My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom X Part 1 Episodes 1-4

Reincarnated into her favorite video game after an untimely demise, Katarina Claes worked hard to avoid all of her “Doom Flags”.  Now that she’s in the clear, a new adventure begins…the rest of her life.  But just because Katarina dodged her demise, that doesn’t mean she’s completely out of trouble.  The School Festival’s big play requires a Villainess and she might just fit the bill.  Then Katarina becomes a pawn in a secret deception that could have dire consequences.  But worst of all: Katarina doesn’t realize she’s become the object of the affections of every friend she’s made since she’s come to this world…and now the battle for her heart is on.

And we’re back.  Back when I wrapped up the First Season of My Next Life as a Villainess: All Roads Lead to Doom, I felt like the full story had been told and a Second Season might not even be needed.  Well, surprise, surprise.  Even though the main campaign of Katarina’s quest has been successfully completed, there’s still a lot of fun to be had in what I’m calling the “Post Game Content”.  To quote Sarah Conner from Terminator 2: Judgement Day, “We’re in uncharted territory now, making up history as we go along.”  Katarina has not clue what’s going to happen to her now and that actually makes the beginning of All Roads Lead to Doom X a lot of fun.
 
The Season Premiere is split into two distinct halves.  The first is the School Festival, which features a quick recap of the previous seasons events courtesy of the scene stealing Council of Katarina and I have a lot to praise there so I’ll come back to them later.  I actually think the initial reintroduction of Katarina and company kind of plodded a bit.  Not sure, maybe the First Season had a stronger beginning due to the presence of stakes in spite of the comedy.  It’s not like I dislike the cast, not by a long shot.  They just weren’t doing anything really interesting until the Cinderella School Play became the focus, THEN things got fun.  Katarina getting to play a Villainous with lots of improvisation gave us a glimpse to the life she could have lead had she not bumped her head and remembered her past life.  Wont lie, she should tap into this nasty side more often, she’s freaking great as an over the top bad girl.  Katarina even managed to pull success from a near disastrous finale by claiming her Villainous plan was to take all the attention away from Maria’s Cinderella character, dastardly good stuff.  All in all, I think the season should have opened with the play rather than spend the first episode just easing us back into things.  There’s a new road to explore, let’s hit the ground running.
 
The second half of the premiere saw the show teetering back into darker territory when Katarina was abducted.  And while there was a lot of the same emotional exploration of the cast with Katarina absent, especially Mary and Alan admitting their feelings for a nameless someone (Katarina) yet agreeing to keep their engagement intact for now, we thankfully didn’t retread the same dramatic ground as the Season One Finale.  Rather, this arc tapped into what makes Katarina awesome in the first place: her heart and her inability to fully grasp awkward situations.  Her captor, Rufus, found himself falling in love with Katarina fast thanks to her reminding him of the only kind person he ever knew in his life and his Dark Magic side was quickly squashed thanks to Katarina being kept in relative comfort while in captivity, with enough food and a soft bed she pretty much wanted to stick around just for them.  I will say though, Katarina’s heart is her best quality but man oh man, when Rufus finally pounced on her and was ready to go “all the way” with Katarina, sooooo many red flags there.  He even left a hickey on her neck before he had to turn himself in for kidnapping Katarina.  I get it, Katarina is gorgeous and easily likeable but restraint man, restraint.  Plus, everyone seeing the hickey gave Geordo the impression that all bets were off and he kissed Katarina to let everyone know he’s not going to lose to anyone in getting Katarina.  So yeah…didn’t get as dark as it could have.
 
My theory that Season Two would feature more “Open Warfare” between Katarina’s friends for her heart turned out to be true and everyones running out of way to be subtle about it.  An early scene saw Keith and Mary in a pretty heated debate but Katarina thought they were just flirting.  Sofia wants Katarina to stick around so much she literally writes an extra scene for her play where Nicol gets to dawn his Tuxedo Mask costume again to sweep Katarina’s character off her feet (he wore a similar outfit during his Desire Fantasy back in Season One).  This eventually led to a three way sword duel between Geordo, Keith and Nicol that suddenly broke out on stage, leading to Katarina’s need to improv an ending.  And during Katarina’s abduction, Mary’s so gung ho to rescue Katarina from whoever kidnapped her that she’s willing to go door to door and drag everyone into the street to have Maria test them for Dark Magic until they find the culprit.  Factor that in with Rufus’ steamy advances and Geordo’s kiss and you’ll see this is only a taste of the antics to come.  Katarina has no idea the hilarious consequences of her actions bringing about the friendship ending, this is gonna be good.
 
Before I close out this opening review, I’ve gotta talk about the return of my favorite part of the show outside of Katarina, her Inner Council.  Though the Chibified personality traits of Katarina eventually return to their epic meeting room, their little get away break shack is pretty cute too.  I actually think we see the Council put to use a lot more frequently in this new era of uncertainty in Katarina’s life.  Their reactions are hysterical from believing Katarina’s Mom would freely abandon Katarina if she couldn’t pay her ransom to freaking out over Rufus’ evil deception revealed.  My favorite bit from them…might actually be that part about Katarina’s Mom, that’s dead on accurate, but a close second is them realizing that in order for Katarina to succeed in the play without her lines, she needed to tap into her inner Villainess…which resulted in a shining light from above like a sign from God.  It makes me wish we had a series of bonus shorts of their extra exploits outside of the meeting hall.  I mean Fearless Katarina is playing a Game Boy and Virtual Boy at one point in their reintroduction.  How cool would it be to see the personalities playing an 8bit recap of the First Season? 
 
Guess I should mention some other odds and ends before closing out, man a lot did happen in four episodes.  Raphael is sticking around, now working for the Department of Magic and thinks Katarina and Maria would be welcome candidates…naturally Katarina wants to join so she can keep hanging out with Maria and keep being a bachelorette for the rest of her life.  He doesn’t have a huge role in the premiere but then again neither do many of the new characters who are introduced.  Geordo and Alan have two older brothers: Geoffry and Ian and they both have fiancees, Susanna and Selena.  Only Selena gets anything to really do as she’s part of the abduction of Katarina plot.  Like everyone else, she has a sad backstory that Katarina is willing to sit down and listen to and see that anyone who thinks theyre a villain, really are anything but.  However, that might not ring true for Geoffry.  Rufus reveals he was hired by someone named David Mason to basically get Geordo to abdicate his right to the throne but using Katarina as leverage.  It’s hard to get a read on Geoffry since he wasn’t featured heavily in the premiere, though he does have a very obsessive attitude towards his younger brothers.  Still, at least we know there might be some kind of “Big Bad” for the season so it wont be a last minute reveal like Raphael/Sirus at the end of Season One.  Finally, best lines of the episode go to Keith and Katarina respectively.  Apparently Romeo and Juliet doesn’t exist in Fortune Lover and Keith makes that apparent when Katarina mentions it, “Who is Romeo anyway? He’d better not try to seduce her.”  Also, God Bless Katarina.  She’s so chill around anything, such as when Rufus wakes her up the morning after he reveals his villainy, “I cant believe my enemy had to wake me up.”  This girl is such an underrated heroine in Anime.
 
Despite a sluggish first episode, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Roads Lead to Doom X is off to a great start with a renewed emphasis on humor while still finding time to tackle some sadder storyline but not making them feel so hefty or dramatic.  Much of this is thanks to Katarina looking into the face of evil and asking to sit down and talk with it…while eating a nicely cooked meal too.  No wonder everyone wants to be her true love.  And just who will that end up being and do I have an opinion on the matter?  Find out tomorrow with more My Next Life as a Villainess: All Roads Lead to Doom X as we plow through this Second Season, all the way into Katsucon.  See ya then.