I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss Review

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I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss is an anime about Aileen Lauren d’Autriche, the only daughter of a duke and fiancé to the crown prince of the Ellemeyer Empire. When Crown Prince Cedric nullifies their engagement, Aileen remembers her past life in Japan and that she is currently in an otome game she once played. She realizes she’s the villainess who dies due to events in the game. To prevent that, she decides to propose marriage to Claude, the first prince of the empire and king of demons. He’s also the villain of the Otome game who killed Aileen when he turned into a full demon at the end of the game. 

I started reading the manga of this series a while back before it became an anime, but I only read the first arc of the story. From what I recall, the anime seems to follow the manga well, but the anime goes farther into the story than what I read up to, so I can’t say for sure. 

This plot is another “reincarnated as the villainess” storyline, so it lacks some originality and uniqueness. However, there are a few things about it that does set it apart from others. Most particularly, the fact that Aileen, the reincarnator, decides to go straight for the villain of the otome game, unlike others I’ve read who try to avoid the story altogether but fail. 

She’s a fun and entertaining character. I like that she’s smart and capable, though not to an extreme extent that it doesn’t make sense. Basically, she trained her whole life to become the Crown Princess, given her engagement to Cedric. So, she uses her knowledge throughout the story well. She’s steadfast and stubborn, but not to an annoying degree, which makes her likable.  

Claude is surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, given the type of story, kind for a demon king. He cares about the demons a lot and those he works with. I particularly really like that his emotions affect the weather and nature around him. First, because it’s funny, but also because it’s easier to know what he’s thinking. Sometimes I get tired of male leads that are hard to read because it’s difficult to tell if they genuinely like the female lead or not.  

Unfortunately, I found Cedric’s personality to be confusing. At first you just hate him because of how he treats Aileen. He seems like a horrible person. But then his attitude starts to change, and he does all this flip-flopping. It’s hard to understand what’s going on with him.  

There wasn’t a lot of explanation into his character, why he does the things he does, and what changed his mind. After all, he and Aileen were childhood friends, so his sudden change was strange.  It’s confusing why he treated her as he did in the first place.

I guess we’re supposed to assume the otome game story forced him into the role, especially because of his love for Lilia. But one of the issues I had with this anime is that it’s hard to tell whether they really are characters forced into certain routes or if they are actual people. 

 The anime itself even touches on one character believing they are all just game characters and another disagreeing that they are people. However, it seemed like they were simultaneously both, which made it hard to understand what the original intention was. 

I was a bit disappointed in the premise of the third and final arc of the anime. I won’t explain what it was to not give away any spoilers. It’s not a bad idea, just overused. It also most affected Cedric and whether they were game characters stuck to a script or real people with free will. So, it was the most confusing out of the whole anime. 

Lastly, I also really didn’t like how quickly they wrapped up the series. The length of the final arc was fine. I honestly wouldn’t have wanted it to be too long given the premise. But the very end was literally a few minutes, if that, of Aileen explaining what happened after the last fight. For instance, we didn’t even get to see the whole wedding. Instead, Aileen narrated that they got married with a picture of them in their wedding attire. 

It also left some lingering questions, some of which involve the entire concept to begin with. They revealed some big things in that last arc but glossed over them so quickly to the point that it doesn’t really make sense. For example, without spoilers, the king and queen’s actions during the last arc. 

Overall, I think I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss is a fun anime to watch. I really like Aileen and Claude. They are the best part of the series, and their relationship is cute. It’s also a pretty funny anime. However, I think they rushed the ending. It left some areas of confusion, particularly regarding Cedric, his parents, and how the world works. If you like isekai, especially villainess ones, then I recommend you watch it. I am curious, though, to go back to the manga and see if it does a better job at explaining some of the missing pieces that I feel the anime left out.  

Check out some of my other anime reviews too.

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