First Impression: From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad’s Been Reincarnated!

When she was a child, drill-haired noble Grace Auvergne hit her head and remembered certain things, the most pertinent being how she used to be a 52-year-old balding bureaucrat named Kenzaburou Tendabayashi who had a wife, two kids, and hard otaku leanings toward classic anime. The problem is, Grace is the 15-year-old villainess of an otome game, and Kensaburou’s previous life experience is not going to be any help at all! No matter, he…er, she…er, they? will figure it out! Before we know it, it’s time to enter magic school and encounter the heroine, Anna Doll, and the various routes, the first of whom proves to be the Prince of the land and Grace’s own fiancé. Awkward! Now, all Grace has to do is be mean to Anna, and no one will suspect that a middle-aged office man has taken over her existence! But when the fateful moment of confrontation arises, Kensaburou-Grace finds themselves…sharing fatherly advice?!? Dad Mode activated! Oops. Things heat up even more when Ken-Grace is faced with the complex formalities and hierarchies of this vaguely imperial European setting. As a good bureaucrat, he can appreciate the finer nuances of the modern workplace, but this? Fortunately, Ken-Grace has a second superpower: Elegance Cheat! Every attempt by the 20th-century boomer automatically converts into 19th-century elegance befitting a young lady! Maybe surviving this otome game isn’t going to be so difficult after all! But wait, why does Anna keep glowing around Grace? Is the game really staying on track?

I am a total sucker for villainess series, but let’s be honest, the twists have pretty much all been done, right? Not so fast! From Bureaucrat to Villainess manages to bring something totally fresh and terribly funny to the genre, playing both the genderswap and maturity cards to great effect! Even Kensaburou’s bureaucrat background proves both surprisingly relevant and entertaining. He had me laughing from start to finish! I especially appreciate the generational differences between his classic otaku reference points and his daughter’s otome game obsession, and hope we get more flashbacks to his original life (I want to meet his wife, who is apparently just as big an otaku as the rest of the family!). Kensaburou is a charming character, as both himself and as Grace, and his fatherly wisdom is actually pretty on point. The animation is solid, and the decisions to frequently shadow Grace visually with Kensaburou and use two different voice actors for inner speech and audible dialogue work really well. The rest of the cast are fairly one note so far, but this doesn’t hurt the episode, considering how well Ken-Grace carries the lead. The rest of the cast will grow and develop over time, I’m sure. All in all, sign me up for the rest of Dad’s reincarnation story! (Will his daughter notice a change in the villainess of her favorite game, perchance???) This one offers up some rip-roaring fun! 

From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad’s Been Reincarnated! is streaming on HiDIVE.

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