Otome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shiteshimatta...

Most people would prefer being the protagonist of a world full of adventure, be it in a game or in another world. But, unfortunately, a certain girl is not so lucky. Regaining the memories of her past life, she realizes that she was reborn in the world of Fortune Lover—one of the games she used to play.

Unfortunately, the character she was reincarnated into—Catarina Claes—is the game's main antagonist, who faces utter doom in every ending. Using her extensive knowledge of the game, she takes it upon herself to escape from the chains of this accursed destiny.

However, this will not be an easy feat, especially since she needs to be cautious as to not set off death flags that may speed up the impending doom she is trying to avoid. Even so, to make a change that will affect the lives of everyone around her, she strives—not as the heroine—but as the villainess.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Claes, Catarina Main

Uchida, Maaya Japanese

Ascart, Sophia Main

Minase, Inori Japanese

Claes, Keith Main

Kakihara, Tetsuya Japanese

Campbell, Maria Main

Hayami, Saori Japanese

Stuart, Geordo Main

Aoi, Shouta Japanese

Ascart, Nicol Main

Matsuoka, Yoshitsugu Japanese

Stuart, Alan Main

Suzuki, Tatsuhisa Japanese

Hunt, Mary Main

Okasaki, Miho Japanese

Dieke, Sirius Supporting

Masuda, Toshiki Japanese

Shelley, Anne Supporting

Waki, Azumi Japanese

Kaneko, Hayato Producer, Planning

Aoi, Hiroyuki Producer

Simone, Jamie Producer

Nishi, Kei Producer

Reviews

Dec 27, 2023

Drakestalker

Recommended

Making good lightweight entertainment is actually a pretty tough balancing act. On the one hand, you can’t go ham on suspense and drama and give your audience an aneurysm with constant tension all the time by incessantly keeping them on the edge of their seats like a Kuroko no Basket match. No, the conflict has to be simple, laid back, and not all-too-dramatic, just warm and pleasant, not unlike a summer breeze.

That said, conflict does have to exist. You need drama to tell a story. If you make that conflict too easy to resolve and forego tension entirely, then the story loses all meaning. It’s ... difficult to invest in something when there are no stakes. An example of how to do this wrong is the Smartphone isekai. That one never came across to me as a story about an overpowered protagonist, but rather a story about a regularly-powered protagonist in a world set on babyshit easy mode. Everything just sort of works out for him in that world, even with little to no intervention on his part. In a way, he feels a lot like Indiana Jones in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, except, you know, minus the part where he is a cool character in a good movie.

What is needed is a sweet spot between teeth-gnashing tension and meaningless child’s play. In other words, what I’m saying is that you need to create the illusion of a high-stakes conflict, and then slowly but surely resolve it in a relaxed, fun, and pleasant way. And that’s what’s difficult about it. It’s difficult to sell an illusion as believable. If you don’t sell the illusion hard enough, and if you’re not subtle enough with the resolution, then the curtain falls away and you see the Wizard of Oz for what he really is. It’s a sleight of hand, but it can be very effective if done right! HameFura offers just that.

We open on a day in the life of a spoiled young lady, the daughter of a duke in a magical, pre-industrial revolution medieval land. Her name? Catarina Claes. Then, upon unexpectedly suffering a head injury, the trauma makes her remember her past life as a Japanese otaku girl who died in a car crash at the age of 17. What’s more, she particularly remembers a dating sim she used to play, Fortune Lover, whose world and characters bear a striking resemblance bordering on the identical to the world and characters of the world she currently lives in. What’s more, Fortune Lover has a main villain character who, one way or another, suffers an unpleasant fate in all of the game’s routes, be it death, exile, or worse. Her name? Catarina Claes! Upon realizing that she was reincarnated as the detestable villain destined for doom, she endeavors to change the course of history and spare herself a sticky end. Will she succeed? Watch to find out!

Aside from being an instantly magnetic premise which makes use of a gimmick I haven’t seen before, it’s the perfect balance of a conflict that is meaningful and important and also simultaneously rather simple to resolve. You might already intuit what she needs to do. I mean, it’s really not that hard to figure out, right? All in all, it’s a genuinely pleasant and fun show, and seeing Catarina encounter characters from the game one after the other, and changing the way she interacts with them, thus fundamentally changing the way they develop as people was nothing short of a delight.

If it has any weaknesses, other than being light novel shlock, it’s the fact that it doesn’t have much to offer beyond its original premise. Point and fact, whenever the characters deviate towards a side-quest that doesn’t directly have to do with altering Catarina’s fate for the better, I found myself losing interest. I also felt that the ending was the weakest part of the anime, seen as it introduces a completely new antagonist character out of nowhere, rather than paying off a threat it was admittedly building throughout its run, but never really went anywhere. Unfortunately, I can’t go into any more detail without spoiling. There’s also some dark magic mechanic that tries to sell itself as ominous, but I found wholly uninteresting and superfluous.

If the basic premise does not attract you, then you can safely skip this, but if it does, then by all means, enjoy it because it really is a lot of fun. Personally, I would strongly recommend it, but I want to be sensitive to isekai exhaustion. It’s one of studio Silver Link.’s weaker shows in terms of visual presentation, but it never looks anything less than perfectly presentable.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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May 8, 2024

Legolaspt

Mixed Feelings

Otome Game Flag is quite a good comedy. It is fun, the pacing is okay, the characters are charismatic, the production is okay, the intro is good, and the jokes and comedic scenarios are mostly good.

That being said, I watched from episodes 1-7 in basically one sitting, but the second half of the show was much worse, because the comedy started to get stale and the focus from the series changed drastically to drama

And, unfortunately, Flag does not work well as a drama nor as a romance; mostly because of three reasons:
1st - The heroine's personality. She is just too dumb and it is ... impossible to take her serious;
2nd - How the protagonist achieves so much just because of her compassion. She does not work hard, nor smart, nor strategically. Instead she just solves all her problems by being empathetic and somewhat nice to others, and this makes no sense and also removes much of the investment the viewers could have for her;
3rd - The extreme way most of the cast regards the protagonist is too absurd to be taken seriously. This works perfectly well for the comedic and slice of life aspects of the show; but it also makes the drama and romance very hard to digest.

Overall, Flag is a solid comedy anime that fails miserably when it shifts its focus to drama and plot progression, as the show is unbelievably boring regarding its romance and drama.

It is also worth mentioning that there is a clear disconect between the light-hearted comedy and the high stakes of some of the plot points near the ending of this season. I don't think this is a major flaw, and I believe that fixing other aspects of the show could definitely alleviate this problem

I would recommend watching the show until episode 9, as it is quite entertaining. I would not recommend watching the last arc as it is bland, uninspired, and extremely boring.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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May 22, 2024

electrowiz

Not Recommended

The supposed reincarnated villainess "Catarina Claes", does not face any real challenge or anything being called worthy of a flag of doom throughout the entire series. Even the ending doom flag, feels like it was kind of forced. The antagonist had no real purpose of going against the villainess. Revenge is stated as a reason but the object of revenge was not the villainess to begin with, so it makes little sense as for why she was targeted.

The real problem of the series is the MC kinds of befriends every doom flag that is supposed to appear in the years before they actually appear. ... She wakes up at the age of 5 which is very early to harbor any kind of bad reputation or anything of that sort and proceeds to intentionally or unintentionally befriend anyone that will likely cause her to be flagged as a villainess in future. Thus when the actual plot, the academy story line beings, the situation is such that no matter what happens, she is not going to be cast away to begin with.

This lack of challenge which you would kind of expect in this genre of stories, is what makes this series disappointing for me.

So, a rare bad rating from me and obviously I will not recommend anyone to watch this series being fooled by the title.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Otome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shiteshimatta... Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Jun 20, 2020	193 replies	by kiana_sora »» May 3, 12:34 AM
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	Poll: Otome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shiteshimatta... Episode 8 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - May 23, 2020	156 replies	by Shocked »» Apr 21, 2:57 PM
	Poll: Otome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shiteshimatta... Episode 4 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Apr 25, 2020	164 replies	by Shocked »» Apr 21, 1:18 PM
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