Watashi no Oshi wa Akuyaku Reijou. Episode 7 Discussion

I’ll definitely say this. This is one of the better yuri I’ve watched. It’s not over the top with fan service. It’s funny af. And it’s got good story telling (in my opinion)

It’s placed as my 5th favourite thing airing this season and is a solid 9/10 for me personally.

I feel like this episode we got a lot of subtle hints that Claire is starting to fall for Rae even if she doesn’t realise it herself.

It’s so sad every time Rae says she wants to support Claire’s relationship progressing with thane when deep down I’m sure she hates seeing them get closer.

“You don’t know but you saved me” 😭 man that Rae and Claire convo at the end was so damn cute. It’s so sweet how Rae prioritises Claire’s happiness over her own. True love right there. My fave lesbians this season.

Was good to see everyone in maid outfits as well. Lene sensei was great in this one

Plot wise we’re starting to get going with the noble vs commoner ideological struggle now that a noble has attacked a commoner. Like Rae said, the commoners seeking to end the classism in the kingdom isn’t a foolish idea.

It’s interesting seeing how Claire, who seems to have come so far in these few episodes is still keeping that antiquated way of thinking. She’s ok with the commoners she likes being treated as equals, but not all of them. Rae and the others are “one of the good ones” to her. Actually a pretty realistic approach to the story since irl many racists have that same line of thinking

Nice one Lene, with the psychological tricks to deal with smol bratty Claire-sama.

@SouthRzVa
You know, that scene was actually pretty tricky to determine what was really going on. At first it looked very convincing that mini-Claire really was being a brat by trying to lower Lene down to being a horse for her to ride on, but I think mini-Claire was faking it on purpose. I think mini-Claire was testing Lene, it doesn't make sense for why mini-Claire would accept Lene as her maid if Lene had actually tricked mini-Claire out of a horse ride, and was actually upset being talked back to by a "lowly commoner". Mini-Claire was only impressed and treated Lene better once she stood her ground by refusing orders in smart and tactful way. My guess is she didn't want a mindless robot as her personal maid. Claire also doesn't seem to mistreat any of her other maids, nor call them "commoners" (though the others might be nobles). I think she "bullies" people as a test, she calls Lene by name now, and may start calling Rae by name after she trusts her. I don't think Claire fully trusts Rae yet, she didn't believe Rae's "you rescued me" story after receiving the necklace.

It's been pointed out by the show before, and many times during this episode that Claire puts up a facade to who she really is, and what she really thinks. They try to insinuate that Claire is describing herself when she said "pompous fools will always cave when you butter them up", but I think that's a red herring. Just before Claire has her "real talk" again with Rae about "I'm fully aware of what kind of personality I have", Claire says "I'm the minister of finance's daughter, putting on a front for people is second nature to me", I think that's the real Claire.

If I'm right, it's this complexity I'm really loving about Claire myself. I'm starting to see why Rae was so obsessively loving "Claire the otome game character", I think she even said the same thing about loving Claire's complexity in the first episode. Oh and mini-Claire was hilariously adorable, she looks exactly like she does now, but in miniature. Especially when she was buying a gown for Lene, and that reminds me...why would mini-Claire be insisting on buying Lene a gown if "she's just a lowly commoner unfit to own possessions of her own"?

It must be an act Claire's putting on. The only thing I can't figure out now is how did the otome game's original script make Claire look totally like the villainess to the player, and how did "Rae the player" see through all that to realize "Claire the otome game character" was not really a true villainess. It looks like everything is still following the otome game's original script, the cross-dressing cafe surprisingly was part of the script. I thought that was a Rae influenced change/butterfly effect, but apparently not. Do straight otome games (which this game appears to be, only male love interests for female protag) typically have a cross-dressing cafe trope?

Another new version of O.C.... Will we have new versions of the ED for every EPs then? Whew, that's interesting....

Misha in buttler uniform = oyome confirmed!

Huh, EP 7 of 12, huh!? This arc will went for another 1-2 EPs, will the remaining 3 EPs be enough for Manaria's arc I wonder?

I've never played an otome game, so i can't tell you that. But the question is, whether it appeared in the game, or if Rae experienced that plot part for the first time.

Rae also mentioned lots, that she did some digging in the story of the otome game, in order to write fanfictions of Claire. I was assuming that she got a crush on Claire just like anyone else gets for a video game character, and then by doing the research, she realized how much of a deep character Claire actually is, and that made her seriously fall for her.
Or maybe she saw that game-Claire never seriously bullied game-Rae – as reincarnated Rae has said in ep1: Claire has her limits when it comes to bullying and she'd never seriously hurt anyone. She also does everything herself (makes her own hands dirty), instead of asking her friends (who have even asked Claire if they should do it for her, but she refused) – and that might've made Rae interested in game-Claire in the first place.

Also: the villain(ess)' portrayed in otome games (at least from the mangas I've read) aren't really villains, anyway. In a sense of not really being evil. The purpose of them is that they have the same love interest as the protagonist, and try to make sure that the protagonist doesn't win, so they use their noble status to make the prota's life difficult. Except that with the power of being a protagonist, the villain's karma is huge and they may lose literally everything, while the protagonist marries the love interest.

@TimeFliesAway

Rae said during the foreign prince's "dodo bird ordering" fiasco that one of the love interests is supposed to save the protag from it, and while explaining this there's a visual of Rae's memory of playing the otome game, and Prince Rod shows up cross-dressed in a maid uniform. This pretty much confirms the original otome game had a cross-dressing cafe for the festival.

I think the visual is definitely Rae's memory and not her imagination because it shows the scene with Prince Rod cross-dressed on a game screen, and it shows Rae IRL playing it as a Japanese woman. IRL Rae (Rei Ohashi) doesn't actually look like the isekai Rae Taylor we're used to seeing. We see what Rei Ohashi looks like at the beginning of the first episode and at the end of this episode.

Yeah, from what I gather from other "otome game animes" the villainess is more like a "mean girl" with wealth, status, and power who picks fights with and thwarts the protag from succeeding, either by preventing the protag from hooking up with the love interest or causing a bad ending for the player. I haven't seen any of that from Claire, the only thing we've seen is Claire's bullying at the beginning which is very tame. She isn't trying to sully Rae's reputation like a mean girl would, nor trying to make her look bad in front of the princes, or cause the princes to dislike Rae. Perhaps it's because Rae hasn't shown any interest in them at all? Claire did try to get Rae to leave the academy twice with the exams and knight try-outs, but Claire didn't do anything underhanded like cheating or anything.

This is what got me perplexed as to how she'd be considered the villainess of the game, and it's got me curious to know if the loveable miss Claire from the isekai is the same as a the Otome game character. Has isekai miss Claire been defused by loving her and becoming her maid ally, or is Otome game villainess Claire really this tame and loveable also?

I think you're downplaying Claire's actions due to how Rae reacts to them. It's easy to say it's not a big deal when Rae seemingly enjoys being bullied. Chances are, though, that in the game, the player character is made miserable by Claire. That, in turn, probably earns the sympathy of one of the love interests and results in them defending Rae as a development in their relationship. It's also easy to write-off her attempts to get Rae to leave the school because, even in-game, Rae is more powerful than her. Those challenges are probably events that have to be successfully completed lest the player gets a game over/bad end. And it's not just Rae that she is mean to. She has a clear disdain for commoners, as seen by her reaction to Matt and his group. She was nasty to Lene as a child, and while Lene managed to trick Claire into not humiliating her, Claire had previously mentioned that Lene wouldn't last more than a week or so, because she was constantly driving off her servants. I don't think Claire is a nice person, though she does have her moments, and game Claire is probably worse and is clearly an antagonist.

@Fail_Man_X
I'm not so sure, perhaps this anime being so comedic and less serious itself, is downplaying this otome game's villainess which is why it seems so tame to me. To me, Claire seems to lack viciousness and malicious intent to ruin, there's no true underlying wickedness nor malice to her.

I don't think the disdain Claire had for Matt and his group is because they're commoners, it because of their movement and how they're presenting themselves. There's only two people Claire's referred to as "commoner" specifically that I recall, Lene and Rae. She calls Lene by name now which I think signifies Lene has earned Claire's respect and trust (respect = going from labeled "commoner" to name usage by Claire, indifferent = not being labeled "commoner" specifically at all). Lene's brother Lambert, the vice-captain knight, had actually thanked Claire for being "such a good friend" to his sister, doesn't sound like Lene's been mistreated at all. Also shouldn't Lambert be a commoner just like Lene, yet Claire seems to treat him as a peer and refer to him by name.

Claire seems to go on and on about the labels "Commoners" and "Nobles" but it doesn't seem like she actually takes it seriously, not like the "Commoner Movement" people and those Foreign Dignitaries. It's more like a pet-name when she does it, or aging social formality most people don't take that seriously anymore (sort of like "ladies first"). It seems like everybody else around her witnessing her using it understands this too, none of the local princes, student, knights, and such ever react or say anything about it, except for Lene suggesting to start calling Rae by name once.

As for Claire as a child being "nasty to Lene", I've explained in another post above that I think that was a facade, though it seemed convincing, probably a red herring. I think Claire was testing Lene to see if she would unquestionably follow orders to act undignified, or instead act within noble educate of a maid to refuse. I think all the other maids tested before Lene failed the test, or just quit not knowing it was a test. It wouldn't make sense for child Claire to keep Lene on if she really wanted to humiliate Lene, and Lene refused. Child Claire has been shown to be abnormally intelligent and able to restrain her emotions when dealing with the foriegn dignitaries, she was only shown emotionally unreasonable-ness with her mother. I find it very suspicious that when Lene refused the horsie ride, that child Claire went from emotional charged "how dare you", to being genuinely impressed and calm. I doubt a child could do an emotional 180 like that in a second if they really were emotional invested and denied something they wanted, even adult Claire can't 180 that fast when she's genuinely seething about something, we've seen that many times before.

Of course Claire takes the class hierarchy seriously, as it's the entire basis for her treatment of Rae. The only way Rae could attend that school as a commoner is through hard work and talent, and Claire's reaction to her presence is to bully her and try to get her to leave. Do you think that if Claire had won either competition, that she would have just said "lol, jk, you can stay"? Maybe, in this isekai version where Rae has been successfully completing a hidden villainess route and has been steadily earning Claire's affection, but that is an extremely generous concession.

As for the other students, you just assume that the reason they allow the bullying and class supremacy is because they don't take it seriously and know that Claire isn't taking it seriously, rather than the fact that they are all nobles and royalty. At best, they're agnostic towards commoners and accept that some have earned their way into school, but they still acknowledge and accept the hierarchy. At worst, they agree with Claire that commoners shouldn't be at the school and are actively antagoinistic, like Yu's servant, Claire's friends, and Claire herself. Think about it. If no one took the class system seriously, there would be no need for a student group to advocate for the rights of commoners. Again, in the isekai setting, Rod and Yu (and others) may see Rae and Claire's dynamic as a cute, harmless relationship, but in-game, Claire's mistreatment of Rae and one of the princes coming to her rescue is probably a major plot point.


We see the reason for the "emotional 180": Lene played to Claire's ego and tricked her into thinking that riding around on a commoner is beneath her as a noble. She doesn't acknowledge there being any test, and there is no indication that she thinks any better of Lene in that instant. She just got duped into being less of an awful brat. At the end of the flashback, Rae even says that Claire is gullible.


A group of students want more rights for commoners, they are going about it by handing out flyers and asking for support, and that is...wrong? Also, the reason we don't see Claire refer to anyone as "commoner" is because she isn't interacting with any. Only Lene, who is now her friend but was also debased at first, and Claire, whom she didn't like at first and relentlessly bullied. As for Lene's brother, it's possible that his respect is earned through his position in the Knights. It's also possible that he and Lene are not blood related, and he is in fact a noble.


It's clear that you view Claire as just a cute tsundere with blond curls and an ojou laugh. You don't take the things she does seriously and even come up with theories (based on the anime, maybe you have information from the source material to support your claims, I don't know) to paint her in a positive light. Part of that I can attribute to the series' writing, but it kinda seems like Claire could legitimately try to murder Rae, and you'd try to justify it. I don't think you have to do that. Claire admits, herself, that she is not a nice person, and Rae loves her anyway. There is nothing wrong with liking mean/evil characters

@Fail_Man_X

No, I don't have extra knowledge of the source material, I'm only watching the anime. And yes, I am viewing Claire in a positive light because all I have to go on is the isekai Claire, which is the whole reason why I want to know more about what actually happened in the otome game script of how things were supposed to be so that I can compare and contrast. But all I can do is speculate because there's very few details given on the original otome script so far.

For sexual harassment maybe...I'm joking, but you're grossly exaggerating my position. From what we've seen of the isekai Claire, she wouldn't try to murder Rae. Even Rae points out how isekai Claire's bullying doesn't go very far (books only hidden not burned, pushed in hallway so isn't seriously hurt, etc), which presumably says the same thing about otome game Claire otherwise Rae wouldn't be saying that. Even Isekai Claire is shown thinking to herself that she can't dump tea on Rae because "boiling liquids might be too much". Murdering somebody is what I think is inline with a villainess, which is why I'm having a hard time believing isekai Claire is the villainess, because I don't think she would. Claire couldn't even abandon Rae during the slime attack when everybody was running away except Rae and the teacher, she could have just ran away not saying anything hoping the slime would get Rae instead of trying to get Rae to flee with everybody else.

IDK, it looks like when Rae isekai'ed, Claire was upset that she had to share the same desk and sit beside Rae more than seeking out the commoner in class to ridicule. It seems like Rae's unorthodox "I love you" approach quickly caused them to be rivals, then frenemies, then unreluctantly allies (I'm your maid now), to begrudging caring (I'm going to totally forget Prince Thane is here about to head pat me, and fuss over if Rae is hurt or not while trying not to admit it), to where we are now...I guess, unspoken/don't want to admit friendship of going on a festival date with, and accepting a necklace gift from.

Given isekai Claire's Lene flashback of buying Lene a dress against her protests, then saving her from the foreign dignitary's ire, and then complaining about the jerk to Lene, it seems like isekai Claire doesn't really have genuine malice against commoners before Rae isekai'ed even. Maybe a slight "ha ha, I'm better than you" half jokingly, or "WTF, you work for me", but not "kiss my shoes, I own you" attitude. Again, I don't think the horsie ride thing was geniune. If isekai Claire really was that bad, why did she even bother saving Lene from that foreign dignitary, and express much disapproval of what he did? Why not use the assault on Lene as lesson to reinforce her commoner status (ie. "you see that? you deserved that commoner! Know your place")? Especially since at the time of the dress buying, Claire was still calling Lene a "commoner", and Lene had recently suckered her out of a horsie ride.

If Rae lost the first bet, perhaps Claire would have upheld the bet and forced Rae to leave the academy because they were still rivals at the time. I'm not so sure by the time of the second bet of the knight competition, which was after the fussing of if Rae was okay after the slime attack.

I don't actually see the elitism from the Princes, Rod tells Misha to stop acting so formal during the knight duel, Yu tells Matt he'll get back to him, and the princes plus most of the nobles weren't bother by not only serving everybody including commoners during the festival cafe, but also doing so while cross-dressed.

But there doesn't actually seem like a need for one, or at least not so radical/activisty, since the kingdom seems to heading that way already, and perhaps for some time now if indeed the King was gauging public sentiment back during Lene's dress buying time. In the first episode Rod says he's loving his dad's new merit based admission policy, so that means the "commoner movement" is already winning big time, what do they have to complain about, or need to recruit for? Something more is going on with them than the surface level "we just want equality", it's no coincidence the masked stranger guy is lurking around them smirking to himself either. They're probably useful idiots being used to start an uprising, and it wasn't actually about equality.

It seems more like it was setup to be a red herring to the audience. Claire's not stupid despite the fronts she puts up, and Rae saying she's gullible. Even as a child Claire was able to see what was going on with that foreign dignitary harassing Lene, and brilliantly defuse him without causing a diplomatic incident (can't yell at him using her noble status), and found a way to save face for Lene who was feeling guilty in the carriage ride by trying to twist the narrative about Claire being selfish ("that royal prince is horrid", "you're my servant, the highest ranked commoner in this kingdom"). Don't forget Claire is just a noble, not royalty. She's crapping on a foreign prince (higher status than herself) to Lene (a commoner, supposedly "should know her place") telling her not to let anybody (including a royal) treat her like that. So Claire is that smart to process and solve all that, but also so dumb to be tricked by Lene out of a horsie ride? Also so ironically hypocritical as to exert status on Lene for a horsie ride, but then to thwart the foreign prince from doing something similar, then to voice objection and irritation of him to Lene for trying to do it, and instruct Lene not to allow it? When Lene had already not allowed it with the horsie ride, but supposedly Claire actually wanted?

I don't really buy that.

You may not agree with the terminology, but generally, an otome game villainess is just a nasty rival who antagonizes the player throughout the game. During the climax, the player thwarts them with the assistance of the romance option with the highest affection level, and the villainess either dies or gets banished. In this game, that character is Claire. In this isekai world, Rae has been taking steps to mitigate Claire's downfall. Unintentionally, she has also, seemingly, converted Claire into a romance option...


Case in point. Most of the class stayed to attack the monster, and a lot of them (including Claire) get grabbed by the slime. However, instead of Rae being saved by a prince, Claire defeats the monster. The same kind of thing happened with the Loronese prince during the cafe. Despite that, though, the show has set up Claire to go through some hardships befitting her villainess role from the game, and it has to pay it off. Likely, she'll be an innocent victim of her father's corruption or something. The show has also tried really hard to make her sympathetic.


Yeah, that was just a negative interpretation of their inaction. They're pretty swell fellas


We'll have to wait and see on that one, but to call them radical for handing out flyers?



Claire is a (self-admitted) rotten person, but we see that she is capable of being/doing good. She can both drive off her servants and befriend and defend Lene. There is no reason for her to fake the meanness. If she were supposed to be just a good person, then she would just be a good person.

You may not agree with the terminology, but generally, an otome game villainess is just a nasty rival who antagonizes the player throughout the game. During the climax, the player thwarts them with the assistance of the romance option with the highest affection level, and the villainess either dies or gets banished. In this game, that character is Claire. In this isekai world, Rae has been taking steps to mitigate Claire's downfall. Unintentionally, she has also, seemingly, converted Claire into a romance option...


Case in point. Most of the class stayed to attack the monster, and a lot of them (including Claire) get grabbed by the slime. However, instead of Rae being saved by a prince, Claire defeats the monster. The same kind of thing happened with the Loronese prince during the cafe. Despite that, though, the show has set up Claire to go through some hardships befitting her villainess role from the game, and it has to pay it off. Likely, she'll be an innocent victim of her father's corruption or something. The show has also tried really hard to make her sympathetic.


Yeah, that was just a negative interpretation of their inaction. They're pretty swell fellas


We'll have to wait and see on that one, but to call them radical for handing out flyers?



Claire is a (self-admitted) rotten person, but we see that she is capable of being/doing good. She can both drive off her servants and befriend and defend Lene. There is no reason for her to fake the meanness. If she were supposed to be just a good person, then she would just be a good person.

Huge disagree. There's always a reason to fake meanness, whether you're noble or not.
She might not be an inherently good person, but she isn't bad or a villain either. Nothing is just black and white.

Sure, she might enjoy the slight bullying, but she has limits she wouldn't cross, as Rae pointed out herself. Would an evil/bad person defend the heroine from homophobes? Definitely not.

As for faking it: she said earlier that her father is the minister of the finance department, so she needs to uphold a certain image.
A lot of people don't respect kind people, but do so with meaner people.
That might not be needed within her friend group or during school, but maybe she doesn't want to be seen as emotional? Emotions have always been seen as weak. She wants to be viewed as a strong noble, who doesn't need anyone to support her. Once people know where your weaknesses are, especially your emotional ones, it is so incredibly easy to get manipulated. And Claire seems to have fair experiences here, otherwise she wouldn't have that many trust issues.
Being mean makes her seem like a cold b*tch that can't easily be manipulated, because if she doesn't care about anyone, how do you want to threaten her?

Even if she weren't faking it, she grew up in a house where she has always been the attention and could command everyone around her to do everything she wanted. Going to a school where suddenly she has to listen to others, is definitely not easy. Some people might adapt easily, spoiled people rather do not. She may be aware of her shitty personality, but she's too proud to change.

Both could be true, I personally think it's a mix of them. If it only were the latter, it wouldn't make sense why she warmed up to Lene so quickly as a kid.

@Fail_Man_X

They're radical for their aggressive/activisty/desperate recruiting, they're acting like action is required immediately when it's not since they're already winning/have won. They don't even seem to have contributed anything to that win either, it all happened prior to their acceptance into the academy. The only thing they seem to be contributing is strife, it's been mentioned last episode how a number of altercations have broken out among the students, no doubt because of them.

That conflict and tension is going to endanger their supposed cause of equality. All they really needed to do was have a booth, and whoever's interested can approach...but they're chanting recruitment slogan, and Matt is so "in your face" with Rae. Not to mention he singled out Rae for recruitment when he saw her because she's a high profile commoner. Seems like he's trying to use her to push his agenda, and using the flimsiest of reasons (they're both commoners going to the academy) to convince her.

People can self-delude themselves, lie to themselves, and be really uncharitable and even misrepresent themselves. I'm not sure why you totally believe Claire when she speaks negatively about herself when it's been shown and said that she puts up fronts often. Sometimes people "play the villain" for non-villainous reasons. It doesn't even have to be serious to fool people either, it could be for fun as a moustache-twirling villainy. Don't you see how Claire seems to be doing exactly that with her "commoner" and "I am a noble" routine? Even her "villainous laugh" comes off endearing like moustache-twirling. Not that she thinks nobles are villains though, she's "playing the part", or perhaps just "going through the motions" because that's what's socially expected. If there's a flashback where she guillotine's a butler or something like that, then obviously I'd reassess her character.

I mean what are we looking at here, either Claire is a simplistic character who's a selfish loud mouth noble, or a complex character who put up fronts to hide her true character. We already know the answer from Rae in the first episode saying "she's a proud person by nature, she uses intimidation to hide how fragile she can be. I can never dislike her when I understand who she really is, maybe it's that complexity that makes her so irresistible to me", meaning Claire's a complex character.

If that's not enough, lets look at how the anime is treating Claire's character arc. If Claire is a simplistic character, a "rotten person" as you say, then is the anime going for a redemption arc for Claire? Are we shown the harm Claire has caused as a "rotten person", the consequences to her victims by her actions? Are we going to reach a point where Claire changes, and redeems herself? Or is Claire a complex character where she's shown on the surface to be one way, then later on when the audience is fairly convinced she's that way, more is revealed showing the depth to her character that the audience did not know was there, thereby changing the audience's opinion of her character?

It seems pretty clear by the recent few episodes showing the Claire's flashbacks (the death of her mother, Lene's hiring, and defense of Lene) it looks like they're going for the complex character with hidden depth. Unless you think the purpose of those flashbacks were to show how rotten Claire used to be? ie. "Look how rotten child Claire was to tell her mother she hated her before she died", "Look at rotten child Claire demand Lene lower herself to be hired", and "Rotten Claire explaining how buying a dress for Lene was really just a convoluted test to see if the public can stomach commoners entering noble spaces and owning property like dresses".

IDK, I don't see a redemption arc coming. I foresee further character depth of Claire being revealed while she goes through some tough times ahead.

Actually I don't think her father is a bad guy either, LOL. I think the anime tried to mislead the audience on that also. Everybody thinks he got blackmailed by Rae, but I'm very curious to know what was said between them. My guess is Rae's knowledge of the otome game script allowed her to convince him without a doubt that she's totally trustworthy to be Claire personal maid. Blackmailing would not instill that kind of trust, it would instill constant fear and suspicion. We've seen nothing further with Claire's father, therefore it's more likely Rae convinced him without a doubt she'd be totally loyal to the family.

@Garrett_Dark
I don't see anything wrong with Matt and his group, so we'll have to agree to disagree


You could argue that the entire anime so far has been a redemption arc. She spent all of episode 1 bullying Rae, and we see her admitting her faults and doing kind things since then. But I get that it's hard to see Claire's actions as bad when there is no real victim. Not to mention that you've already established that the line between good and bad is literal murder. So I'll concede and just ask a couple questions in closing. 1) do you think Claire will apologize for how she's treated Rae? 2) What do you think (if anything) is the negative event that Rae keeps alluding to?



Fun (optional) third question: Do you think Lene is in love with her brother?