I’m in Love with the Villainess – 03 – Not All Fun and Games

Rae has settled into being Claire’s maid, and Claire seems to have a little more of a tolerance for Rae…she even calls her by her name on occasion! She also gains a little more respect for her after watching her go toe-to-toe with First Prince Rod in chess.

Rae’s goal is to keep Rod’s affection points as low as possible, but he knew she was going easy on him and is charmed by that fact. Claire meanwhile really wants to beat Rae at chess, but finds doing so difficult. When Third Prince Yu stops by to give her some pointers, she’s not interested, and the gaggle of young ladies following Yu are none to pleased!

Yu, trying to get a better bead on Rae, proposes a game of poker. Like Rae, I loved Claire’s adorable lack of a poker face, as well as Misha’s strong poker face. Rae’s first hand is a good one, and her first card swap gives her a straight. Rae correctly assumes her hand isn’t good enough to beat Yu, and while she knows he rigged the game, she doesn’t call him out.

Mostly Rae wants to take her leave from Yu as he’s Misha’s childhood friend and she doesn’t want to anger her. While out in the courtyard Rae leads Claire and Lene to where Second Prince Thane is playing the harp. She knows from the game the proper way to approach and talk to him to score affection points, and so is dismayed when Claire doesn’t do that.

When Thane laments that harp-playing won’t prepare him for the throne, Rae proposes a game that might: the King Game. He draws #1 first, and orders Rae and Claire to hold hands, which Rae loves. Lene is the next king, and has Thane pat Claire on the head, which Claire loves.

Finally, Rae is king, and we learn that she and Lene decided before the game that they’d blink out their numbers. Rae orders Claire and Thane to kiss, but he puts an end to the game when he deduces that the King Game doesn’t test one’s kingliness any more than the harp.

Rae does a masterful bit of bullshitting (or is it?) by revealing to Thane that she was actually counting on him to expose her true intentions. His refusal to carry out an unreasonable order (kissing Claire) followed by uncovering Rae’s “treachery”, shows that he does indeed have the makings of a king.

The one most confused by how Rae played the game is Lene. After all, if Rae loves Claire, why would she work to bring Claire and Thane together? That’s more or less answered in the most serious and dramatic scene of the series, as Misha comes right out and asks Rae if she’s gay, and Rae says that she is.

When Claire reacts like she’s in danger, Misha admonishes her for being prejudiced. While Claire is justified in not trusting Rae due to her words and actions, Rae simply being gay doesn’t make her some kind of sex-crazed maniac. The point Misha makes is that no one lusts after anyone, anytime.

When Lene tries to clarify that gender doesn’t matter and Rae just happened to fall for Claire, Rae gently corrects her: There’s no way she’d ever fall for a man. This gets Rae thinking about how she’s never had any luck in love, and indeed anytime she’s tried to take a step in that direction, those she loved drifted away.

When asked, Rae says she may have given up on Claire, but it’s just as accurate to say she never expected Claire to ever return her feelings. As such, she’s simply content to be by Claire’s side. This also explains why she asked Lene to help her bring Claire and Thane closer. Rae’s “end goal” isn’t necessarily to get with Claire; it’s simply to make Claire, the ostensible villainess in this game, happy.

When two random girls start talking shit about Rae under their breath, but loud enough for everyone to hear, Rae smiles and laughs it off—her longstanding defense mechanism—but Claire isn’t so passive. She pours her tea all over one of the girls, then ojou-laughs it off as an accident when it very clearly wasn’t. Rae is speechless.

Misha is also surprised that Claire actually stood up for Rae, but Lene says it’s more a matter of Claire being angry about unintentionally hurting Rae and needing an outlet for her anger, and those two girls fit the bill perfectly.

When Claire orders Rae to follow her out, Rae sheepishly asks if Claire hates her. After a beat, Claire shouts that of course she hates her. Rae responds with a smile and a laugh, but that smile seems more sad now that we know what Rae has gone through in the past and going through now, and that she’s coping with loneliness and unrequited love the only way she knows how, at least for now.

Thankfully, we’re only three episodes into this, so even Rae, with all her encyclopedic knowledge of Claire and the game, can’t say with certainty how things will shake out. She should remember the promise she ordered Claire to make when she won the exam bet: Never give up; never lose hope.

I’m in Love with the Villainess – 02 – A Maid Matched in Heaven

While everyone is stunned by her “immeasurable” magical level, Rae stays mum about the fact that she, the protagonist of the otome made flesh, is a water-and-earth dual wielder. This is incredibly rare even for nobility, and it’s the first sign to Claire that Rae isn’t your typical commoner.

Because Rae isn’t included in the overall ranking, Claire considers their bet off. However, Rae was careful to make her promise to do one thing for her “if she didn’t win”, and Claire did not technically win. Fortunately, Claire doesn’t ask for anything lewd; just for Claire to promise never to give up.

While this seems like a random request, the fact of the matter is Claire ends up losing everything in the otome—she is the designated antagonist. Rae intends to keep forging route of her own making—a route that ends with winning over Claire.

For now, Rae’s strategy seems to be remaining in Claire’s presence as much as possible. To that end, she applies for an open maid position in Claire’s household. The head maid informs an exasperated Claire that Rae is actually the most impressive and qualified maid by far, and her apparent devotion to Claire only makes her a more enticing candidate.

Of course, the last thing Claire wants is for this creepy commoner to serve as her maid. Her father Dole, third in line to the throne, initially takes her side, but a few cryptic yet knowing phrases from Rae and a brief private meeting later, and Dole is insisting Claire take Rae on, citing a Francois’ need to “hold a restive horse’s reins”. Political blackmail—You know I love it!

Claire grudgingly accepts, and warns Rae that she’d better do everything she says. We meet Claire’s other maid, Lene, who has served Claire since childhood and acts like a big sister. Lene takes an instant liking to Rae, which makes sense as she’s one of the few people who know Claire as well Rae does, if not better.

The benefit to Rae is obvious: she has an easy excuse to always be by her beloved’s side, even at a tea party with Claire’s noble friends. When told she likes Claire and awful lot, Rae says she doesn’t like her, and her reward is a look of shock from Claire. Of course, she doesn’t like her, she loves her.

When the time comes to bathe Claire, Lene handles the washing of her body, while Rae is tasked with washing her hair. Claire admits Rae is quite good at this, and Rae takes the opportunity to praise Claire’s hair, which is naturally straight but put in curls by Lene every morning to honor her mother.

Lene like Rae and has high hopes for her, but Claire, always possessed of the lowest possible opinion of commoners (that is, those who aren’t Lene), believes Rae will eventually give up her games and make a run for it. When Lene tells Claire to stop calling Rae “commoner”, Claire says she’ll stop if Rae stops with the lovey-dovey talk. Rae, of course, immediately refuses.

That night, Rae sees to it that Claire is okay after spending so long in the steam. She sits beside her bed saying she’ll stay until Claire falls asleep. Claire sits up and tells Rae to come clean: why does she keep claiming to be in love with her? Rae tells her: she’s so cute she can’t stand it.

When Claire dismisses her love as skin-deep, Rae also says she loves her personality. That’s when Claire one has her realest moments yet, admitting that she knows she doesn’t have the kind of personality that people like. She’s convinced Rae is one of those people, and demands to know what she’s “really after.”

Rae tells her the truth: she loves her; there’s no ulterior motive, political or otherwise. She draws in close so their moonlit eyes meet, and says if Claire doesn’t believe her, she’ll do her best to make her believe her. With that, she leaves Claire, who blushes into her sheets. It’s the first sign that her tough armor is finally starting to crack. That said, I’d hope that the hard edges of Rae’s pushiness are smoothed off at some point.

I’m in Love with the Villainess – 01 (First Impressions) – The Thrill of a Girl with Drill Curls in an Ill New World

Oohashi Rei, who like Akira in ZOM 100 worked for an exploitative company, would unwind after work with Revolution, her favorite otome (dating sim) game. But one night the TV screen gets all glitchy, and the next thing she knows, she’s being dressed down by none other than her favorite character in the game, who is not of the designated hot guys, but the villainess Claire Francois. And Rei couldn’t be happier.

Rei, now “Rae Taylor”, has somehow been transported into the world of the game. Now occupying the same three dimensional space as her digital crush, she wastes no time taking her hands in hers and declaring her love for her. Claire…doesn’t know what to do with this, but one thing’s for sure,it throws her off! She’s supposed to be an effective bully, but none of her bullying works on Rae. It only makes Rae love her more.

Honestly I was surprised how up my alley this show turned out to be. Serizawa Yuu is a hoot as Rae, who is unabashedly head-over-heels for Claire, and while I’m not too familiar with Claire’s seiyu Nanami Karin, she knocks it out of the park with a suitably haughty performance, complete with enough robust ojou-sama laughs to give anyone using them for a drinking game serious alcohol poisoning!

I also love how Rae, when she was Rei, didn’t give a shit about the prescribed dating routes in the game, but interacted as much as possible with Claire. She does the same when thrust into their world, only remembering the three hot princes existed when they show up in the middle of Claire trying and failing to psychologically abuse her. Rae even gets Claire to neg the sensitive second priest she actually likes, a tremendous self-own!

This show may only work if you like both Rae and Claire, and get why Rae loves her. Claire may be a rich bitch and a bully, but Rae points out how Claire never goes too far in her bullying, and she’s also cute as hell when she’s flustered, which is constantly in Rae’s presence. But like a bug to a bug light, she just can’t resist trying to put a commoner in her place.

To that end, she challenges Rae to a duel involving their upcoming exam scores. If Claire wins, Rae will leave the school. If Rae wins, Claire has to do something, anything she wants. And while Rae isn’t that confident in her table etiquette, she’s extremely confident in the written exam since she did exhaustive research on the setting of the game when she wrote a doujinshi in her world. She’s also above-average to exceptional in magical abilities.

On the morning the exam scores are posted, Claire thinks Rae has bags under her eyes because she’s nervous about the results, but she’s wrong. Rae simply stayed up all night thinking of what she’d ask Claire to do for her after she won. And win she does, scoring higher than Claire in two of the three exams. Only two of the three princes scored higher than Rae in the written exam, while Rae takes the top spot with her “unmeasurable” magical power.

I’m in Love with the Villainess has a simple, fun premise that’s a great twist on your standard otome isekai story. Where past villainess shows I’ve watched make the villainess a tragic or sympathetic character, Claire is portrayed as advertised: she’s a real piece of work with drill curls. But love comes in all forms, and not only does Rae love her, but it’s totally understandable why she does. We’ll see if Claire ever comes around to accepting those feelings.