mage. Just like that, the evil spirit is exorcised. Whew, slow down, guys. You’re gonna wear yourselves out at this rate!

— It’s kinda funny how the harem pretty much didn’t do a damn thing. They were just here to watch, I guess.

— With still half an episode left to go, Katarina is back to fretting over her fate. After all, she’s a big ol’ dummy who still hasn’t figured out by now that none of her friends are gonna kill or exile her. But whatever, just play along with the child.

— At the graduation party, our heroine hands Nicol a big bundle of veggies. Well, at least they have more practical value than a bunch of dead flowers. She’s so considerate of his bowel movement.

— Thanks to Katarina’s influence, everything has turned out perfectly. We even get to see Geordo and Alan performing on stage together.

— Nevertheless, our heroine stupidly assumes that she has somehow triggered the reverse harem route… not for her, but for Maria. Unable to take the suspense anymore, she goes and confront Maria directly about whom the latter loves.

— Naturally, Maria has only one answer: it is and has always been Katarina. But of course, our heroine doesn’t catch on. She doubles down and tries to clarify her question. Despite the fact that she has plenty of female admirers, Katarina is oddly heteronormative. I wonder if she even knows that homosexuality is a thing. Sure, she’s going off of the game’s original script… but she hasn’t played the game in years.

— Maria reiterates that she only loves Katarina. The latter even recognizes that this is one of the lines from the original game, but she’s too dense to put two and two together. In the end, the rest of the harem drops by to pledge their eternal love and allegiance to Katarina. Seeing all of these people fawn over her is almost too shocking to take seriously… if I thought that Katarina wasn’t just simply dumb.

— After the party, Raphael even makes a return and adds himself to the harem. Welp, we’re getting a little boy heavy. Time to add a few more girls to the mix, don’t you think? Unless, of course, you count the maid…

— That’s that. That’s all she wrote, folks. Well, not really…

— Geez, they announced the second season hella fast. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, though. Sure, a lot of shows ended up being delayed due to the pandemic, but this anime somehow ended up garnering the most views for my blog this season. Does it deserve the attention? I dunno. I don’t think so. Outside of the fact that its harem is inclusive of both boys and girls, the show doesn’t actually do anything well. The animation is average, the romance is by-the-numbers, the characters aren’t unique, and the voice acting is nothing to write home about. It’s not the worst isekai-slash-harem mashup, but so what? In not-so-kind words, the show is gimmicky.

— But despite all my gripes, I’ll probably still end up blogging the second season. Not like I got anything better to watch! What was the last time I was excited to blog a show from start to finish? A Place Further Than The Universe? Meh, probably.