The isekai genre gets bigger and more bustling every year. The resurgence first became obvious with the success of the Sword Art Online anime series, and since then, every anime season has contained more than a handful of shows adapting various isekai-flavored manga and light novels. Many of these stories are hot-blooded, Shonen adventures full of action and drama. Not many isekai series, though, can say that they’re a slapstick comedy about a young girl being warped into the world of an otome dating sim. That honor belongs exclusively to My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! (Otome Game no Hametsu Flag Shika Nai Akuyaku Reijō ni Tensei Shiteshimatta…). The isekai anime with a ridiculously long title is set to debut on April 4th, a new trailer reveals.
An update on the official website for My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! (conveniently referred to with the short-hand HameHura via the website URL) shared a new look at the upcoming absurd anime series, as well as detailed info on the debut of the series. The anime is set to premiere on April 4th at 25:30, which technically translates to a 1:30AM airtime on April 5th. The show will first broadcast on Toko MX and BS11 before later running on MBS, J Tele, and various other Japanese television channels. There will also be a special preview screening of the series on March 22nd at the United Cinemas Aqua City Odaiba theater in Tokyo, with cast members of the series in attendance. Crunchyroll is confirmed to be streaming the series overseas at it airs in Japan.
The My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! anime is based on a light novel series of the same name, created by Satoru Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi first launched the story on the Shosetsuka ni Naro! website in July of 2014, with Ichijinsha publishing the stories in August of 2015 as novels, with illustrations provided by Nami Hidaka. Hidaka is also responsible for drawing the ongoing manga adaptation of the series, which began running in Ichijinsha’s Comic Zero Sum magazine in August 2017. The series is currently licensed for digital overseas publication by J-Novel Club, who describes the story as follows:
After hitting her head particularly hard one day, Duke Claes’ daughter, Katarina, suddenly recalls all the memories of her past life: that of a teenage Japanese girl. Just before her untimely death, this girl recalls playing an otome game… that is exactly like the world she’s living in now!
She is now Katarina Claes, the antagonist of the otome game, who nastily hounded the protagonist until the end. Knowing all the possible outcomes of the game, she realizes that every single possible route ends with Katarina being murdered or exiled! In order to avoid these Catastrophic Bad Ends, she has to use her knowledge of the game and her own wiles, starting with breaking off this engagement with the prince…
Will Katarina survive while making her way through this world, where bad flags trip at every turn? Find out in this reverse-harem rom-com, led by everybody’s favorite villainess!
The show is being produced at SILVER LINK, the famed anime studio behind other isekai anime such as Death March kara Hajimaru Isekai Kyousoukyoku, Isekai Shokudou, and the currently airing Itai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu. The show is directed by Keisuke Inoue, director of Ao-chan Can’t Study! Megumi Shimizu is in charge of overseeing series scripts for HameHura, having previously worked on Butlers x Battlers and Snow White with the Red Hair. Miwa Oshima, previously character designer on Ao-chan Can’t Study! and Baka and Test – Summon the Beasts, will be adapting Nami Hidaka’s character designs for animation.
The opening song of the series is titled “Shōjo no Route wa Hitotsu Janai!” (There Isn’t Just One Route for a Girl!) and is performed by the duo angela, while the ending theme song “Bad End” is performed by Shouta Aoi.
The full cast of voice actors and characters revealed for My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! is as follows:
- Maaya Uchida as Katarina Claes
- Shouta Aoi as Gerald Stuart, the third oldest prince of the kingdom and Katarina’s betrothed
- Asami Seto as Gerald Stuart (in early childhood)
- Tetsuya Kakihara as Keith Claes, Katarina’s stepbrother
- Sora Amamiya as Keith Claes (in early childhood)
- Tatsuhisa Suzuki as Alan Stuart, Gerald’s slightly younger twin brother
- Mutsumi Tamura as Alan Stuart (in early childhood)
- Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as Nicol Ascart, the son of the kingdom’s prime minister
- M.A.O as Nicol Ascart (in early childhood)
- Miho Okasaki as Mary Hunt, the fourth daughter of a marquis, and Alan’s betrothed
- Inori Minase as Sophia Ascart, a countess and Nicol’s little sister
- Saori Hayami as Maria Campbell, a commoner girl who secretly wields the powers of light magic as the heroine of the original Fortune Lover otome game
