Crunchyroll's New Villainess Anime Defies the Isekai Premise in One Major Way

Summary Yumiella's emotional growth lacks stability and balance, deviating from typical isekai character development.

Yumiella's mental maturity doesn't align with her emotional awareness, creating comedic misunderstandings.

The manga delays character development by highlighting inconsistencies in Yumiella's emotional growth.

Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss But I'm Not the Demon Lord defies major isekai genre conventions in a big way. Isekai anime and manga both oftentimes use death as a means to reincarnate the main character into a different world. Upon gaining clarity of their reincarnation, they will recall either vague memories or defining details of their previous life.

Yumiella Dolkness is an apathetic character whose emotions remain stagnant unless the topic concerns leveling up, her dragon Ryu, dark magic, and monsters. Within her reincarnation, viewers receive two pieces of information: one, that Yumiella played and completed the Light Magic and the Hero otome game and that she was a college student. These two pieces of information fail to convey her original personality and how it could possibly influence her reincarnated lifestyle in the world of an otome game.

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In the kingdom, black hair is seen as unlucky and a symbol of evil. Due to this, Yumiella is often misunderstood, feared, or isolated by others; however, she doesn't seem to mind the inattention, preferring to live a peaceful life. To continue to do so, Yumiella makes two key decisions: one, she decides not to be a hidden boss character and joins the party to defeat the demon lord, and two, she levels up her dark magic before entering the academy.

Related 15 Best Isekai Anime You Should Watch Right Now Even with the oversaturation of the genre, there are still plenty of excellent isekai anime shows that every fan should consider streaming.

Yumiella is Emotionally Unreliable

Produced by Jumondou, based on the original light novel by Satori Tanabata & Tea

Yumiella's unstable emotional growth, with no hint of her personality from her previous life, drifts away from the norms of isekai character development. In episode #9, Yumiella offers a hypocritical view of herself in relation to the rest of her classmates, calling into question her character development. As she engages in conversation with Prince Edwin, she thinks, “Well, he is still a child. Not just him. All the other students here are still teenagers, too. Mentally, they all have a childish side."

In episode #10, when Yuri and Yumiella converse in the woods, Yumiella says, “They say young people like you are unbalanced in both mind and body.” To which Yuri replies, “Aren’t you still young yourself, Miss Yumiella?” This cues awkward laughter from them both, leaving viewers to wonder at the significance of Yumiella’s mental age gap. Yumiella’s fall-back on her mental maturity defies her character development by failing to balance her backstory, misdirecting characteristics - if any - that carried over from her original world, and illustrating how those may have impacted her decisions.

Mental Maturity in the Manga

In the light novel and anime, the series delves into the importance of Yumiella's mental age when compared to her classmates

In chapter #12 of the manga, Yumiella offers her view, saying, “Mentally, I’m more mature.” It may be more truthful to say that where it concerns tactics or strategy, however, emotionally, she lacks social awareness – such as wondering why other students do not view her fearsome dragon as cute. Her maturity levels are also called into question when she does not attempt to change the perception of how she, or her dragon, are viewed by society.

Additionally, the manga illustrates a decrease in maturity after Yumiella talks through her problems with Patrick, thinking, “I really want to become friends with him, but I’m sure that’s too much to ask.” Making friends is no easy business, but as a character with mental maturity and a college education to back her up, Yumiella is not living up to the personality traits one would expect to have developed from her previous life experience.

The Power of Backstory

Despite being a reincarnation-centered series, Villainess Level 99 excels in how it utilizes the protagonist's previous life

Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss But I'm Not the Demon Lord defies the isekai premise by delaying character development through unreliable emotional growth. While this villainess isekai anime suggests its protagonist lived a hikikomori (stay at home) lifestyle, it also states that she was in the process of obtaining her college degree. So, despite boasting mental maturity, Yumiella continues to possess an apathetic nature while lacking emotional awareness, especially when it comes to social cues, which sometimes leads to comedic misunderstandings.

Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss But I'm Not the Demon Lord is available to stream on Crunchyroll.

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