Score: B

If nothing else this show definitely tries to do its own thing with the reincarnated villainess concept. Which is almost necessary these days since we’ve gotten so many of these shows over the past few years. Some things will be revealed as the show goes along, but in terms of making first impressions I’d say this show did a good job.

This guy is ok

It probably is for the best to straight up take the protagonist role away from the reincarnated Bertia and give it to Cecil. Not that an airheaded protagonist can’t work. We’ve seen this kind of setup work many times before over the years. But having someone a bit more competent as the lead and dealing with his unusual love interest can work. Ironically Cecil is pretty much an isekai protagonist in his own right since he’s about as OP as the average one is. The guy’s brain is so absurd he can completely break every aspect of their society if he spends a couple minutes thinking about it.

Zeno was basically my spirit animal in this episode. That goes especially true in the first few minutes. Bertia is honestly an essential element here. Without her energetic and upbeat personality this guy could easily get exhausting in no time flat. His only flaws is that he can’t dumb down his thinking in order to deal with the normal people around him. Thank goodness he wasn’t the villain of the original story or it’d be hopeless!

Really is a good girl

Bertia is a sweet girl and very likeable. Definitely a bit of an airhead. She worked out for a whole year and never once thought about how her mother would be dying in a couple years. That’s some level of tunnel vision! She’s a very good and adorable kind of dumb. I want to very strongly say that she’s incredibly likeable and fun. But my goodness, she’s not bright! I love how the realization about her mother has her breaking down but earlier in the episode she was almost thrilled about how her family was doomed to ruin as things stood! I can appreciate she’s such a Cecil fangirl that his happiness means more to her than herself. But wow!

Thankfully she is a very sweet and enjoyable character. Girl worked herself to the bone to drop some weight and aim towards the vision that she had for herself. On top of that clearly the villainess in this story wasn’t particularly OP or supernatural. It seems like her evil was more political or just simply on the level of being a school bully. I don’t know how bad Bertia’s father was supposed to be either. But most of it can likely be summed up as a grieving man lashing out after his wife was cruelly taken by disease.

Just what role will this girl play?

The question I have for the show at this point is regarding the heroine. It’s pretty standard for this genre to either have the original heroine be a scumbag or almost subservient to the main heroine. The former feels most likely since it appears she is also going to be a reincarnated individual. I’ll admit I generally don’t love that story direction. Both Bertia and the heroine presumably died on Earth and are getting a second chance. Would kind of suck if that second chance was utterly ruined for the other girl. This was an otome game. Presumably there are more love interests she can go after beyond Cecil. I certainly hope she just gives up on that and finds someone else since obviously it’s not happening with him. He’s completely focused on Bertia and wouldn’t break that engagement without reason. Which isn’t going to exist now.

If nothing else it should be fun

This was a pretty fun and solid start. They get across right away that Bertia isn’t going to be very good at being evil. Or at the very least her concept of evil is so childish that she won’t even be bad if she manages to reach her goals. She contributed in part to the prevention of an epidemic. She’s already one of the most heroic people in that world and it’s only one episode! Cecil should be pretty tolerable since he’s dealing with the craziness that Bertia brings to the table while just being an absurd genius. Show looks good and really for a first episode that’s quite a bit accomplished.