Another villainess story, but this time, our protagonist wrote the damn thing. So maybe we can a little more meta than usual? Konoha has always been obsessed with the stories that you typically find in otome games. Y’know, tales where the heroine has hot guys drooling over her, but there’s always a bitter, jealous woman bringing her down. It’s just a harem but in reverse. Naturally, our protagonist grows up, gets a boring office job (only people who have known the soul-sucking corporate world would want to be isekai’d), dies tragically to a truck, and reincarnates into her own story as the villainess.

Alright, this is pretty much standard so far. Why do I give these shows… well, not necessarily a pass, but why do I tend to look more favorably at them than standard male harem fantasies? There are a couple crucial differences. These villainess setups, despite being basically quasi harems, rarely have any fanservice. In fact, when was the last time you saw any? When has the protagonist of any of these anime ever tripped and accidentally planted her hands on a bishie’s crotch? When have you ever seen a villainess walk in on a prince while he was trying to bathe? Never, right? I almost want to see a reverse harem that is as shameless as some of the regular harems we get.

Could you imagine something like Hands off: Sawaranaide Kotesashi-kun but in reverse? Imagine the villainess giving one of her love interests a feet rub, and he gets so bricked up by it that he ends up spurting all over the place. Dude, the novelty alone might be hilarious. Regular harems also often have the guy collecting waifus left and right. I’ve heard of isekais where the hero ends up with 6 or 7 wives, some of them stolen from other men. When have you ever seen a reverse harem where the girl has multiple husbands? I almost want to see it. Gimme something like… Rising of the, uh, Gun Villainess where our heroine saves multiple slave boys and grooms marries them. Just for the novelty. As they say, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

But alas, The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess is pretty standard so far outside of a few quirks. The heroine is supposed to be Konoha self insert, so the heroine naturally has the same name. The real Konoha, on the other hand, ends up being the evil little sister Iana instead. So not only is there always a bitter, jealous woman, this time it’s a family member. Don’t you feel bad about that? That should make you take pause, right? It’s one thing to have a female villain who uses her own agency to nefarious ends. It’s another thing to have a woman’s own worst enemy being a love rival who is also her sister, because now you’re just playing into stereotypes.

I so wish real Konoha’s actual mental age would play a factor. After all, she wrote this story as a kid. You can’t really blame a kid for leaning into toxic tropes. They don’t know any better. But real Konoha doesn’t get isekai’d until she’s a grown ass woman with a grown ass job. Has she ever looked back at what she wrote as a kid and questioned why she wrote it the way that she did? Now that she’s living her own damn story, she can definitely question some if not all of her narrative choices. I think this would actually make the show truly interesting to me. After all, I know for damn sure I would cringe if I ever looked back at my previous works, much less stuff I created as a child.

We do kinda get a moment of self-reflection. Kinda. When Iana’s servants turn their backs to her, real Konoha thinks to herself, “I never considered that it was actually real for the characters. I bear such a heavy responsibility for all my fantasies.” This is a weird moment, because how guilty should authors really feel here? Should Stephen King hit himself in the dick for constantly siccing a creepy clown on a bunch of kids? At the same time, however, I want more of this stuff. I want more introspection on her own writing and adherence to genre conventions. And I want this especially because she’s a grown woman. For example, she says these stories always need a villainess. Do they, though? Do they really?

But first, Iana needs to survive. Real Konoha realizes that she’s only the villain of the prologue. The next dastardly individual in line is none other than the sisters’ own uncle. To make a long story short, the hot boys initially want to assassinate Iana, because, well, this is how real Konoha wrote it. In order to convince them otherwise, Iana has to save her sister. Unfortunately, the uncle’s attack is meant to serve as a tragic event that awakens her sister’s magical potential. Fictional Konoha is then supposed to travel around the world and solve problems with her newfound powers. Basically, she’s defenseless now. So while Iana may have saved her sister and her own bacon in the process, she has to continue protecting Konoha from future villains. Alright, sure. Not exactly the most exciting premise when taken at face value.

At least the sisters can be friends, I suppose. But it’s a bit weird because Konoha is a self-insert for, well, Konoha. So it’s like being your own best friend. Not only that, this version of yourself is an idealized one. Last but not least, it’s an idealized version conjured up by your teenaged self. Again, there are lots of opportunities here for the real Konoha to sit back and reflect on her writing. Could you be friends with your younger self? And would you still agree with your younger self’s conception of an idealized version of yourself? I don’t particularly have a lot of faith in this show, but it has a lot of interesting routes it can explore. I just hope it takes any of them. Just one.