She said the thing!
Though I Am an Inept Villainess Ep. 1
Keigetsu is insanely jealous of Reirin, so on the night of a meteor shower, she casts a spell that causes both women to trade bodies. It’s a fool’s errand, though. I suspect Reirin is attractive and beloved for who she is. As a result, Keigetsu may now look like Reirin, but she will never be Reirin. Her true self will eventually surface, because few of us can truly repress who we are on the inside. Villains of this sort — again, the insanely jealous kind — are often short-sighted, and think only of the reward in front of them.
Which leads me to the next point, which is that Reirin has always been sickly. She’s beautiful, graceful, infinitely kind, so on and so forth — basically another Mary Sue. She even worries for Keigetsu after they’ve already switched bodies. Hell, trapped in her pest-infested jail cell, Reirin happily captures a bug to feed a hungry rat. What the hell is this woman? The Mother Teresa of the imperial court?!* Reirin, however, does have one distinct weakness: a frail constitution. Well, not anymore! Keigetsu just handed over her number one physical asset! Who needs beauty if you’re going to die young? And this is why I’ll never understand people like Keigetsu.
Yes, everyone heaped their attention onto Reirin and ignored Keigetsu. But why target Reirin and not, well, everyone else? Why not, for instance, dismantle this stupid system where women spend their entire upbringing learning how to compete for the prince’s affections? “But she can’t,” you say, “She’s just one woman.” Uh, she can literally cast magic? I’d swap bodies with the prince and start lopping off some heads. Ah well, at the end of the day, Keigetsu is just a foolish child.
For the sake of clarity, I’ll keep referring to Reirin as Reirin regardless of the body she’s in. The prince tries to punish her through some sort of trial by lion. Basically, if the lion eats you, you’re so obviously guilty. If the lion doesn’t eat you, however, you must be innocent! What did Sitara say in the latest episode of Jaadugar? Ah, right: this is nothing more than “[the] wisdom of savages.” More reasons why I can’t stand this setting. I don’t care what time period you’re from. If you believe this sort of barbaric practice actually proves anything, you’re just colossally dumb.
Needless to say, Reirin survives. We wouldn’t have much of a show if she didn’t. But how does she survive? Well, out of her kindness to feed the rats last night, she accidentally dropped the poison pill that Keigetsu had given her (using Tousetsu as a proxy). The rat died, so feeling guilty despite it not being her fault whatsoever, Reirin wanted to give the rat a proper burial. In the ensuing scuffle with the lion the next day, it eats the poisoned rat and dies. Sheesh, what a series of increasingly ludicrous events all born from Reirin’s infinite benevolence.
Last but not least, I doubt Reirin will ever return to her normal life, but she’ll probably end up with this dark-haired captain dude. Fitting for a “villainess,” no?
*I know the real Mother Teresa had her share of controversies, but just roll with the metaphor.
A Livid Lady’s Guide to Getting Even Ep. 2
Elizabeth promises to destroy her former kingdom, which doesn’t sit well with me. I’m not against watching a show where the protagonist is truly villainous — get it? ’cause she’s a villainess? — but it’s a matter of credulity. The build-up just isn’t there. In a single episode, she went from dutiful public servant to “Fuck the kingdom and everyone in it! Yes, including the children!” I mean, that’s the logical endpoint; this is exactly what’s going to happen if Elizabeth follows her thought process all the way to the end. Does her desire to seek vengeance make sense? Does her anger seem proportionally equal to what she’s suffered? I say no. Yes, the commoners believed fake news about Elizabeth, but surely, that is not a crime deserving of complete ruin. Hell, it’s not a crime at all!
But fine, let us start turning the gears of retribution. Show me exactly how our lady will climb her way back to the top. Well, it starts with a bar of soap, apparently. Yup, Elizabeth asks Lucas, an ambassador from the Empire, to shelter her as a refugee. In addition, she requests a hundred gold coins as seed money for a business. She begins selling premium soap, but only to the “influencers” within Lucas’s domain. Little by little, she works her way up to other similar products such as shampoo, body lotion, etc. I never see any other work, though; from our vantage point, it looks like a two-women operation between her and her maid. How do they manage to get all this done by their lonesome? Ah right, Elizabeth is a Mary Sue. Moving along, she also donates to the church on a regular basis. Eventually, she even deliberately leaks info on where the formula for the soap is held, which kicks off a bit of corporate espionage.
All of a sudden, a representative from the Merchants’ Guild has come to take Elizabeth into custody! It turns out some of her customers have been suffering from chemical burns after using her soap. Obviously, our protagonist isn’t guilty. As it turns out, her rivals only stole half of the recipe. Without the other half, which Elizabeth always carries with her on a pendant around her neck, the soap is toxic and harmful. So let me get this straight… Elizabeth could’ve started up a business in anything. She chose soap. Did she choose it because she knew she could antagonize the only other competitor in the industry? Not only that, she knew that someone would be listening in on her when she and her maid yapped about the oh-so-secret recipe while having dinner at a local restaurant. She knew where to sit, she knew when they would also be partaking in a meal, and she knew they would come running back to their boss with their ill-gotten information. She knew they would try to steal it. Mind you, when a few folks tried to leak Coke’s formula to Pepsi, the company reported the poor bastards to Coke. But sure, Elizabeth just knew her future rival would be an idiot with no scruples. Then not only did said rival company try and replicate her soap, they didn’t even test it! Finally, she has to rely on the fact that the Merchants’ Guild are honorable — that they would listen to reason. For all she knows, they could’ve been bribed ahead of time. You never know!
But fine, Elizabeth got them. She freakin’ boomed them. She’s so good x 4! Unfortunately, the Merchants’ Guild can’t compel the other company to pay Elizabeth back for damages. Ah, but that’s why she’s been cozying up to the Church. How very sly of her. Nevertheless, the entire scheme relies upon coincidences stacked upon coincidences. The story wants the audience to to think, “Oh my god, what a calculating, Machiavellian genius!” But none of it seems very credible to me. But there you go… Elizabeth’s plan to topple her former kingdom started with a bar of soap.
The Forsaken Saintess and Her Foodie Roadtrip in Another World Ep. 2
Our saintess meets the rest of the party: a generic elf who is the healer of the group, and the infamous MMO couple. I kid, of course. MMO couples are infamously known for destroying parties, but these two seem harmless enough. Well, the guy is a bit of a clinger.
We get some world-building regarding the island they’re on. Basically, myriad races came together to create a non-racist nation. More important, however, is the fact that there was even a summoning at all. Something troubling must be going on if the rival nation felt the need to snatch random people from other worlds! As a result, the guild master tasks the party — fittingly named Smorgasbord — with shoring up the city’s defenses. Okay, well, this is still just boring exposition, and we’re not really here for that. We’re just here for the damn food.
First, we get skewers of chicken (they call it “phantom fowl meat” but let’s be real). Just tons and tons of meat. No veggies, no sides, no nothin’. Sheesh, not even like a bowl of rice to cut down on the richness of the meat? Apparently not. For dinner, they get a mushroom rice bowl, some rolled omelets, and yet another mountain of meat. I can’t help but think this show is aimed at people with very limited palates. Oh well, it is a damn isekai, after all…
The Oblivious Saint Can’t Contain Her Power Ep. 3
I think these episodes try to do too much. First, we get confirmation that Carolina’s presence alone confers passive benefits — massive ones, at that. Without her, her former kingdom is now beset by problems. Crops are rotting, monsters are attacking, and now there’s even a plague! Everyone is relying on Fiora to fix everything, but her healing magic is no good anymore without her punching bag around. And yet, no one has figured out why things have suddenly gone south. Gee, I wonder… well, it looks like some evil organization — looks like a religious group — plans to take advantage of Celestia’s weakened state. Sure, just throw a bunch of conspirators into the mix. Give me all the subplots.
Carolina’s engagement to Edward is finally announced to the public at a fancy party, and Edward’s brother Gilbert is in attendance. All the ladies (except Carolina, of course) prefer him over Edward, and he’s the presumptive heir to the throne. So what’s the problem? Well, his health has been pretty bad lately. Despite Edward having no desire to become the emperor, there’s talk of having him succeed the throne instead. Remember how someone tried to assassinate Carolina at the end of last week’s episode? Edward’s aide suspects that Gilbert’s faction is responsible. Not Gilbert himself, mind you. Just people in support of him taking action into their own hands. But how does this move even make sense? How does killing Edward’s future wife prevent him from becoming emperor? Bah. Besides, with Carolina around, Gilbert’s health should magically improve.
We then have a tear-jerking subplot involving Owen, one of the knights assigned to protect Carolina. Someone had tried to poison her, so Owen got overzealous. Carolina’s father came to visit, so Owen suddenly accused the old man of being behind the assassination plot. So random, right? We then get this sob story about how he’s the bastard child of a noble. Owen’s own father literally tried to kill him, so… I guess Owen just assumed all fathers are shitheads? I dunno, this subplot came outta nowhere and is woefully underdeveloped. The whole point of it is to have Carolina forgive Owen anyway, so he pledges his loyalty to her for life. Right, but cramming all of this into, like, a third of the episode doesn’t cut it.
At least the show’s title now makes sense. Carolina can’t control her powers, because nobody — including the actual saintess herself! — even knows she has them.
All Works Maid Ep. 4
The way last week’s episode ended, it seemed like Luciana was mad. But nah, she and her maid just have fun lighting it up on the dance floor… literally, in fact. Melody is having such a good time that her mana leaks out (in the form of silver sparkles). Nobody says anything about it, though.
As the night draws to a close and Melody intends to head back to the mansion, Lectias proves that he’s not the dullest knife in the drawer. He has connected the dots; he realizes that Count Regibas’s long lost daughter is standing right before him. Lectias also knows, however, that Melody desires to be a maid more than anything else. As a result, he’s torn between his loyalty to the Count and crushing Melody’s dreams. Unfortunately, we’re left on a cliffhanger. Lectias hasn’t decided on what course of action to take, and he’ll probably take a few episodes to deliberate on the matter. C’mon, he won’t spill the beans. Let’s be real. But hey, even though this is not the most original dilemma, we still actually get a subplot with some weight for once. It’s not all fluffy fun time with a maid and her master.
Which, I suppose, leads us naturally to the horrible conclusion of the episode. Tonight is supposed to trigger a major event in the story. The prince and the villainess keep searching for Celesty (a.k.a. Melody), because they need the heroine in order to survive. When they realize, however, that Celesty isn’t showing up — well, she did but disguised — they think, “Oh, well maybe the event won’t happen.” Ah, but it does. A guy suddenly tries to assassinate the prince, but Luciana takes the blow instead. Womp womp.
There’s no tension here, because I don’t expect anything seriously bad to happen to Luciana. Realistically, she should be bedridden for the next few episodes, but I suspect that won’t happen. Instead, we’ll probably see Melody go on a rampage to avenge her master. Still, if she ends up fighting the dark one, demon lord, or whatever you wanna call the bad guy, doesn’t that kinda betray the premise? “Argh, I don’t wanna be the saintess! I just wanna be a maid!” But then you have her fight evildoers anyway…? You’re just having your cake and eating it too.