©七夕さとり・Tea・のこみ/KADOKAWA/ 「悪役令嬢レベル99」製作委員会
After three weeks of seeing him in the opening theme and being fully aware – even if you haven’t read the source novel or manga version – that he’s the romantic interest, Patrick Ashbatten finally appears. ! Or rather, it should be more than just a name mentioned in the background. I quite liked the way he was introduced; we know he’s present in Yumiella’s world, but until he captures her interest, he’s just another NPC to her. Because she’s stuck in the gamer’s view of her new world, she basically can’t be bothered to accept that everyone around her is real, and even then, she couldn’t imagine that they wouldn’t share in her diligent grinding. Thinking. Yumiella probably wouldn’t agree with the assessment that it’s her world and they’re all just living in it, but her attitude makes that world look what it is.
The fact that everyone is failing probably doesn’t help her expectations. She quickly wondered if Alicia’s rudeness stemmed from the fact that she was another reincarnated player with incomplete knowledge of the game, and some of us also wondered. Think about it. However, this episode reflects that view by making it clear that Alicia is just an unfortunate combination of gullible and prejudiced, and maybe a little unintelligent. With no world existing in the game, Alicia’s backstory armor is largely gone, meaning she’s just an ordinary girl with an unusual form of magic. Her light magic makes her stand out, but that doesn’t mean she has supernatural powers of perception or even better than average reasoning skills. She is a fifteen-year-old girl who is putting the pieces together as best she can, while also attracting the attention of the three hottest guys in school. Her behavior very much reflects that.
More notable is how stupid Prince Edwin is. He calls Alicia out (albeit gently) for her unreasonable prejudice against Yumiella based on her physical strength, magic type, and hair color (and lack of social skills), but he’s also the idiot who revealed top secret information to his crush, who then leaked it to the entire school cafeteria. Instead of covering up Alicia’s mistake, Edwin then went ahead and confirmed it, making everyone happy that he was the backup and not the heir because that was very poor politics. Does Yumiella help her case by outlining her rigorous training regimen? No, not at all, but at least she earnestly wished to help; Ed, Alicia, and their friends seem more interested in stirring up distrust of her than anything else.
Luckily, Yumiella isn’t the only one who sees problems with the way things are going. No one else was as skillful or ignorant as she was in overcoming those problems, but the new principal appointed by the king (after the old principal’s “retirement”) firmly stood by her and even also understood that using her to help guide in the field was better than leaving her out, and Patrick was well aware of the shortcomings in the school’s leveling methods. Does that mean he agrees with Yumiella’s tactics? Absolutely not, but it’s nice to see that he trusts her completely, even if he’s disappointed in her overzealous use of the demon-summoning flute. To Patrick, Yumiella seemed to lack something in common sense – and that was hardly unusual or evil. If Alicia continues with her blind prejudice (which may be intended to parallel the racism in the world), Yumiella will need people on her side. I just wish that angle and the rest of the show looked a little better because the story here still has a lot to offer. Despite the horrifying CG monsters and waving shadowy hands.
Rating:
Level 99 Villain is now streaming on Crunchyroll.
Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more companies mentioned in this article are members of the Kadokawa Group.