Though I am an Inept Villainess was in my seasonal lineup, and through a randomiser, it was my ‘work anime’ for the day. I watched this in English Dub while I was busy with work and getting other things done. I have not read the light novel or the manga, so as per normal, I went into this series knowing nothing about it.
Three episodes in and I was enjoying it more than I anticipated. A work anime is supposed to sit in the background and this one kept asking for more of my attention. I had to hit pause and watch once I was done with my work.
Flutter and scurry your way around the review
Mini Though I am an Inept Villainess Review
My rating: 8.5/10
- Drama: Court intrigue mixed with a body-swap hook
- Tone: Dry humour on top with curses and conspiracies underneath
- Characters: A relentlessly grateful heroine and a not-so-obvious villain
- Animation: Vibrant, ornate, fluid and detailed
- Vibe: A refreshing, feel-good court story with a rich aesthetic
| Story | Animation | Sound | Characters | Pacing |
| 8/10 | 9.5/10 | 9/10 | 8.5/10 | 7.5/10 |
A proper and refreshing court fantasy that falls firmly into my great tier, turning a treacherous body-swap scheme into an utterly joyful, heartwarming celebration of resilience and gratitude.
What is Though I am an Inept Villainess about?
- Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Drama, Josei, Magic
- Key Themes: Body swap, Villainess, Jealousy, Rivalry, Social Hierarchy, Resilience
- Type: Series
- Episodes: 11
- Duration to watch: +/- 4 Hours
- Age rating: PG-13
- Trigger Warning: Attempted murder, imprisonment, emotional abuse and manipulation
- Release date: July 2026
- Studio: Goga Kobo
- English Dub: Yes
- Source: Light novel by Satsuki Nakamura, illustrated by Kana Yuki and published by Ichijinsha
- Kanji: ふつつかな悪女ではございますが ～雛宮蝶鼠とりかえ伝～
- Alternative title: Futsutsuka na Akujo dewa Gozaimasu ga: Suuguu Chouso Torikae Den
- Streaming on Crunchyroll, BiliBili, Disney+, Netflix
- Does the story continue in the source material: Yes
- Official website
- Hashtags: #ふつつかな悪女, #IneptVillainess
Kou Reirin, a gentle consort candidate, is widely favoured for her elegance and poise, but she is burdened by her frail and sickly body. When her envious rival, Shu Keigetsu, uses forbidden magic to swap their bodies and frame Reirin for attempted murder, she awakens in a dungeon facing execution. However, rather than despairing over her upcoming execution and circumstances, she delights in her new healthy body.
My Thoughts on Though I am an Inept Villainess
I was won over from episode one, even though I usually wait until episode 5. The body-swap plot got me good. I think the easiest place to start is Reirin because without her this could have been a very different anime. The actual setup is fairly grim: a woman who resents her forces her out of her own body, wakes up imprisoned where everyone thinks she committed a serious crime, and she is threatened with execution. Her immediate thought process is basically: these legs work. I loved that, but more importantly, I liked why she reacts that way.
Reirin’s optimism isn’t built on being oblivious. She has spent her entire life seriously ill and very aware that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, so she understands pain, fear, and death better than most of the people around her. That is why this quote from Episode 1 stayed with me:
Till the moment I die, I shall be grateful that I’m still alive. Likewise, until I have been bitten, the lion has yet to bite me. To agonise over pain that has not come, it is nothing but a waste of strength.
~ Kou Reirin in Shu Keigetsu’s body, Episode 1
That tells you almost everything you need to know about her. She isn’t saying nothing bad will happen, only that it hasn’t happened yet, and she refuses to waste today’s strength suffering over tomorrow. Once that clicked for me, her reaction to Keigetsu’s body and her circumstances made complete sense.
Then we get Keigetsu, who thinks she is stealing Reirin’s perfect life. She gets Reirin’s beauty, reputation, social standing, and closeness to the Crown Prince, but she also gets Reirin’s body and health.
Meanwhile, Reirin is stuck with Keigetsu’s ruined reputation and a body capable of actual physical exertion. Episode 2 has her practically celebrating stamina with, “May my stamina never end!”, and by Episode 3 she is admiring her new muscles like somebody who has just unlocked a feature she never knew life came with. Keigetsu wanted to ruin this woman’s life and accidentally gave her abs. That still amuses me.
There is a risk with a character like Reirin because she is kind, clever, accomplished, and able to adapt to almost everything thrown at her. Even when somebody is deliberately being horrible to her, she often responds with enough kindness to completely derail whatever they were trying to accomplish. Give the wrong character all of that, and she becomes exhausting.
Part of what saves her is that her competence has a history. She has spent years physically unable to do many of the things expected of her, so she has developed skills she could practise despite those limitations. The other part is that she is weird. Reirin considering whether she can harvest enough salt from her own tears to season dinner is not normal behaviour. Who thinks of that?? Apparently Reirin.
Keigetsu begins the story by doing something awful. She envies Reirin so badly that she uses forbidden magic to steal her body and leaves Reirin to deal with the consequences attached to Keigetsu’s name. At first it is easy to look at her and think, well, enjoy your prize.
Then she starts experiencing Reirin’s health, and this is where the body swap earns its place as more than a convenient plot device. Keigetsu has spent years looking at everything Reirin possesses from the outside. The attention, the beauty, and the position she believes that Reirin will eventually hold. Desperate she does what she must to swap bodies, and now she knows there is more to Reirin and her being favoured. I don’t think understanding why Keigetsu became bitter excuses what she did, and I don’t need it to. What I liked is that the anime lets both things exist at once. Keigetsu is responsible for her choices, but she is also a product of the way she has been treated, the expectations attached to her family, and years spent believing another woman had effortlessly received everything denied to her.
The body swap forces her into Reirin’s reality while Reirin is walking around in Keigetsu’s face and discovering how completely people have already decided who that woman is. That is much more interesting than simply having a bad villainess learn to be nice.
Episode 5 is where this side of the story really landed for me. The court sees Keigetsu’s body and assumes it already knows what she can and cannot be. She is vulgar, crude, and does not belong; then Reirin performs the Sogdian Whirl in that same body. Nothing about Keigetsu’s face has changed. Only the person inside it has. Suddenly, the same body everyone has been dismissing becomes graceful because Reirin’s training is being expressed through it. That is what makes the scene work beyond being visually impressive.
It exposes how much of the Maiden Court’s judgement is attached to identity before the person has even done anything. Because it is Keigetsu, the action must be vulgar. Because it is Reirin, the action must be elegant. Except now those assumptions are wearing the wrong faces. I have written before about possession isekai and the way those stories use an existing character’s reputation as baggage for a new person to carry. Though I Am an Inept Villainess scratches some of the same itch without actually being isekai because Reirin isn’t replacing Keigetsu. Keigetsu is still here, wearing Reirin’s life at the same time, and that gives the identity problem teeth.
Leelee’s relationship with Reirin is another aspect I enjoyed. She is used to Keigetsu, then this woman wakes up one day acting completely differently, treating her with kindness, feeding her, protecting her, and seeming confused by the idea that she should behave any other way. Watching Leelee try to make sense of that while navigating her own position is amusing. It also exposes how much Keigetsu’s own bitterness affected the people immediately around her. Reirin doesn’t arrive intending to rehabilitate Keigetsu’s reputation. She just behaves like Reirin, and that turns out to be enough to start changing how people respond to Keigetsu’s face.
There isn’t a massive analytical reason the reason that I like Shin-u. It is mainly because he is observant, considerably quicker than most of the court at noticing that something about “Keigetsu” is not adding up, and generally seems capable of entering a situation without leaving his common sense at the door. In a story full of people staring directly at two women behaving nothing like themselves, I appreciated every person whose brain eventually went, hang on, something is wrong here.
Gyoumei is, overall, fine. His relationship with Reirin matters, and he becomes more involved as the conspiracy develops; it’s just I never found myself watching this series for him. The women are doing far more interesting things. Reirin and Keigetsu are literally living each other’s lives, Leelee is dealing with an apparent personality transplant in her mistress, and the Maiden Court is full of old grudges and family expectations. Gyoumei, being the desirable Crown Prince everyone is technically competing over, somehow becomes one of the less interesting parts of the situation. Maybe cour two will change that. For now, he is just there.
The curse plot starts expanding when Venomcraft enters the picture. The problems affecting Reirin’s health turn out to have more behind them while the Empress is pulled deeper into the conflict. The story moves towards a much larger conspiracy than I expected when Reirin was happily planting things outside her shabby new home and being ‘gifted’ bugs. I mostly enjoyed that expansion, although the later magical elements are probably where the anime came closest to losing some of the clean simplicity of its opening. A magical body swap? Fine. That is the premise. By the time there are different forms of magic, venomcraft, wards, elemental abilities, and increasingly elaborate confrontations, there is a lot more going on. I didn’t hate it. I just preferred the parts where the supernatural elements were supporting the court drama rather than threatening to become the court drama.
The character expressions perform a lot of the comedy and emotion, particularly with Reirin, whose face can move from elegant Maiden Court perfection to complete excitement over something ridiculous without losing the character underneath. The clothing also deserves attention. There is enough variation in the robes, embroidery, hair ornaments, and clan presentation to make the Maiden Court visually readable even when the number of names and ranks starts becoming a lot.
Episode 5 is where the movement gets the chance to take over. The Sogdian Whirl needs to communicate why everyone in the room suddenly has to reconsider what they think they know about Keigetsu, and the animation gives that scene the space it needs.
I specifically chose Though I Am an Inept Villainess because the English dub made it suitable for watching while I worked. The important thing in a body-swap story is that personality survives the face, and the dub manages that. Reirin still sounds and feels like Reirin while everyone around her sees Keigetsu, while Keigetsu’s sharper personality remains recognisable even while she is occupying the body everyone associates with Reirin.
Eleven episodes is not a lot of space. Most of the time it moves well because Reirin keeps the story from becoming bogged down. She is a character who does things, and even when she is technically confined somewhere, she starts improving the place around her. The later episodes are where the pace becomes more noticeable because the conspiracy is trying to resolve itself while also expanding the magic. I could have used a little more breathing room there. One or two extra episodes would not have hurt.
This is not The Apothecary Diaries. The comparison is going to happen. Ancient China-inspired imperial court, women living within an inner palace, poison, political intrigue, and an intelligent female protagonist who keeps getting herself involved in things. I get it. I have watched and written about The Apothecary Diaries, and there are definitely moments here where the setting creates a similar itch, but the protagonists could hardly be more different. Maomao looks at danger and wants to know what chemical caused it. Reirin looks at danger and wonders whether she can fit in some exercise first. That difference is enough to give Though I Am an Inept Villainess its own identity.
In summary, Though I Am an Inept Villainess can be described as…
A court fantasy where someone’s perfect life turns out to be far more complicated once you steal their body and now have to live with it. Though I Am an Inept Villainess takes a nasty body-swap scheme and turns it into a story about two women discovering how badly they misunderstood each other’s lives. The palace conspiracy gives the season somewhere to go, but Reirin’s bizarre enthusiasm for simply having a body that works is what gives it its personality.
Strengths and weaknesses
Reirin makes a body swap story feel different. She doesn’t spend the story longing for the life Keigetsu stole because she has gained something she values just as much. What’s nice is that the swap develops both women. Reirin discovers what it means to wear Keigetsu’s reputation while Keigetsu finally experiences the physical reality behind the woman she envied. The visual direction understands the story. Expressions carry the comedy, while scenes such as the Episode 5 dance are given more movement when the story needs the spectacle.
Reirin sometimes feels too capable. There are moments where her adaptability to almost anything reduces some of the tension. The supernatural mechanics become busier than they need to be. The curse storyline works, but the number of magical elements increases quickly towards the end. Eleven episodes gets the arc across the finish line, but another episode or two could have given some revelations and character changes more room.
Hooked by… / Lost by…
Reirin being delighted by Keigetsu’s body is the moment the series became its own thing for me. I expected panic and instead got a woman facing execution while quietly thrilled that she had stamina. Then she started exercising. Sold.
I wouldn’t say the anime completely lost me anywhere, but the later magic was the point where my attention shifted from “I love what this is doing” to “okay, there is a lot happening now”. The curse itself works; the increasing number of magical rules around it could have been cleaner.
Bingeability: is it an easy watch?
Very. Eleven episodes works out to a little over four hours, so this is an easy weekend watch, and the fact that I originally picked it as a work anime also says something about how easy the dub is to follow. Although “work anime” became slightly optimistic whenever Reirin did something that made me look away from what I was supposed to be doing. The story moves quickly enough that there weren’t many points where I felt tempted to leave it sitting for days before continuing. I wouldn’t call it pure background anime, though, because once the conspiracy becomes more involved, there are enough names, ranks, family connections, and magical details that missing several minutes can come back to bite you.
What will stay with me?
Reirin’s attitude towards pain is probably what I will remember longest, particularly the line, “To agonise over pain that has not come, it is nothing but a waste of strength.” That comes from a woman who has every reason to be afraid of what comes next. Her health has taught her that things can go wrong very quickly, but she doesn’t deny that or pretend otherwise. She simply refuses to suffer twice, once for the possibility and then again if it actually happens. I like that. It also explains why the body swap means something completely different to her than it does to Keigetsu. Keigetsu sees everything she lost, while Reirin notices what she gained.
Favourite moment
The Sogdian Whirl dance. This is the moment where Reirin being inside Keigetsu’s body stops being funny for a second and becomes useful in a completely different way. The Maiden Court has already decided what kind of woman Keigetsu is, then Reirin uses Keigetsu’s healthier body to perform something that requires the skill and refinement everyone associates with Reirin. That contradiction is the point. The same face they dismiss is suddenly doing something they have to admire, and I liked that the scene doesn’t need Reirin to become aggressive to prove them wrong. She simply does it. The animation helps, but the reason the dance works for me is what it says about the way everyone has been judging the woman whose body she is wearing.
Favourite character: Kou Reirin
Reirin was my favourite almost immediately and stayed there. I like her optimism because it isn’t empty, I like the weird little practical conclusions her brain reaches, and I like that she can be elegant one moment and then ridiculously excited about muscle definition the next. Most of all, I like that she doesn’t mistake bitterness for strength.
Most impactful character: Shu Keigetsu
Keigetsu causes the entire mess, but that isn’t why I picked her. Her change is what gives the swap emotional weight because she wanted Reirin’s life, then she had to live it. Seeing the world from inside the body she envied forces her to confront something she could never have understood from outside it.
A character I liked just because: Shin-u
Shin-u notices things, uses his head, and somehow becomes increasingly appealing simply by being one of the people capable of looking at this entire mess and realising something is clearly wrong.
A few Though I Am an Inept Villainess quotes I liked
“Till the moment I die, I shall be grateful that I’m still alive. Likewise, until I have been bitten, the lion has yet to bite me. To agonise over pain that has not come, it is nothing but a waste of strength.” ~ Kou Reirin in Shu Keigetsu’s body, Episode 1
“May my stamina never end!” ~ Kou Reirin in Shu Keigetsu’s body, Episode 2
“I considered using salt from my tears as seasoning tonight, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get enough.” ~ Kou Reirin in Shu Keigetsu’s body, Episode 2
“These lovely long limbs. With just a little work and my daily exercise routine, they’re toning up so nicely. The strength, the stamina. I feel so powerful. I’d love to define the muscles in my core too.” ~ Kou Reirin in Shu Keigetsu’s body, Episode 3
Overall enjoyment and personal reflections
I started Though I Am an Inept Villainess because I needed another English-dubbed anime I could watch while working, and I ended it much more attached to Reirin than I expected. There are bigger things happening in the series than her health. Curses, political grudges, family relationships, attempted murders, and enough court drama to keep everyone busy, but the simplest part is still what worked best for me. Reirin can move. She can work until she is tired and exercise because she wants to, rather than measuring everything against what her body might tolerate. For everyone else around her, Keigetsu’s body represents the hated villainess, but for Reirin, it represents freedom.
I don’t think the anime needs to turn that into a massive life lesson because it already says enough through the way she behaves. That is also why Keigetsu’s side works. She spends so much time wanting what Reirin has that she never understands the cost attached to it. Only after taking it can she begin separating Reirin’s actual life from the fantasy version she had built in her head. Would I forgive someone for stealing my body quite as quickly as Reirin? Absolutely not. Reirin and I differ there quite dramatically, but her ability to keep seeing the person in front of her rather than reducing Keigetsu to the worst thing she has done is part of what makes her Reirin. By the end, I wanted more of both of them, and luckily January 2027 isn’t far away.
Re-watch value
Quite high. The first cour is short enough that when the second comes, a refresher will be quick. Basically, give me Reirin being delighted by physical activity, and apparently I am entertained. Depending on Cour 2, I will probably rewatch this from time to time and with every new addition to the series.
Would I recommend it?
If you enjoy palace intrigue, villainess stories, body swaps, capable female protagonists or fantasy where the relationships matter more than the romance, then yes, I recommend it. Readers who enjoy villainess stories such as Villains Are Destined to Die may also find the way reputation controls a woman’s place in the story interesting, although this is considerably lighter.
I would be slightly more cautious to recommend this if an extremely capable heroine frustrates you, because Reirin is very good at a lot of things. The growing complication with magic in the later episodes may also be a sticking point if the grounded palace drama is what initially pulls you in.
Have you watched Though I Am an Inept Villainess? Will you watch it?
Did Reirin win you over as quickly as she did me? If you could choose between Reirin’s status and Keigetsu’s healthy body, which would you actually pick? How did you feel about Keigetsu by Episode 11? Did understanding her situation change how you saw what she did? And will you be back for the second cour in January 2027?
Watched: 6 October 2026
All images used in this review are screenshots taken from cour 1 of Though I Am an Inept Villainess anime for the purposes of commentary and review. I do not own the rights to the anime, characters, artwork, or original footage. All rights remain with their respective copyright holders.
Leave a Reply