The genre that has for many years dominated anime timeslots is isekai (lit. another world) – stories featuring almost universally teen or preteen characters getting transported to a fantastical world with special powers and missions that make them saviours of the new reality. For about fifteen years, a new gruesome idea has dominated the genre – that the main character is actually dead and unable to return to their home reality, with their new life in the magical world being treated as a reincarnation. There is much to be said about this change of perspective and the implied extremely depressing view of reality, but I wanted to focus on my favourite subcategory of the subgenre, commonly called ‘reborn as a villainess’ plot.

When in a typical modern isekai story the protagonist becomes the hero of his (it’s almost always a boy who is a protagonist) story, in a ‘reborn as a villainess’ story, as the name suggests, the protagonist finds herself (it’s usually a story about a girl, but there are some stories with male protagonists) a villain opposed by the people of the new world. It’s a very wide definition, including stories where the reincarnator is the big bad of an epic fantasy, or has potentially extremely destructive powers, or is simply a school bully, etc. The key being the role being distinctly non-heroic, and the original fate of the character usually tragic. What ‘original fate’? A twist specific to this subgenre is that protagonist is usually familiar with her new world, having experienced it in life as a game or a book. Of course, it does not apply to all stories. Below I wanted to introduce my favourite Villainess stories, in random order.
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