Akuyaku Reijou Level 99: Watashi wa Ura-Boss desu ga Maou dewa Arimasen

The beginning of Light Magic and the Hero, an otome RPG, unfolds fairly normally: the heroine, Alicia Ehnleit, meets her three love interests one after another and then inevitably comes face-to-face with the villainess. Yumiella Dolkness may be of noble descent, but her dark hair and rare dark-type magic—both associated with the Demon Lord—spark fear in anyone who sees her. When she is five years old, Yumiella regains memories of her previous life in modern Japan, also realizing that her fate is to become the hidden boss that appears after Alicia and her suitors defeat the Demon Lord.

Yumiella refuses to live as the game dictates and, as she prefers the game's fantasy elements over its romance, she decides to cultivate her magical skills and level up in secret. However, everything falls apart on the day of the Royal Academy's entrance ceremony. Yumiella's powers are measured at level 99—something thought impossible even for the royal knights, let alone a 15-year-old girl. With the royal family requesting her help, and everyone else insisting that she prove her strength, Yumiella realizes that her dream of a quiet life is no longer an option.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Dolkness, Yumiella Main

Fairouz Ai Japanese

Ashbatten, Patrick Supporting

Uchida, Yuuma Japanese

Hillrose, Eleanora Supporting

Hidaka, Rina Japanese

Ehnleit, Alicia Supporting

Waki, Azumi Japanese

Rita Supporting

Hasegawa, Ikumi Japanese

Adolf Supporting

Kawada, Shinji Japanese

Maou Supporting

Ono, Daisuke Japanese

Ronald Supporting

Furukawa, Makoto Japanese

Monford, Jessica Supporting

Inagaki, Konomi Japanese

Linus Supporting

Yamashita, Seiichirou Japanese

Higashi, Mao Producer

Iizuka, Aya Producer

Nemoto, Yuuka Producer

Kamata, Hajime Producer

Reviews

May 11, 2024

thraximus

Recommended

I'll start by saying I went into this one knowing the plot entirely from the books.

My review will focus more on the technical side than on the story itself.

The general story is good, and the characters as well, but the main issue in this anime, is that they have extremely rushed through everything. Some parts that would take over half an hour of reading, would be covered in less than a minute of animation, some parts entirely skipped.

Since I know what was missed, I can't honestly say if things will feel out of place to someone who didn't read the source material, but I have ... to say that from my perspective its just very rushed.

If I were to judge the story only on its merits I'd give this a 9. But I had to do a -1 for the rushing, and another -1 for animation quality.
The production value was pretty low, it was obviously done on the cheap side. It's watchable enough if you are interested in the story, but if you are the type to want to watch for pretty visuals, this anime isn't for you. Many combat parts boil down to power point presentations, there are some atrocious uses of low quality 3d models as well.

I know I was very negative in this review, but that's because these are most of the negatives. If you don't mind this pace, and aren't too picky regarding the visuals, it's a fun show to watch, and I would recommend it if you are interested in the otome isekai genre at all.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Apr 17, 2024

Yanfei_Stan

Mixed Feelings

Despite the relatively strong opening episode, Akuyaku Reijou Level 99 fundamentally fails in every meaningful way besides humor. The MC's relatively unique personality (at least for a villainess series) excepted, absolutely nothing about this show stands out or differentiates it from the utterly exhausted story beats and tropes of the genre. Characters are dull, boilerplate, and inconsistent to the point of nonsensicality; the plot is so cliché and unimaginative that you can probably predict half of the story from the title alone; and the animation is aggressively terrible with CGI so abysmally ugly that I genuinely had to double-check that this was a 2024 release. ... It genuinely surprised me how little effort was put into the writing and presentation, but what surprised me even more was that... I still kind of enjoyed it.

What Akuyaku Reijou Level 99 lacks in every other area it makes up for, at least partially, with its comedy. The trite setting and the flat, oblivious manner of the MC mesh in just the right ways, creating one of the best atmospheres for dry humor I've ever seen in an anime. When the show really leans into this side, embracing its own stupidity and really hamming things up for poor Yumiella to deal with, it is genuinely hilarious, and got more than a few chuckles out of me despite my apprehension with the rest of the show. If that was all it was-- power fantasy with a self-aware twist-- Akuyaku Reijou Level 99 really could have been great, perhaps even rising to the heights of something like The Eminence in Shadow if the production values were a little higher. Unfortunately it lacks the wit and sense of style to really isolate the irony of the setting, and fails to follow through with the self referential antics, taking on a more serious tone at the most critical points of the plot. As a result, it doesn't go far enough with its premise, falling back on the more generic aspects of its storyline and ultimately failing to do anything substantial. While I still had some fun with it, I can't help but wonder how much better it could have been had the writer been willing to take a few risks and really take the setup to its extreme. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but if you can stomach everything I outlined in the first paragraph, it might be worth a couple laughs.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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Apr 2, 2024

Zeno_Artaxerxes

Not Recommended

Long paragraph incoming (sorry, not sorry):

One of the worst letdowns that I had in a while, which made me surprised how fast I could switch from kinda liking the vibe of the anime and the story, to instantly realise that this was trash, the worst kind. I like some good thrash, but not when they are thrashing the source material's story in such an obvious way that even if I didn't read the source material or know anything about it, I understood instantly that something is wrong. It was pretty good the first half of the season, basic story, not that deep, pretty chill, kinda ... slice of life... then the animation kinda took a down turn that was off putting me pretty hard with the CGI... but it's not the first time I'm seeing stuff like that, so I can get over it... then, at the end... one of the most rushed episodes that I've seen in a while... Literally felt like I was watching someone making a summary of what happened in the source material. Again, okay, I've seen stuff like this done, while I do consider it a big problem that offputs me, I could still say that it's okay, cuz y'know, anime is sometimes, if not most of the time, an ad for the source material... but then I was starting to realise, for such a plot that was previous, this stuff just doesn't line up. I couldn't believe my eyes what I was seeing. Besides the fact that everything was rushed and there was almost nothing to justify anything the characters did, they introduced some stuff that I would never see it coming from an author that was able to write the story of the past episodes...

What did they introduce? Power of love. Power of friendship. Characters doing actions just because the original game had a certain story, so there is litearlly a "plot" controlling characters. Some improtant plot moves that I wanted to see and was waiting for to happen coming out of nowhere... And to remind you... all in a really rushed way, mach speed type of rushing, so the experience was made worse 10x. But I guess you're thinking now: "hey, that is acceptable, there are animes out there that do that". Oh no, my sweet child, my problem was the part where I heard what happens in the source material (light novel), and feeling like I had a really cool experience stolen just because. Now that's what made it 100x worse for me, to the point where it left a disgusting taste in my mouth. Why did they have to ruin everything like this? Literally just adapt the damn source material and don't just go off on a tangent so different that it changes everything, especially one so damn f bad... but hey, I guess they won, they made me get interested in the light novel... especially cuz from what I read, they adapted only the first volume of the light novel in this anime.


Story: 5

The story was an 8 originally, but then the last 3 episodes happened and everything changed... Thanks for the forced happy ending I guess, surely hope this was worth just not following the light novel at the end... Hey, at least the first part of the anime is pretty good. I like the comedy as well.

Art: 6

Okayish animated, but the CGI, especialyl cuz there were quite a few scenes of it, even the first damn scene in the anime was CGI, put me into a meh mood.

Music: 8

Probably the only redeeming thing was the OP cuz it sounded cool. That's it. ED? Meh...

Characters: 7

Again, originally and 8 or maybe even a 9 if I felt better, but no. They ruined it. Still like the FMC, but they just ruined my image of everything in the anime.

Enjoyment: 5

Ugly taste in my mouth at the end... wish it wasn't like this, I was really enjoying the anime, quite a bit, especially the comedic parts...

Overall: 5

Right now it has 7.15 from 47.765 votes Ranked #3522 Popularity #1900 Members 112,449 as of 02/04/2024. Overall 5. Ye, doesn't add up, but so does the mark of the anime, it for sure is not a 7+ anime, but it seems a lot of animes have high marks this season. It should be more around 6.3 imo, around there. Would have given it a 4, but I still enjoyed some of it, at least until around ep 8. But then, nose dive. Anyway, I cannot really recommend it to anyone, only if you want to see it for yourselfes. Better read the manga or light novel.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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	Why did the academy president set Yumiella up to participate in the tournament? Argyll - May 28	3 replies	by SenshadouOtaku »» Yesterday, 4:39 AM
	Poll: Akuyaku Reijou Level 99: Watashi wa Ura-Boss desu ga Maou dewa Arimasen Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Mar 26	91 replies	by KinjiKido »» May 13, 2:21 AM
	Pretty chilling anime LostInLove - Apr 4	13 replies	by LostInLove »» Apr 24, 8:21 PM
	Poll: Akuyaku Reijou Level 99: Watashi wa Ura-Boss desu ga Maou dewa Arimasen Episode 5 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Feb 6	66 replies	by dinodogst »» Apr 19, 11:20 AM
	Poll: Akuyaku Reijou Level 99: Watashi wa Ura-Boss desu ga Maou dewa Arimasen Episode 6 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Feb 13	55 replies	by spicarie »» Apr 17, 4:40 PM