The setup
What happens when you wake up one day and realise you're living inside a video game — except you're not the hero? You're the villainess destined to become one of the most hated characters in the entire story.
That's the premise behind *The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess to Saviour*, which follows Pride Royal Ivy, a young princess with a particularly unfortunate destiny.
Pride Royal Ivy was destined to become a monstrous princess and, eventually, an evil queen. However, everything changes when she collapses at the age of eight and suddenly remembers a previous life.
Rather than simply remembering her childhood, Pride realises that she is actually a Japanese college student who has been reincarnated into the body of the villainess from a popular video game.
And she knows exactly how the story is supposed to play out.
The original Pride is destined for a horrific fate, but this new version of the character has the opportunity to change everything. Rather than becoming the evil queen everyone expects, she decides to use her knowledge of the game's story to change the future and become a saviour instead.
One of the more interesting aspects of the first few episodes is seeing the differences between the original game's storyline and the decisions this new Pride makes.
For example, in the original story, Pride orders her younger brother Stale to kill his own mother. Naturally, the new Pride isn't exactly keen on repeating that particular decision.
Positives
Visually, the series looks pretty good. The animation is clear and the voice acting is also solid, with Ai Fairouz providing the voice of Pride.
One thing that surprised me is just how quickly Pride accepts her new situation. There isn't a huge amount of time spent on her freaking out about suddenly becoming a character from a video game. Instead, she seems to very quickly get on with the job of trying to fix the story. The series also makes good use of Pride's knowledge of the original game. We regularly see flashes of the decisions the original Pride made and how the new Pride changes them.
It's essentially watching someone replay a game for a second time — except this time they're actively trying to avoid all the terrible choices they made during their first playthrough.
Negatives
There is A LOT of internal monologue.
Pride spends a considerable amount of time explaining her thoughts, the world around her and what she remembers from the original game. This is useful for establishing the lore, but it does mean the series can feel quite exposition heavy at times.
And then there's Stale.
Yes, Stale.
I don't know why, but I found myself wondering throughout the first episode why is the younger brother called Stale?
It sounds less like the name of a prince and more like what happens when you leave bread out for too long.
In terms of abilities, Stale has the power of teleportation, while Pride possesses the ability of foresight. Other abilities, such as eternal youth, are also mentioned, although the first episode doesn't go into too much detail about them.
Verdict
At Anime Club, we watch the first three episodes of an anime and decide whether we'd carry on and complete the series.
Personally, I don't think this one is for me.
That's not necessarily because I think it's bad. In fact, there's quite a lot here that works. The animation is good, the voice acting is solid and the central idea of changing the fate of a villainess is genuinely interesting.
The problem is that I'm just not particularly interested in the direction the series seems to be heading.
There isn't a huge amount of action, with the story instead focusing heavily on lore, character relationships and political drama.
It feels like we're heading towards a series where the big conflicts are going to involve political manoeuvring and difficult decisions rather than someone simply punching another person through a wall.
The whole thing feels a little bit like watching someone play a Victorian style dating sim for the second time, except they're desperately trying to achieve the good ending after already seeing what happens when they make all the wrong choices.
There is definitely an audience for this sort of story, and if you enjoy villainess isekai, political intrigue and stories about changing predetermined futures, The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen could be worth checking out.
For me, however, the slower pace and lack of action make it difficult to get properly invested.
