Review of Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I'm Not the Demon Lord

“This looks like an Otome game ; Oh right, it's one” -Yumiella Dolkness In a world where the Isekai genre is dissimilar to the Otome game/Villainess genre, you get a lot of anime which are very basic and don't reinvent the wheel. From the few Otome game anime that I've watched, it never clicked right. It was always a bit too girlish and unoriginal. But then, out of the blue, a new fighter joined the arena, it's called... *clears throat* Villainess Level 99 : I May Be The Hidden Boss But I'm Not The Demon Lord ! (At this point in this current day and age,it's not that much of a long name isn't it ?). After watching this anime for the whole winter 2024 season, I came to the conclusion that this anime was quite enjoyable, I even learned what 99 is in japanese with the amount of times it's said in the anime, “Kyu.ju.Kyu”

To start with, instead of doing things cringy, it understands what it is and makes meta jokes about the average Otome game story, how it's generally pretty shit and easy to foresee what's gonna happens next, added to the base fact that those anime are generally girls getting truck-kun'ed into their favourite Otome game that they played on the switch the night before. For somes anime, it's just one minute at the start and then becomes irrelevant into the main story, making it kinda just like a fantasy ? Well, this anime clearly isn't just all that, Yumiella keeps refering to her massive knowledge of having finished the game and 100% it to make everything goes as smooth as she wants, but then.. you get to see that the events gets changed with her actions, how will she adapt to this !? You'll need to watch this anime to find out. But for real, the comedy is on point and is generally nicely sprinkled sometimes in the anime, Yumiella is also a badass character, since she's level 99 (the max), it's basically impossible to stop her, her darkness magic is unrivalled and makes up for a lot of events unfolding in the story, like imagine that : in the beginning, we get told that the most op character so far is level 60 only, and it's exponentially way more powerful the higher the level is. Of course, fucking op characters was a novelty in the Isekai genre in 2016, but the mix of people scared, people who wish to get her powers, friends made along the way, the fact that she wants to stay lowkey all makes up for something nice. There's always fucking epic magic fights every few episodes, all in the goal to kill the demon-lord (how original indeed). To somewhat wrap up what makes the story not bad in my opinion is also the other side characters, they are all quite different with each their goal, and somes character development is made throuhough all of the 12 episodes which wraps up nicely two whole years of high school.

To continue, all of the parts around the meat, the ones that support the story, the visuals and sounds, they aren't revolutionary, but they are fine. Of course, considering that this anime is made by Jumondo, who made one of the worst visually appealing anime of 2022, Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer, we wouldn't expect something made by the best of the best, which is also explained by the 3D monsters (shocking I know from a somewhat shitty anime, but as us shitty anime watchers, we can go through this and find the small fun parts of it) used in the anime. The other visuals are honestly fine, it keeps a consistent visual (which is always great to have, I'm looking at you COTE) which is quite polished, you could argue that the emotions aren't well represented on the faces, but it's hard to do that when the premise is that the MC is as apathetic as possible, which also makes up for somes interesting moment xD, but that's the initial goal. It also kinda uses chibi a little too much which may be a way to cut corners, but if it's to keep the rest decent, I'm all in. On the other side, I wanna mention how both the OP and ED are fucking bangers and are somes of the best this season imo. OP sang by Mayu Maeshima, who was in Myth & Roid before, who did a few Re:Zero song and even did the last OP of it by herself, so it was a certified banger. The ending is more special, a girl singing suki and dancing is an easy recipe for greatness, or should I say Dolkness ?

To conclude, this anime isn't boring, and that's the good part ! I had a fun blast watching it, it gave me hope and made me interested again in the Villainess genre, with it's somewhat basic everything, but good execution overall. It might not be the shiny stone or unbeknownst to everyone the best anime this season (when you see Frieren having 0,3 score higher than FMAB, it's hard to beat hihi). But as something pretty chill to watch and simple, it worked well and I'd recommend you to watch it as a good introduction to this genre or perhaps if like me you had lost hope long ago and cameback to the original 50 words long isekai name reincarnation into another world with the most overpowered powers in this another world for christ sake.