First Look: Fall 2023 Anime Overview: I'm in Love with the Villainess (Patreon)

Premise: Rae is reincarnated as the heroine of her favorite dating sim. But she has no interest in romancing any of the boys- she's head over heels for Claire Francois, the villainess of the game. Claire is horrified to find the major target of her bullying suddenly enjoys it, often pleading "step on me harder". But Rae isn't just here to flirt with Claire- she has a plan to save her beloved from a horrible fate.

I'm allowed to have a problematic gay fave. In fact, I would call it my right as a lesbian. And I enjoy I'm in Love with a Villainess a lot, despite some bumps in the road. It's tropey as all get out and a story that shows signs of having an inexperienced author, but it has real heart to it, it's full of joy, and connects with me in surprising way.

I'll try not to ramble too much, since I'm planning on writing a longer article on this series-- so keep your eyes peeled.

I'm in Love with the Villainess might not always be traditionally good, but it is very fun and entertaining. Rae ignoring all the male love interests to stan for her mean girl fave is ultra relatable to me, and her  gremlin energy is off the charts. Claire is also a super fun character-- if you love ridiculous ojou-sama characters, she is max ojou sama. But she's also hiding a lot of insecurity and of course, a secret soft side-- her character arc over the course of the series is really satisfying.

However, Rae's pushiness might be a sticking point for some. Her worst moments are mostly contained to episode 2 where she does inexcusable things like ogling Claire while she's changing (against Claire's wishes) after having wriggled her way into a position as her maid (against Claire's wishes, though Rae does have secret noble reasons for that one). This is her worst moment and she calms down a bit from there as the story starts to find itself. Her pushiness remains, but gets a bit less uncomfortable as it becomes clear Claire likes her too.

This pushiness clashes a bit with a really interesting thing ILTV does--which is engage bluntly and honestly with homophobia and stereotypes. There's a great moment in episode three where the series. Rae is asked point blank if she's gay, she responds yes. When Claire moves away from her in response, it's pointed out to her that's a form of homophobia, and it's pointed out how screwed up it is to believe anyone who's gay is automatically going to creep on every girl they see. Rae also gently corrects someone who gives her the common "you're just fall in love with the person right? your love just transcends gender?" line that's often used to avoid talking about queerness directly  with "no, I'm a lesbian, I only fall in love with women."

And yes, homophobes got big mad at this scene. How dare a yuri anime be gay! I'm in Love with the Villainess does not let homophobic yuri fans feel safe.

It's really refreshing to see a silly isekai series directly engage with stereotypes and lesbian issues like this, and it was a very pleasant surprise when I read the novels.

However, this message is a little muddled by the fact Rae did harass Claire, so Claire has every right to feel uncomfortable around her. The show does acknowledge this. The story makes it clear it knows Claire has a right to distrust Rae and it's her responding badly specifically to Rae saying she's gay is the problem. But it's still very weird to simultaneously have a "gay people aren't automatically predators!!!" coupled with "well also our gay main character does commit a little sexual harassment sometimes".

I don't really begrudge the author this- Inori was obviously just engaging in the unfortunately typical anime tropes, but also decided to also use her story to passionately educate about and defend gay people and couldn't quite reconcile the dissonance. However, it is very "have your cake and eat it too".

But ILTV does do a very interesting thing with the common anime trope of the overly demonstrative lesbian character who does wacky hijinks and declares her love in a "funny" way. Rae reveals she's so used to being treated badly and rejected by friends and crushes for being gay that she treats her feelings as big joke as a defense mechanism. Because she’s so used to being rejected for her sexuality, she’s given up on earnestly pursuing Claire from the beginning. She doesn’t think she has a shot and she doesn’t want to risk being rejected. However, if she’s loud and obnoxious about her love for Claire, the inevitable rejection doesn’t hurt so much.

She makes it so Claire’s rejecting her for being a weirdo, not because she’s gay. If it's a joke, then when everyone laughs at it and dismisses it, it doesn’t hurt…and she can still be honest about and open about being gay. She can fool even herself and stay around Claire without any of that heartbreak and awkwardness that destroyed relationships the other times she confessed her love.

Rae's arc throughout the show is overcoming her assumption that Claire would be happier with a man and there's no point in earnestly courting her. She's so used to being degraded, she thinks it's impossible she could give Claire a good life and impossible that her real feelings will be accepted.

It doesn't excuse Rae's actions, but it does make her a very interesting character, and one that's meaningful to me as a lesbian. It adds surprising depth to a usually tired trope.

There's also some other interesting aspects of the anime, like how Rae simps for Claire but doesn't simp for her classism. She often gently challenges her on it, and the "commoner uprising" plot, while pretty weirdly paced and (temporarily) resolved, does treat the commoners sympathetically. Considering how other kinds of isekai regularly excuse shit like buying slaves, it's nice to see one that very much sympathizes with marginalized.

Though the commoner uprising plot does lead us to the other huge caveat with the anime- incest. Yeesh. There's a plot twist where it's revealed that side characters are in an incestuous relationship, and they're treated as tragic and sympathetic, they have a love that cannot be accepted, etc. The anime makes this worse by having Rae say "homosexuality isn't the only kind of forbidden love",  which (unintentionally?) equates queerness and incest, which is something homophobes often do too. (The novels aren't innocent either, Rae laments "Why can't people be free to love who they want" at one point in a way that less explicitly equates the two things). However I was able to stand this because it's mainly executed as a plot twist. We don't get any details about the character's relationships, we barely see them even stand next to each other, and they're out of the plot  fairly quickly. I can absolutely see this being a deal breaker for someone less numb to anime bullshit through.

And finally, a character comes in who acts fairly manipulative and skeezy towards Rae herself, though the drama she does stoke is great stuff.

So yes, I mean it when I say it has problems! But I find the fun shenanigans, blatant lesbian wish fulfillment, honest support for queer people, and the joy and earnestness of the series worth it enough I can grit my teeth through it all. It should also be noted that Inori, the author, is a trans lesbian, and that's another big reason why this is so special to many people-- it's a lot easier to forgive a new author for some uneven writing when she has a stake in telling queer stories.

The anime is obviously one that doesn't have a lot of resources (and I missed some of Rae's interior monologue, which gets more into what a nerd girl she is) but it does a decent job with what it had (though I would have liked it to condense or cut some of the magic duels and Rae doing harassment to focus more on the stories strengths, but alas). I have my fingers crossed for a second season, but the yuri don't tend to get those, so I'm not holding my breath.

Is ILTV's pacing sometimes weird? Yes, the commoner uprising doesn't get as much attention as it should. Is it sometimes clumsy? Oh yes. Do I still get a joy like no other when Rae kicks aside the screen prompting her to choose a male interest to yell for Claire instead, or when she fantasizes about herself and Claire being warriors together? Hell yes.

ILTV is often silly, often flawed, but you know what, queer people get to have our silly, flawed, but still occasionally touching stories as well. Straight people have has a monopoly on it too long. It's not a series for everyone, but it's a series that spoke to some struggling queer people regardless, and it's a series that makes me smile, and that's all that matters at the end of the day.