Yeah, I’m honestly shocked it was Shu Gabi because she was the all-too-obvious choice. But by the end of last episode, I was sitting there thinking, “Okay, if it isn’t her, then who the hell could it possibly be?”

• Anyone from the Kou clan is almost completely off my suspect list. Both Reirin and the Empress were targeted, and Tousetsu himself was in the dark until recently.
• The Kin Consort seems too inept and the Kin maiden too just to be doing anything this elaborate. The whole “Kin white lady directing Leelee” thing was a fake, too. And we’ve now seen curse magic connected to both the Kin and Shu gifts given to Reirin and the Empress.
• The Blue Consort (sorry, I forget the clan name) feels similarly inept, and the Blue maiden is so young and seemingly innocent that she doesn’t exactly scream “mastermind behind a palace conspiracy.”

And then there’s Shu Gabi. The suspect who was so obvious that I basically convinced myself she couldn’t possibly be guilty.

She took in Kougetsu after Kougetsu learned forbidden magic following her parents’ suspicious “suicide.” She planted the seed of, “If only you were like Reirin.” Kougetsu then taught her curse magic. And despite Reirin’s frailty being widely known, Kougetsu was genuinely surprised to discover just how sickly she was, suggesting that information had been deliberately kept from her. Gabi also seemingly has a grudge against the Empress for taking the position that could have been hers. And, of course, it was Gabi’s gift to the Empress that caused her to become sick. Oh, and then there’s the extremely obvious foot curse, presumably connected to Venomcraft.

Like… COME ON. It’s a neon sign pointing directly at her. But that’s exactly why I don’t buy it.

If it really was Shu Gabi, what’s her actual motive? Revenge against the Empress for taking the top maiden position? In the process, she’s burning down both the Shu and Kou clans. That’s an absurd amount of collateral damage.

So let’s assume she’s a red herring, like many of us have been expecting. If that’s the case, then a few things suddenly become interesting:

• Gabi asked to learn forbidden magic because she needed to counter someone else’s forbidden magic. In doing so, her own leg became cursed.
• In the flashback, when the prince—now the Emperor—became ill, that could potentially have been Venomcraft as well.
• We know maidens sometimes gave gifts to other maidens to present to the prince as their own. Gabi gives the Empress the handkerchief to present to the prince, but the Empress keeps it instead. So the cursed Kin and Shu gifts given to Reirin and the Empress could potentially have originated with a third party.
• Forbidden magic can apparently facilitate body-swapping and silencing. It’s entirely possible that someone else has been swapped or silenced.

So in this hypothetical scenario, the Kou clan remains the victim, while both Shu and Kin have been framed.

And that leaves one clan that has come out of this whole thing remarkably clean: The Blue clan.

And honestly? The Blue maiden being so young, sweet, and seemingly completely innocent would make for one hell of a twist. The motive would also be comparatively straightforward: eliminate the top rival—Reirin—and arrange for all the blame to fall on Kougetsu.

I still maintain that the titular “Inept Villainess” is actually Kougetsu.

And I love that Kougetsu and Reirin are finally starting to understand each other. Kougetsu spent her whole life desperately wanting what she thought Reirin had, while Reirin is basically considering every day a gift from Kougetsu.

Which is why I’m increasingly convinced there’s way more going on here than “Shu Gabi is evil.”

I think the thing that bothers me the most about this anime is the way that Elymas seems to be unable to use his common sense or any knowledge that he gained from living in that world for his entire life

I don’t know if it’s because I recently read the manga just to see how badly the anime adaptation was trainwrecking the pacing, but the impression I got was that the world’s “common sense” about the game mechanics is often absurdly wrong.

Heavy Knights are considered a useless class when they’re actually completely busted, for example. So Elymas seems perfectly capable of navigating the non-game aspects of the world using the knowledge he gained growing up as a noble. But when it comes to classes, skills, and game mechanics, he trusts his past-life knowledge instead. Because the people of this world clearly have no idea how to properly optimize any of it.

And now he’s finally starting to realize, “Oh, wait, I’m not necessarily the only person who can be good at this.” Honestly, that’s pretty refreshing.

lol, I looked it up too. I was SHOCKED when I finished Volume 2 and realized I was basically caught up to the anime.

There’s an ABSURD amount of recap, flashbacks to something that happened literally three minutes ago, long reaction shots, dramatic camera angles, and reused animation that feels like it’s there purely to eat runtime.

And I genuinely have no idea why they’re going at such a glacial pace. They signed up for 26 episodes and have 18 volumes of manga to work with. It’s not like they’re in danger of running out of source material!

At this rate, they might only reach Volume 8 by Episode 26. 😂

Yes! Kougetsu was making it so obvious that she wasn’t Reirin. That being said, body swap magic is forbidden and likely not well known so it’s forgivable that the handmaiden didn’t realize it sooner. Plus Keigetsu told lies to make Reirin more trapped, like how she “stole” the non-existent diary.

And yes, it is funny that all this has taken place over the course of just a week. Those must be some extremely fast growing potatoes. Agriculture aside, the rest of the timeline makes sense, and really sends home Keigetsu’s plight of not even being able to maintain the charade.

As for the mystery, I think it’s clear that Keigetsu knows who the real culprit is. I had a theory from last week that the real titular “Inept Villainess” is Keigetsu because all her schemes so far have only make Reirin happy. But it’s also pretty clear that there’s someone else pulling strings from the shadows, setting Keigetsu up to learn forbidden magic, killing her parents, hiding Reirin’s illness from her, and making her envious of Reirin.

I thought maybe it was someone from the Kou clan, but that seems extremely unlikely after this episode. The Shu Consort seems to be the obvious pick, even moreso after this episode. She “saved” Keigetsu, asked her why she couldn’t be more like Reirin, and now we find out that she was favored to be the Empress until Kou claimed it in the final hour AND the incense she gives the Emperess is cursed too. I mean, the evidence seems overwhelming against her, especially with the last bit. BUT… she seems like the too obvious choice.

Remember, both the Kin AND Shu incense gifts were cursed, but Keigetsu said there’s only one other forbidden magic user. Now there might be a third, extra secret magic user but I doubt it. Moreover, the Empresses’ flashback showed that it wasn’t uncommon for one maiden to give another maiden a gift to give someone on their behalf, as she was given the handkerchief to pass off as her own gift.

So I think someone is giving the consorts these incense jars to use as gifts. I mean, the Kin consort seems to be an idiot, and the Kin maiden seems to be a fair person. But there was that one girl from the Kin clan who gave the hair ornament to Leelee who the Kin maiden said she didn’t recognize as one of the white robes, so that’s suspicious as hell.

Also, I really like where your mind is going with this other dark magic user. Someone who can swap bodies to extend their life or otherwise do mischievous deeds without getting caught. Keigetsu is barely tapping into that power.

Yeah, I was wondering that myself. I feel like it’s a post bodyswap gift, because Keigetsu knows it’s from the Kin clan. If it was pre-bodyswap then she probably wouldn’t have known where it came from. But I see your train of thought… maybe Reirin sickness is because of a curse and not a weak constitution. So on that note, maybe the Kin clan has been constantly giving Reirin these “gifts”.

If you like the show, the LN is even better.

Right? Sometimes there’s decent animation and the they do weird stuff to show the pacing to crawl and reuse shots. I might pick up the manga just out of curiosity.

This episode was considerably better than last week’s but still. I’m right there with you, watching because it’s such a mess and yet somewhere at the studio one intern seems to be trying SO HARD.

This whole episode was gold from start to finish.

Land of the Lustrous. Hear me out. I absolutely loved the anime. So much so that I was like “I need MOAR!” and then binged the manga. Without giving anything away, the complete story ruined me for several days afterwards. Don’t get me wrong, it was BRILLIANT but it was also like “fuck…” Like, have you ever seen Requiem for a Dream? Where you go “wow, that was fantastic… and I never want to watch it again.” Except I love Phos and would absolutely spend time with her again and then question my sanity afterwards.

In a similar vein, Planetarian. It gets you right in the feels but is also fantastic. It plays fair and you’re left going “yeah, there isn’t any other way they could have ended, is there?” while you’re bawling your eyes out.

Ah yes. She first talks to the flames first, and then from the books learns it’s forbidden magic. My interpretation was “oh, here are books that explain the thing I was learning on my own” and considering that Keigetsu gets proficient enough at it to body swap and contact Reirin at will, I just assumed her dad’s books were more of the “Black Magic for Dummies” variety. But it’s totally possible the notes were “Earth/Fire/Water/Air magic = good. Black magic = bad.” and she learned everything on her own.

This last episode was particularly bad. I thought the first episode was decent from an animation standpoint. Just the fact they were trying to use unusual camera angles and the action sequences seemed decent enough. But omfg the plot is bad and the pacing is terrible. Seriously, this last episode felt like it could’ve been condensed into 3 minutes, so the rest of the episode they were just wasting everyone’s time.

Oh, what an interesting idea. This is the first episode where I’ve really started to go “huh… things aren’t adding up.” Like sure, there were a few minor oddities before but this one practically had neon “LOOK HERE” signs. However, if I had to point the finger at anyone, it would be someone from the Kou clan. Shu doesn’t seem to have a good motive. But if it was Kou, their motive could be to get Reirin a healthy body.

Your “it was murder” take is actually solid. The mother’s abusive attitude doesn’t give me “suicide” vibes, and a double-suicide seems even less likely. Adding to the “staged” nature of the parents’ deaths, it’s kind of interesting that Keigetsu just happened to be locked in a room with books about forbidden magic. I don’t think those are the kind of things you’d just find in the back room of a commoner’s house.

The other big red flag I saw this episode was the incense in sick Shu Keigetsu’s room. Keigetsu was too sick to light it herself, it was there before the empress and prince arrived, and it clearly had some kind of dark aura about it. It also broke when Reirin reached out to Keigetsu after hitting the bullseye. The only people who could have had access to Keigetsu’s room are people of the Kou clan.

Also how they keep portraying Keigetsu as a tragic character, with Reirin constantly trying to help her and actually happy they traded places because she can be healthy for once. Really makes me think that the titular “Inept Villainess” is actually Keigetsu.

Some stuff that hasn’t been mentioned yet:

Girls Band Cry. I found the cast really solid, realistic, and relatable.

Land of the Lustrous. Predominantly female world and Phos is a surprisingly deep and relatable character who undergoes a lot of growth.

Isekai Wildcard Picks:

Ascendence of a Bookworm

So I’m a Spider, So What?!

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear

The Executioner and Her Way of Life

My Next Life As A Villainess: All Routes Lead To Doom

The Saints Magic Power is Omnipotent

Didn’t I Say To Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!