I'll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History

歴史に残る悪女になるぞ (Rekishi ni Nokoru Akujo ni Naru zo)

7.3(70,521)

MAL Score

Ranked #2919

Popularity #1889

Comedy
Fantasy
Romance
Isekai
Villainess

Episodes: 13
Duration: 23 min per ep
Aired: Oct 2, 2024 to Dec 25, 2024
Status: Finished Airing

Synopsis

A young woman from Japan has never bought into the “perfect heroine” of her favorite otome game. Instead, she’s drawn to the sharp-tongued villainess, Alicia Williams—admiring her discipline and resolve, and finding the heroine’s saintly façade and habit of playing with Prince Duke Seeker’s feelings far less convincing.

Then she gets exactly what she wished for: reincarnation as Alicia. Awakening at age seven with memories of her previous life and knowledge of the game’s future, she sets out to outmaneuver the heroine and steer clear of the story’s disastrous routes. With relentless effort, training in her noble family’s dark magic, and a firm commitment to leaving a legendary mark, Alicia aims to become a villainess remembered by history.

Otaku Consensus

I'll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History lands as a competent, audience-aware entry in the 2024 villainess boom: Yuuji Yanase's direction and Sawako Hirabayashi's series composition keep the 13-episode run cleanly paced through school, royal-affairs, and political material rather than letting the otome setup do all the work. Critics and viewers broadly read it as solid rather than revelatory, with Maho Film's animation praised for consistency, including serviceable fight scenes, while the recurring complaint is that the production rarely rises above standard genre execution and needs Alicia's personality to carry more weight than the template.

Why You Should Watch

Watch this if you want the villainess-isekai pleasure of My Next Life as a Villainess with less pure farce and more ojou-sama discipline, courtly pressure, magic training, and status politics. The appeal is not surprise twists; it is watching a heroine-coded genre get filtered through a protagonist who values strategy, etiquette, and self-improvement over saintly likability. Its 13-episode Fall 2024 run is also tidy: school material, royal affairs, class tension, and time-skip structure give it more forward motion than many light-novel adaptations that stall at the premise. If you enjoy The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen or other otome-game reincarnation stories but prefer a sharper, more composed lead over chaos-gremlin comedy, this scratches that itch without demanding a huge episode investment.

Key Characters

A
Alicia Williams
Alicia is the show's hook because she treats the villainess role like a discipline to be mastered, turning pride, etiquette, and magical training into a self-fashioned code rather than a simple mean-girl act.
D
Duke Seeker
Duke Seeker functions as more than a romantic prize: the prince's presence pulls Alicia's choices into the series' royal-affairs and political framework, where reputation has public consequences.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
Maho Film's production is frequently described as standard but steady, with reviewers noting that the animation remains consistent and that even the fight scenes hold together rather than collapsing into stillness.
2
The series leans into a josei-flavored villainess register, with AniList tags emphasizing Royal Affairs, Politics, Class Struggle, Kingdom Management, Ojou-sama culture, and School life rather than treating the otome-game angle as only a dating setup.
3
Its structure includes time skips, a notable choice for a 13-episode cour because it lets Alicia's growth read as accumulated training and social positioning rather than a single sudden personality swap.
4
Moe Hyuuga's music credit is a useful production marker: the score sits in a fantasy-romance space designed to support courtly polish, magical training, and comedic reversals rather than action spectacle alone.
5
The adaptation aired as a complete Fall 2024 cour from October 2 to December 25, giving the season a clean weekly runway that ended on Christmas Day rather than being split across cours.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: The anime adapts Izumi Ookido's original story, with Jun Hayase credited for the original character designs and Eri Kojima and Yuuko Watanabe handling the main character designs for animation.
Fun fact 2: Yuuji Yanase directed the series, while Sawako Hirabayashi handled series composition, placing the show's pacing and adaptation structure under a veteran TV-anime workflow rather than an anthology-style staff rotation.
Fun fact 3: Di Zhang is specifically credited for photography script assistance and photography on episodes 7 and 9 through 13, meaning the latter half of the cour had a named photography contributor across most of its closing stretch.
Fun fact 4: By the available database metrics, the show performed as a mid-tier but visible 2024 title: 7.34 on MyAnimeList from 70,521 votes, rank #2919, popularity #1889, and 72/100 on AniList with 1,167 favourites.
Fun fact 5: Early web reactions framed the premiere as a familiar villainess-isekai setup with room to grow, while later capsule reviews singled out the production's consistency as its practical strength rather than any flashy visual signature.