DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ComedyAkuyaku Reijou Tensei Oji-san

REVIEWS

• 

  bigsecretofind

  80/100
  Wholesome villainy (Hero) with bureaucratic efficiency.

  WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR "FROM BUREAUCRAT TO VILLAINESS: DAD'S BEEN REINCARNATED!"

  From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad's Been Reincarnated! Is a fantasy isekai anime featuring your classic, overworked Japanese bureaucrat. Wait, I said that right: it's a fantasy isekai. But let's not get hasty and dismiss it as just another "isekai slop show." This one offers a unique and surprisingly nuanced take on the genre, a refreshing twist that sets it apart.

  Our Character

  

  Kenzaburou Tondabayashi and Grace Auvergne are, in fact, the same person. For now, I will be referring to him as Kenzaburou (or "Dad"), and Grace will be discussed later in the review.

  Backstory

  Kenzaburou Tondabayashi (age 53) is your classic, overworked Japanese bureaucrat, living happily with his wife and daughter. The three of them share a passion for otaku culture and gaming, and as a bureaucrat, Kenzaburou ensures they live comfortably without any financial issues.

  Grace Auvergne, on the other hand, is a royal daughter of the Auvergne Family and the designated villainess in the otome game, "Magical Academy: Love & Beast."

  The Plot

  The story unfolds with two intertwined events. While Grace was horseback riding in her backyard, a sudden commotion caused her horse to rapidly jolt, resulting in Grace losing her balance and hitting her head. This led to Dad (Kenzaburou Tondabayashi) gaining consciousness in Grace's body instead of his real-world one.

  Meanwhile, in his own world, Kenzaburou was heading home after another hard day of bureaucratic work when he saw a child playing with a ball in the street and a semi-truck rapidly approaching. He heroically pushed the child out of the way, getting injured in the process of saving them, and was subsequently reincarnated into the otome game, "Magical Academy: Love & Beast, " specifically as the villainess Grace Auvergne. Funnily enough, his body is still alive but in a coma revealed in one of the later episodes. This is a rare sight in an isekai, where the MC's original body is, in fact, still intact.

  Dad, thanks to his fondness for gaming and having discussed the game's plot and goals with his daughter, knows the narrative inside and out. He understands how to navigate the game's world, but not in the way a villainess antagonist is supposed to—by spiting the game's FMC, Anna Doll, and giving her a hard time. Instead, due to Dad's inherent bureaucratic ways and parenting, Grace unexpectedly becomes the true MC of the game. Everything backfires on the original plot thanks to his managing social meetings as if they were stressful government meetings. Not to mention, he accidentally "rizzes up" almost everyone he interacts with, simply due to the elegance, manners, and appeal of his speech. This, ironically, results in Dad failing to achieve his original plan of helping Anna Doll go down one of her 4-5 possible romantic paths with the male characters, even as he diligently tries to guide her behind the scenes.

  Animation and colors

  The art style is colorful, expressive, and clean; nothing overly flashy, but it perfectly captures the comedic expressions and maintains a warm, inviting tone. The magical effects are decent, and character designs are distinct enough to be easily recognizable.

  The OP is catchy, with an energy that perfectly fits the series, giving me a "bump of chicken" vibe. This means it's quirky, fun, and just a little bit absurd, perfectly setting the tone for the show's unique humor. The background music effectively does its job, though it doesn't particularly stand out. Meanwhile, the ED is also quite catchy and very flashy, boasting an array of impressive effects.

  Now let's talk about the bad parts

  The anime could have explained the reincarnation more effectively by introducing Dad through a better-integrated backstory within the first few episodes. For instance, they could have split the focus: dedicating 8 to 12 minutes to his life in Japan, and the remainder to the villainess's buildup in the new world. Instead, the execution felt incredibly confusing. They allotted only about 3-5 minutes to Dad's initial backstory in Japan before shifting focus to Grace's character development. It isn't until Episode 3 that the main 'Grace' plot and Dad's strategic planning truly begin to take effect.

  Final Thoughts

  If you like isekai but are tired of overpowered teens, then From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad's Been Reincarnated! is a show for you. It’s charming, clever, and manages to blend dry adult humor with cute parenting moments. It’s not the most action-packed series out there, but it’s got heart and brains in all the right places. 8/10 for me

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• 

  Abdiel7

  40/100
  How can you turn the potential greatest villaness show ever into an Abomination?

  I thought i had learned my lesson...

  The highest i've ever rated anything from this ominous theme was 6/10 and that being rounded up. The bar is low.

  As a chair of the 'Isekai Binger Foundation', each season at least one of the shows from the worst subgenre of isekai piques my interest,

  You can of course imagine why such a show beamed brightly on my radar, an elder bureaucrat man who apparently dies by the fan-favourite multi-dimenional agent/hit-man/assasin is then warped into in a new fantasy world into the body of the complete polar opposite type of indivdual; the spoiled rich girl. This girl's duty is to make everything she touches suffer, then we explore how the mind of this modern-day japanese senior man contrasts with the nefarious dealings of an uptown girl in mysterious world filled with magic. Doesn't such a depection just fire neurones rapidly into the curiousity centres of your cerebrum?

  School setting and Isekai, in my opinion, the worst combination for isekai shows. However for the Otome-game route it isn't so bad and can work quite well as shown here.

  You know what, 9 episodes in, i was positively surprised. I thought, 'what a blast, what a refreshing take on this genre'. The author, the direction, the animation, the soundtrack it all weaved together such a stunning experience for me. It played like a parody of sorts but, instead of trashing the medium, they rather brought out the best i've seen so far for this subgenre. The strategies employed in the orchestration of its ideas allowed the viewer to engage into the world with the brain activated, aswell as providing a wealth of nuance and knowledge. What i found endearing was the added touch of immersive detail at every turn, a true rarity in this medium amongst the modern works.

  I loved how much you could learn from the dialogue as well as the intelligent discourse on display. There was no 'Mary Sue' trash, every action the MC took eminated with such a charming and irresistable sense of humilty, selflessless and only served to edify the people around her. What was funny was the stark but very evident truth of how much better a woman would behave wired with the brain of a man. They demonstrated a part of the true purpose of women as a bridge between men, every problem required her inspiration of others to solve, diametrically opposed to many of the less captivating and sloppy Villainess stories which feature an MC which in effect does everyone's job for them and better than them. The character was overpowered but there was no immoderate use of power for superfical effect. Her new found powers were used when necessary consequently hammering home the idea of restraint and self-control the perfect way a woman that position should behave. Another very irratating thing i noticed about other Otome-game shows is this perpetual wholly excessive praise and glorifcation with shallow exposition of characters(primarily female) without showing anything on screen, on the contrary in this show, that kind of nonsense was absent. I would never recommend a single villainess show to anyone, but this show was becoming the exception.

  I don't know what it was that made me enjoy the show, the fact that it went off the rails with the concept of the villainess or the production values, references, humor, and little details that spiced it up. Either way it's just different from the norm for this abstract but in a good way.

  There is a major twist early on which accentuates its status as more of a parody, which to be honest, i wasn't too fond of and it basically made any meaningful romance utterly impossible socially.

  There was of course a lack of tension, or a lack of some big, bad overarching threat, but let's be honest, is that even needed? I never missed anything like that. If you put yourselves in the shoes of a teenage rich girl, is there anything that can realistically adventitiously harm a person like that apart from God? Those people are so bored with safety and security that they surreptitiously invent their own problems and fantasize about precarious affairs they are involuntarily put in. Thankfully there was none of the classic obligatory, random-deranged-pervert-rapist, jobber rehashed subplot here to bore us, just a focus on simple but heartwarming dialogue based on everyday problems for teenagers from a high-class academy to deal with. There was minor character development and you wouldn't be wrong to critique many of the side characters as plot-devices or one-note, it did seem that way at times. As this is a dating game theme you probably expect a bit of romance, but you'll be looking for that like a needle in a haystack. Romance in this scenario/premise is always extremely awkward and once you find out the truth behind his isekai experience it becomes probably the most awkward thing imaginable, while it's a shame that there's barely any romance in a 'Otome-Game' show the argument against it, won't have too many supporters.

  Let's picture the intial premise of a man's soul inside a woman's body. We have to understand that if that's the case, he will now have to think through a woman's brain, then experience hormones that are native to the female body, that (she) because he's a woman now, because souls don't have sexual character, (no such thing as soul-mate) etc. She will experience extrinsic(to his soul) attraction to the male sex completely out of her control if we are completely logical about it. However setting up any romance in such perilous waters requires a break of a social barrier which is far too great for most writers, and not many will chastise them for not going deeeper. It's quite the hopeless conundrum.

  You're thinking now, he's going to give this show at least an 7 or 8 possibly more. But here you're dead wrong!

  Look back to my statement of '9 episodes', because after that we enter into 'the valley of the shadow of death'. Amongst the worst of the abominations, the sign of the end of any great civilization ever.

  They had me hooked, baited me like no other i had already prepared a favorable review and an outstanding score(for this subgenre) then they ambushed me as i opened the door to episode 10.

  An episode named "Cross-Dressing", you can imagine what ensues.

  I have a zero tolerence policy with such things.

  What initally drew me to anime was the lack of these kind of things, slowly but surely we're nearing perdition.

  No final ranking like i usually do.

  5/10 for first half traps, 4/10 for 2nd half traps

  4/10

  Yes, it's another trojan horse, another sad day for isekai enthusiasts.
  Perhaps i'm a fool and oversold the first 9 episodes, if you do watch it, i hope you'll cut it short there as I did..

  Hope this helps.

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