His cheat skill is no longer needing glasses — Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan — First Impressions

Finally, an anime protagonist who struggles with the same problems I do:

A middle aged bald man raising his glasses to better see the book he's reading

Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan is yet another villainess series, but this time the protagonist reincarnating into the teenage villainess is a fiftytwo year old white collar worker and father Tondabayashi Kenzaburou , whose daughter Hinako was the one playing the game he reincarnated in. He himself has only a vague idea of how the plot is supposed to go or what role Grace Auvergne is actually supposed to play in the harassment of the game’s heroine. His idea of a villainess is much more classic:

Kenzaburou talking about classic shoujo manga and anime villainesses with ring curl hair as a censured image of Elizabeth from Candy Candy is shown on screen.

Fun fact: Inoue Kazuhiko, Kenzaburou’s voice actor, actually played the male lead in Candy Candy. Which is also one of the first anime I remember watching, long before I knew it was anime, as a child in the eighties when you watched everything that was animated even if it was *shudder* intended for girls. Kenzaburou is very much of my generation then and also a bit of an otaku like his daughter (and wife). With little knowledge of otome games and reincarnated into a very aristocratic young lady, how will Kenzaburou cope in his new role? Luckily he has a cheat power, which transforms his thoroughly salaryman behaviour into the correct aristocratic etiquette for Grace to have.

Grace holding her fan and looking smug while Kenzaburou looks equally smug in the background.

I like the manga of this and I’m glad to see some care has been taken with its anime adaptation. It all looks a cut above the usual villainess/isekai production with some genuine impressive animation, character design and backgrounds. If there’s one thing that could be improved it would’ve been for Grace to sound even more oujo-sama-ish than she already does.

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