So, I read the manga for this series yesterday, and I actually think the anime is better than the manga so far. I’m usually a fan of any anime with the word “Villainess” in the title, but conversely, I usually dislike the “clueless” sort of animes where the MC doesn’t realize what’s going on.

I guess I think of Bertia as the MC, even though Cecil is supposed to be the MC.

I’m not sure why the anime seems better than the manga. Maybe because I am watching it knowing how it ends. Maybe because Bertia doesn’t seem quite as clueless as in the manga. Maybe it’s because the mangaka frequently used a really stupid happy face for Bertia that I disliked.

I think the thing I like most about this is that aside from the broad likelihood that Prince Cecil and Bertia are going to end up together, I have no idea where it’s going. At every turn, she focuses on something that’s supposed to work out some way according to the game, then he tries to arrange things so that they’re at least superficially like they’re “supposed to be,” but they never really are, because in her version of how things are supposed to be, he ends up rejecting her, and already there’s no way he’s going to do that.

And thinking about it, it’s sort of as if he’s playing a previously unknown route in the game, and she hasn’t realized it. He’s going through the same checkpoints, but doing enough things differently enough that he’s raising entirely different flags.