• *Hey Iana, are you okay? Like… are you good?

I mean, obviously not. You’ve died and been reincarnated as an antagonist in the world you created as a teenager. Everything around you is a silly, exaggerated reflection of your adolescent desires, fantasies, and anxieties. You only built this fiction because you were deeply unhappy with your own life, preferring to escape to an ideal where you were adored by everyone around you. Also, you’re in bed with a fever, and all the attractive men you created are trying to check your temperature by getting in your personal space.

We already knew that Iana was relatively isolated while she was in school, but this episode also offers a brief glimpse into her adult life as well, and it’s not pretty. She collapses from the physical and mental stress of stopping Sol and Yomi’s duel and, through her fever dreams, forgets where she is. She’s confused about why her uncomfortable bed suddenly feels so soft, and when she wakes up, she literally drags herself across the floor so she won’t miss work. This is partially to set up that Yomi overhears her muttering about BL games and believes that it’s something Konoha is using to blackmail Iana, allowing the shenanigans and misunderstandings to continue.

Still, it looks like Iana never fully moved on from her otaku-ness; she just stopped imagining herself literally escaping to another world. Rather, her escapism has taken a more capitalistic, consumptive form focused around purchasing merchandise for other people’s creations. Instead of immersing herself in the fantasy, she has erased herself. I’m starting to wish I had gone for that Cultural Studies MA program, because if I had a bit more of a solid grounding in theory, I’m pretty sure I could write a banger thesis for how moving from transformative to consumptive fandom is seen as more “adult” and socially acceptable, even within the realm of otaku-oriented escapism.

The story doesn’t wallow in her empty, miserable adult life, fortunately, but it does create the impression in me that there may be more of an escapist element to The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess than I originally thought. After all, once Iana finishes convincing everyone around her that she’s a danger to Konoha and survives all the plot events that her hormonal teenage brain cooked up, she’ll be a noble with a sister and presumably at least one man who loves her. She’ll have a much more comfortable, fulfilling life than she did as Konoha Satou.

With the story taking a moment to pause and breathe, we also get to confront a fact that has been glossed over until now: teenaged Konoha Satou wrote Ginoford Dandelion to be her ideal boyfriend, and now she’s watching him fall in love with someone else. Konoha Magnolia bears no resemblance to who Iana ever was; the person she was supposedly modeled after was never honest enough with herself to write her self-insert as a weirdo gremlin.

Iana doesn’t hold any ill-will or bitterness toward Konoha about this, considering she’d moved on years ago. Still, Ginoford finally stops treating Iana with suspicion, having come to believe that she had been trying to protect him and Konoha the whole time, and instead tends to her at her sickbed, including badly reading her stories. Iana reflects on the evolution of this ideal boyfriend character she created as her own tastes changed and she drew in different characters as models to base him on.

The part that left me most chuckling in painful recognition was her memories of fantasizing about having him by her side, walking with her under an umbrella, protecting her from the wind and doing… other stuff, if you catch my drift. While I didn’t have an Original Character, Do Not Steal boyfriend, I whiled away plenty of hours imagining myself walking hand-in-hand with Quatre from Gundam Wing, Yukito from Cardcaptor Sakura, and Hotohori from Fushigi Yugi, among others. I chuckled weakly at the idea that everyone my age must have had a boyfriend by then. You know what? I’m a happily married adult now, and I still get fictional crushes. Akihiko from Persona 3 Arena, call me!

With a much chiller tone, this episode pretty much wraps up the present story arc. Yomi still stubbornly clings to his belief that Iana hates Konoha and he should definitely kill her, but Iana has figured out a way to keep him under control: be mean to him. Don’t make emotional pleas, don’t try to convince him you’ve changed. Kabedon that boy and pretend to be the cruel domme he fell in love with, and that you want him to cool it on all the murder because you’re playing a long game and he’s getting in the way. I’m not sure how viable it is as a long-term strategy, but at least it gets him out of her hair. With Yomi tamed and Ginoford and Sol less actively suspicious, we should be ready to meet the third boy in the opening.

**Rating: **

*The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess is currently streaming on Crunchyroll. *

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