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

So, this is an isekai where the protagonist gets thrown into a game, something like a text-based dating sim, but with a magical medieval setting. The standout feature is that the MC plays the antagonist in the game’s original story, but she’s not about to stick to the script. Thanks to her chill personality and meta-knowledge of the game world, she really stands out compared to the usual tropes in similar anime. Despite the genre, the romance arcs aren’t super cringey, and a solid chunk of time is spent on the actual plot. Fun fact: the short light novel this is based on isalready finished, and the first season, which dropped this year, feels like a complete story. Even if it doesn’t get a continuation, there’s no loose ends or unfinished business, which is a huge win.

On the flip side, everything feels condensed. A lot of side events are skipped over—which, honestly, thank god—but the MC’s near-omniscient knowledge of the game’s future and her practically unbeatable skills make the story predictable and kinda flat. There’s no big intrigue, no *oomph*. And with that, watching her deal with the clueless aristocrat dummies at the academy gets old real fast. I’m not a fan of formalities in general (which there were way too many of in the Tensei Kizoku, Kantei Skill de Nariagaru), and this one really walked the line of being unbearable.

Oh, and the beginning is... weird. It takes 3-4 episodes to really get into the groove of the plot, and the very start is totally misleading about what this anime is even supposed to be. Like, come on, don’t waste our time with bait-and-switch tactics. It felt cheap to me.

The animation and visuals are solidly average, maybe a bit above. It’s easy on the eyes. The music’s decent too, but kinda samey. There’s a lot of humor, though some of it tends to repeat itself.

Unlike the Saikyou Onmyouji no Isekai Tenseiki, the MC’s personality from her original world isn’t fleshed out at all. And now that I’ve seen how much of a missed opportunity that is, it really cheapens the whole thing. Like, supposedly she played this game a ton of times, right? If they’d thrown in some flashbacks to her past life and tied them into the game’s plot, it would’ve hit *so much harder*.

That’s about it. A simple and, most importantly, complete story you can watch once and be done with.