#why are there almost no NARO gifs

[otterwithatophat]

There's just something about swimming in a pool, like mmmm water.

Literally me

[stardustizuku]

PART 1: How did we get here, again?:

The origins of Villainess Stories

Villainess Stories are an interesting phenomena that took a chokehold of the mainstream anime community, right around 2020, thanks to a little anime named:

“My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!”

I say this, but while it was popularized in 2020, that’s not where this is even close to starting.

I always find myself having to remind most people that: The anime is rarely the origin.

I’ve stated plenty of times before, animation is expensive. More often than not, animes are a commercial of sorts, for manga, light novels and merch. It isn’t until the source material has proven to be successful on its own, that it gets an adaptation.

A risk of this magnitude had to come from somewhere.

That somewhere was Shōsetsuka ni Narō.

Much like many of your favorite animes, My Next Life as a Villainess began as a web novel in the site “Shōsetsuka ni Narō”. A self-publishing Japanese website that brought you “Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!”; “Log Horizon”; “I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince so I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magical Ability”; “I’m in Love with the Villainess”; and for anyone who follows my page: yes. Ascendance of a Bookworm.

Among many others. Like seriously, a bunch of the most popular animes you’ll find being broadcasted in the latest part of this decade - started in Naro from 2012 - 2016.

“My Next Life as a Villainess” was published in 2014, and it ran all the way until 2015. With the Light Novel running from 2015, to this day.

Unfortunately, if you try to find a bit of a timeline as to where the genre came from, you will find a loud crowd that claims that all these mangas are a rip-off of one another, that have no basis on video games. That’s a blatant lie, born mostly out of a complete disinterest in the genre.

The villainess genre has a long, convoluted and frankly complicated story.

Unlike western media, in which you basically take one of the mediums (film, animation, or gaming) and more or less see it evolve with little to no influence of other mediums - Japanese media takes inspo from other mediums all the time.

What do I mean by this?

Let’s take animation. Film animation has a very linear timeline. It starts with Disney, moves to Pixar, moves to Dreamworks. It references almost only itself. If Hollywood does something you can barely feel it film animation. If something becomes popular on the small screen and tv, or streaming services, Film Animation has no clue.

Japanese Animation is different. Manga, webnovels, and games tend to influence each other all the time.

This is why you have extremely popular animes that have a mix of other medium in them. Like, Sword Art Online, which involves mixing elements of video games mechanics with anime tropes. As well as adaptations across the mediums: manga being adapted to animes, live action, musical theatre and even games.

This makes trying to analyze just anime, a fruitless endeavor.

In part too, because the ones who determine what anime becomes an anime, is in large part the manga industry.

Like the BIG THREE are the big three, not for any issues related to the anime, but because they saved Shonen Jump - a manga magazine. Sword Art Online too, became popular due to already popular JRPGs and MMOs. At the same time, it’s undeniable success, and change the course of history forever - came first in the form of a Light Novel (yes SAO was also originally a Light Novel entered in a contest in 2002). So it comes as no surprise that the first to feel its impact was the light novel industry.

The existence of “My Next Life as a Villainess” has then to be divided Parts. The Isekai Part of it, Game Part of it, and the Manga/Anime. Which melted together in the form of a popular webnovel.

Now. Isekais are weird.

People will always point and laugh about how the “original Isekai” is Alice in Wonderland or Wizard of Oz.

But Isekai is a hard thing to define, specially its origins. At it’s core, Isekai is just “Being sent to another word” and that’s as universal as of a trope as any other. After all, it’s the first step of A Hero’s Journey taken to its most literal of interpretations. Crossing the Threshold into a New World is pretty much the beginning of any adventure. It stands to reason that this “New World” is a literal new one. This leaves everyone guessing as to what you’d consider the “first Isekai”. Some will point at Urashima Tarō, some at the Super Mario Bros movie, some will point at Superbook, or Mashin Hero Wataru.

That said, nowadays, “Isekai” became a genre of its own. It has a very specific aesthetic, tropes and characters.

So rather than to try and find where it originated, it’s more productive to see when it started to take the shape of what we would nowadays consider to be the essence.

And something to notice too, is that the trope varies greatly depending on what current you take. You could consider Digimon a precursor of Sword Art Online, but that would have very little impact on Villainess tropes.

In this sense, I would consider Vision of Escaflowne (1994), Inuyasha (1996) and Fushigi Yugi (1991) as the pioneers of what it is now Isekai Shoujo.

They all talk about high school girls being transported to another world. They all talk about destiny and fate, and whether we have to follow the path someone else has set for us.

Vision of Escaflowne presents the idea of fate. It involves also war and the nature of trauma. It’s a slightly more mature story. But it cements this idea of “the chosen one”.

Talking about Fushigi Yugi, it’s often considered to be the first “transported into a novel” Isekai with a shoujo romance focus. I wish I had read it or watched it because a lot of the tropes that eventually become a staple of the Isekai story come from here. Including the predestined story, someone being told they have a role to play, the jealousy of someone trying to steal your position, as well as a romance based around saving the world.

And I cannot possibly understate the influence of Rumiko Takahashi’s Inuyasha. This woman quite literally created the concept of a harem and reverse harem romance with Ranma 1/2. She’s the queen of love triangles. While it would take a bit more for the Isekai genre aimed at women to fully take off, it’s undeniable to anyone who’s watched it how much contemporaries borrow from it. Not to mention, it’s perhaps the most famous one. While Escaflowne and Fushigi Yugi are both relatively unknown, specially in the west, everyone knows Inuyasha. It had 164 episodes, 5 films, and even a recent sequel.

Parallel to this, games started to transform too.

For villainess characters in otome games have been here since literally the inception of the genre.

Angelique, the (by and large) considered to be the pioneer or inventor of the genre, was released in 1994. This game has a villainess character, in the name of Rosalia de Cartagena. The game is about the Queen that rules the Universe, deciding to chose a new ruler, via a competition. She chooses two Queen candidates: Angelique and Rosalia. Rosalia being the rival, you (as a player) are supposed to defeat.

Surprisingly, though, when the game comes out, Rosalia becomes hugely popular with audiences. “How popular?” You may ask.

Well, popular enough that in 1998, KOEI released a game named Angelique DUET, in which you can choose to play as either Angelique or Rosalia.

Yeah, so you may considered that the villainess as the main character trope dates back for as far as 1998.

But…well, I’m twisting the truth just the slightest bit.

While the original Angelique story, is about two rival Queen Candidates competing for the throne, and yes, you will lose the game if you let Rosalia win…- Rosalia is never a full fledge villainess.

Yes, she’s a a rival, but not a villainess.

She isn’t evil.

The original game had two (main) endings: The Queen Ending and The Love Ending.

And in the Love Ending, which was still a Good Ending, Rosalia would become Queen.

You could quite literally, only choose between love and duty. And if you chose Love, you were letting Rosalia win.

She wasn’t evil. In fact, she’s described as talented, smart and was literally trained to be a Queen. It’s just that in the framing of the story, you have to defeat her to become Queen.

And even if you win, in Angelique Special 2, (where you play as the successor to Angelique) it is more than hinted that Angelique and Rosalia are friends - even when Angelique became Queen. Which is supported by the fact that the player can actually GAIN friendship points from Rosalia in the original game, by going into her room and chatting with her.

So, Rosalia is not evil, not by any long shot.

But this game cemented the idea of two Rivals Queens, an extensive Harem of Men, and the idea of duty vs love.

Albarea’s Maiden, released in 1997, also introduced the concept of the Saintess or the Holy Maiden, set to save the world by competing against other girls. With one of them being a counselor-type supporting character, and your active rival.

Later famous Otome game, Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side, released in 2002, popularized the concept of Friendship Routes. You could avoid the Rival Mode and befriend Shiho Arisawa, Mizuki Sud, Natsumi Fuji or Tamami Konno, instead of the Love Routes.

So you have these two genres, and both are growing in its own ways.

Otome series keep gaining popularity, like massive amounts of it. Obviously, it grows so much that it creates its own ecosystem. Varying from school romance, to historical fantasy, and all the likes. Games like Brother’s Conflict, Diabolik Lovers, Uta no Prince-sama, among others exploded in popularity around 2010-2012.

Meanwhile shoujo is also thriving as its own thing. Developing its tropes, one of which will come extremely handy later, that involves the “pick me” girl Japanese Version. Series like Kimi Ni Todoke, Kaichou Wa Maid, Special A, become extremely popular too around this time.

Finally, Summer of 2012 rolls around and.

Oh how I dread this.

As much as I would like not to talk about Sword Art Online, it’s unfortunately enough, a critical piece for most of anime history.

I cannot understate how much this anime changed the game. It wasn’t the first to introduce the concept of video games and anime - with The World Only God Knows coming out in 2011 - but it was the first to (in the first season) take its premise extremely seriously. It was the first to combine Isekai with gaming, and a power fantasy that many would soon find themselves indulging into. That’s it, a world where what makes you a loser, is your biggest strength.

Which launched it to popularity.

It became a sensation; a phenomena.

It opened the flood gates for many others who would try to combine anime, gaming and the Isekai concepts.

In the webnovel sphere, meanwhile, you could see that Magic Academy Stories and Historical Fantasy with the Princess archetype were fairly popular already. But it’s way harder to distinctively examine them for one reason.

Simply put, uhm. It’s, ah, sexism.

While a lot of stories aimed at boys would often get picked up without a second thought for an anime adaptation - the same could not be said of stories aimed at women. Be it webnovels, light novel or manga, it takes extreme power for a shoujo to get picked up. So, these stories simply don’t get an anime, which means we don’t get adaptations, which means no translation or English documentation.

And honestly? There’s just so far as my Japanese friend’s broken English and Google translate can get me.

It’s easy for me to analyze Angelique’s influence because there’s English archieves of it!

The same cannot be said, of what’s essentially a fanfiction website filled with self indulgent writing. As much as it is a treasure trove of why the genre blew up - I simply cannot access it.

But what from what I can see Isekai Villainess Stories exploded in 2014. You could already see it bubbling up in 2013. Notably, for anyone reading this from the AoB tag, Ascendance of a Bookworm came out in 2013. An Isekai story that heavily focused on Royalty and the “Holy Maiden” archetype.

It took just the right tweaks to get it right.

The first to appear, from all the digging I could find in English Archieves, was in 2013 with the “I Will Live with Humility and Dependability as My Motto” novel. It was discontinued in 2017.

It is nothing like “My Next Life as Villainess”. The protagonist was about to enter elementary school when she dies, the story told is one of a manga she was reading (not a game), and it lacks the harem aspect that would later be so cliche it borders on brain dead. But you see a lot of what would become essential. A heroine with a goal different to romance, an original villainess that bullies the heroine, and a wish for a simple no-problem life.

After that, most of what followed were novellas and small short stories, much which are now discontinued or on hiatus. Which is to be expected. Naro allows all types of stories in its website. And back then there was no format. No tropes, no guidelines to what works and doesn’t.

Trial and error landed us with “My Next Life as a Villainess”. And I mean a lot of trial and error. From what has been archieved and translated on English, there’s easily 15 stories with a similar premise that were published in 2014. Which may not sound like a lot, but that’s only what has been popular enough to be saved into English. I cannot imagine how much got lost in Japanese.

But, there you have it.

First, the sudden explosion of Isekai Gaming with the popularity of the Sword Art Online Anime.

Followed by a growing interest in Otome Games. An audience prepped by the original 1994 and 1996, to be endeared by a rival/villainess character.

An audience of Shoujo fanatics which grew up with Isekai shows like Escaflowne, Fushigi Yugi, and Inuyasha in the late 90s.

And an audience of webnovel enthusiasts, already in love with princess aesthetics and magical academies.

Anyways.

Once that reached the main consciousness, all hell broke loose.

After “My Next Life as a Villainess” blew up, it was only a matter of time for countless of self-published stories to follow suit.

Obviously, I’m glossing over a lot of history. I wasn’t able to touch upon the Light Novel and Visual Novel games, mostly because that’s a massive sinkhole you’d need a MASTERS to sort through. Made, entirely not easier, by the fact that mediums keep interacting with each other. Visual novels get picked up, turned into anime, which inspires the next batch of game developers and artists. And the feedback loop is somehow even quicker there, for some reason.

Like, My Next Life debuted in 2014, we got the anime until 2020, and its popularity only reached anime-backed levels of explosion until 2024. It took ten-fucking-years for this to become a thing. Whereas shonen and shonen manga has maybe 5 year gap? Shonen Jump spits out anime adaptations almost as fast as it cuts anything that isn’t OnePiece levels of popular. Again, it’s a can of sexism worms I’m not interested in today.

“Wait,” you ask. “I still don’t get it”

What do you not get?

“Well, I understand we’re the Isekai aspect comes from. I understand the gaming and all. But wasn’t Rosalia a good girl? How do you go from the Rival-Everyone-Likes in the game, to the horrible Villainess that The Original Catherine is meant to be? Her description of a the game’s villainess is far meaner than Rosalia was”.

Alright, so, you remember how I named these series “All Girls Dream of Cinderella?

“Yeah”

Well. We now have to talk about Cinderella.

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