Has anyone here checked out this series yet, it's a lot of fun!
I'm in Love with the Villainess is a Light Novel series which is being adapted as both a Manga and Anime which tells the story of Ohashi Rei who finds herself reincarnated in the world of her favorite video game, (a in universe romance game called Revolution), as the game's main character Rae Taylor.
The story focused on Rae's growing relationship with her favorite character Claire François who is a romantic rival for one of the game's romantic paths but whom Rae is head over heels for and she makes it her life mission to try and avert Claire's terrible fate that awaits her in the game.
The series is honestly a lot of fun with Rae being a lot more fun then other Yuri leads I've seen. For the most part Yuri leads tend to be timid, soft spoken and have a hard time expressing themselves to their love interests. Rae is anything but that, she makes it clear in the first scene of the series that she is in love with Claire by loudly announcing her love to Claire in the middle of class as soon as she's been reincarnated in this world much to Claire's confusion and comedic horror to a girl telling her that she's in love with her.
The series is a lot of fun and the English dumb of the anime is so insanely quotable with Rae's actor, Hannah Alyea, just hamming it up and it's clear they're having the time of their life.
This series is mainly a romantic comedy but when it needs to be serious it gets serious. And something else that is rather interesting is the series straight up addressing the treatment of the LGBT community in Japan. Over the years I've seen a lot of people say that Homophobia doesn't exist in Japan and they're more open minded then we are in the west. This is bullshit.
It is just as bad in Japan as it is here in the states and in some cases worse. Keep in mind that Same sex marriage isn't legal in Japan at this time, and there are many cases of LGBT individuals being harassed, murdered or committing suicide due to being mistreated. We just hear more about LGBT mistreatment in the USA because most of us live in the West and we're more affected by it here.
And because of the overall high number of Animes that include LGBT characters in highly popular series like Sailor Moon, Lycoris Recoil, One Piece, Tokyo Godfathers, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, Yuri on Ice and of course Revolutionary Girl Utena a lot of people just assume that being queer in Japan is treated as normal.
IILWTV thoroughly shatters this idea by repeatedly addressing that no, being gay, bi or trans is not treated as normal in Japan. Rae talks about how her trying to admit to people she had feels for pushed her away and how someone who was trans committed suicide because of the harassment he faced for coming out.
Sure, most of the people she meets are supportive of her and her relationship with Claire but some people need time, most notably Claire who has a hard time excepting her own bisexuality and interest in Rae.
I like that this is in the series and that they don't dance around it but talk about it. It's never the focus of the series but it is a major part of it.
... Thaaat's not to say that this series isn't without flaws, as it also has a a little to much Incest in it. By that I mean it has it at all.
I've only really checked out Act 1 and have no real interest in Act 2 but there are at least 2 incestuous relationships and... ugh. Thankfully this isn't focused on for long and we never see anything but... ugh!
Aside from that... one terrible bit, the series is honestly really great and I highly recommend you check it out if you get the chance.
