My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! - Season One Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! - Season One Blu-ray Movie Review

My Next Life As a Villainess – All Routes Lead to Doom! is a compelling video-game turned reality adventure. Produced by Hiroyuki Aoi (Blade of the Immortal, Domestic Girlfriend), Kei Nishi (The Price of Smiles, Teasing Master Takagi-san), Takashi Jinguuji (The Melody of Oblivion, This Ugly Yet Beautiful World), and Yutaka Suwa (The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated!, Kageki Shoujo!!), My Next Life As a Villainess – All Routes Lead to Doom! provides a unique video game alternate-world setting for otaku nerds to explore. Featuring animation produced by SILVER LINK. (Anti-Magic Academy: The 35th Test Platoon, Battle Girl High School), My Next Life As a Villainess – All Routes Lead to Doom! is a fun and inventive series with a compelling concept by creator Satoru Yamaguchi.

Catarina Claes (Maaya Uchida) turns her life upside down when she accidentally finds she has bumped herself hard on her head. Now finding herself with a revelation that in her former life she was a huge anime otaku and video game nerd, Catarina realizes that she is now living in the world of one of the video games she was obsessed with playing. How’s that for a plot twist?!

Inside of the video game Fortune Lover…, Catarina realizes that the character she is now playing in her new video-game- turned-reality life only has two possible outcomes in the game – that of being killed or becoming exiled from the game. Catarina must now do whatever it is she can in order to change her fate and re-code the video game so she won’t end up dead by the grand finale!

The My Next Life As a Villainess – All Routes Lead to Doom! series has a compelling cast of characters. The central protagonist, Catarina Claes, helps to usher in the series as the otaku turned video-game character. The lead character is certainly one that anime otaku will be capable of relating to as an obsessive video-game or manga nerd.

The character designs by Miwa Oshima (Aria the Scarlet Ammo AA, Nyanko Days) are some of the most distinctive elements of the production. The designs are cute and colorful. The vibrant aesthetic for the designs makes the colors shine – this is a nicely designed production. Oshima certainly did a solid job here and the results work extremely well. Adapting the original character designs by Nami Hidaka, Oshima imbues some fun creativity.

Under the art direction of Asuka Komiyama (Sugar Bunnies Chocolat!, The Dungeon of Black Company), My Next Life As a Villainess – All Routes Lead to Doom! looks remarkably colorful and vibrant with the animation making a solid impression. The colorful series has a wonderfully bold aesthetic and it is something that provides the production with the right ingredients for success.

The chief animation direction by Miwa Oshima (Baka and Test - Summon the Beasts, Gugure! Kokkuri-san) also aids the aesthetic. The colors practically leap off the screen with exceptional depth and vibrancy. The results are tremendous.

The cinematography by Hideki Eto (Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero, The Price of Smiles) is another strength of My Next Life As a Villainess – All Routes Lead to Doom! and it shines as a prime example of why strong cinematography is so essential to anime productions. Eto provides the series with such a lush visual sensibility that the production is all the more rewarding. Kudos to Eto for doing such a solid job with the production.

The music composed by Hanae Nakamura (The Quintessential Quintuplets, Convenience Store Boy Friends), Miki Sakurai (The Demon Girl Next Door, The Quintessential Quintuplets), Natsumi Tabuchi (Castle Town Dandelion, The Quintessential Quintuplets), Shu Kanematsu (Clockwork Planet, The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses), and Tatsuhiko Saiki (The Dawn of the Witch, The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess to Savior) is one of the most charming components of My Next Life As a Villainess – All Routes Lead to Doom! and there is real strength in that foundation. The music is cheery, fun, and its wonderfully upbeat vibe helps the storytelling to gel all the more.

Written by Megumi Shimizu (Snow White with the Red Hair, Banished From The Heroes' Party), My Next Life As a Villainess – All Routes Lead to Doom! is a fun series with a lot of compelling ideas for the series storyline. The concept was great – and that is one of the focal points for the series working so well. The scripting by Shimizu is solid and the characters are given adequate room to be explored and developed further.

Directed by Keisuke Inoue (Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya), My Next Life As a Villainess – All Routes Lead to Doom! might not be an all time classic but it is a solid and enjoyable series with a compelling concept and good execution. The production benefits from having outstanding production merits – and director Inoue brings forth the best from the staff involved on the production.

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! - Season One Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Arriving on Blu-ray from Sentai Filmworks, My Next Life As a Villainess – All Routes Lead to Doom! is presented in the original television broadcast aspect ratio of 1.78:1 widescreen. The crisp and vivid presentation showcases a gorgeous high-definition encoding. Sentai Filmworks has done a terrific job showcasing the series.

The animation is bright, cheery, and colorful. The image has considerable "pop" and depth and looks fantastic on the release. The results are certainly outstanding and enhance the experience.

The set benefits from a healthy encode. It is important to remember that the Blu-ray format offers the most robust and detailed image – the crispest presentation. Streaming options provide video with a considerably lower bit-rate. The added detail makes for a more pleasing image.

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! - Season One Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The release includes a selection of lossless audio options: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo and Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo (with English subtitles). The lossless audio provided on the release helps to enhance the experience with quality sound reproduction. Detail is superb on the audio presentation.

Dialogue sounds remarkably crisp and clear during the presentation and is easy to understand. The score is well integrated in to the stereo sound mix and sounds exceptionally vibrant as well. An outstanding lossless encode. The lossless audio encoding provides fans with a strong audio presentation, one that far exceeds lossy streaming sound quality on streaming video services.

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! - Season One Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Clean Opening Animation (HD, 1:32)

Clean Closing Animation (HD, 1:32)

The release also includes a selection of trailers promoting other releases available from distributor Sentai Filmworks: Rent-a-Girlfriend (HD, 1:32), Canaan (HD, 1:33), Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It (HD, 1:32), and Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? III (HD, 1:36).

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! - Season One Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

My Next Life As a Villainess – All Routes Lead to Doom! is an entertaining fantasy anime series with a compelling video-game concept. The series explores a rabbit hole in which the central protagonist is beginning to discover that in their own past life they were a rabid otaku devouring anime and video games – before turning in to a character in one of their favorite games! Yet the character in the video game always dies or is exiled from the game and either option won't do if she is to survive to the end.

The Blu-ray release features a strong video and audio presentation. The set includes a small selection of bonus features, including clean opening and clean closing animation. Fans of the series will want to add the release to their collection despite the small supplemental package failing to make much of an impression. Recommended.