Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan

Although Kenzaburou Tondabayashi is a 52-year-old bureaucrat, he is well versed in reincarnation stories where a protagonist suddenly awakens in a fantasy world. After being hit by a truck, Kenzaburou lands in that exact situation. However, what baffles him is the fact he wound up in the world of an otome game—as the young villainess and the daughter of a duke, Grace Auvergne.

Fortunately for Kenzaburou, he is somewhat familiar with his new world, as it is based on the game called Magical Academy: Love & Beast. He was a proud father in his previous life, and he often listened to his daughter rave about the game's setting and characters. Armed with background knowledge and a lifetime's worth of dad skills, Kenzaburou strives to make the most of his new life, though his kind-hearted nature makes it difficult to fully embrace the role of a villainess.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Auvergne, Grace Main

Ichimichi, Mao Japanese

Tondabayashi, Kenzaburou Main

Inoue, Kazuhiko Japanese

Doll, Anna Main

Sekine, Akira Japanese

Josette Supporting

Sasahara, Yuu Japanese

Vierge, Virgile Supporting

Ishikawa, Kaito Japanese

Tondabayashi, Hinako Supporting

Kurosawa, Tomoyo Japanese

Mathilde Supporting

Sasaki, Mikoi Japanese

Tondabayashi, Mitsuko Supporting

Honda, Takako Japanese

Narrator Supporting

Inoue, Kikuko Japanese

Grenat Supporting

Kamakura, Yuuna Japanese

Takeuchi, Tetsuya Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

Kameyama, Toshiki Sound Director

Katou, Akira Episode Director

Komurakata, Kouji Episode Director

Reviews

Mar 27, 2025

KANLen09

Recommended

From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad's Been Reincarnated! - Sometimes, it takes Best Dad to become Best Girl. And the results speak for themselves.

It has become all the more intuitive that when one genre breaks out, many more works will follow in its stead. And one such feature in the Isekai/fantasy realm is the villainess reincarnation theme, which has more or less become prevalent since the COVID decade of the 2020s. But yet, like the genre itself, many authors hoping to make the bank and buck the trend have largely been seen on the sidelines for being not innovative or creative enough or otherwise just feeling ... like your stereotypical reincarnation story with nothing new to offer other than tried-and-true tropes that can quickly get old fast.

Well, not anymore, because there's a new player in town, and guess what, this is pretty good! Introducing female mangaka Michiro Ueyama's Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan a.k.a From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad's Been Reincarnated!, your stereotypical villainess MC is not carried by the same person who got reincarnated but instead, a loved one in the family, and a father figure no less. How stupid and ludicrous this premise can be, it depends on your personal take on this rather innovative twist in the genre.

What happens when you combine Truck-kun with a rather old man just being a hero to save someone's life, even on the cusp of death? You'd get 52-year-old salaryman Kenzaburo of the Tondabayashi family, having died and then reincarnated again, only to find himself filling the shoes in the otome game of Magical Academy: Love & Beast as its notorious villainess of Grace Auvergne, literally being a harmful figure for those around its central character in the premise itself. However, what makes this even more lucrative is that the game itself is loved by his otaku daughter, Hinako, even to the point that she's playing the game to help guide her father, who's trapped in-game, to progress its story and hopefully save her dad in the process alongside her mother-cum-his wife, Mitsuko, who is also an Otaku. What more could you ask from a family of Otakus who treasure video games and see their father's antics play out in the game itself?

As it turns out, quite a lot. We all know the tempers of notorious villainesses in numerous shows of the past, but Grace Auvergne is one villainess who defies that very exact term because Kenzaburo is now the one who is controlling her, instead of the in-game soul that was supposed to tie the game elements altogether. Consequently, the antics of the Tondabayashi father screw over the entire game's logic, which is now being led by his Otaku nature, which is one that's unfamiliar to the otome genre and its gimmicks, to change the course of the game, story by story, bit by bit. Still, what was supposed to be the story of the main heroine of Anna Doll and the love interests of the crown prince, Virgile Vierge, and the many other Ikemen of the magic academy's Student Council, with Grace (or rather, Kenzaburo)'s input of trying to understand the world of the otome game around him, creates quite the trouble that contributes to the allure all to her/him from both the heroine and her Ikemen love interests, plus the people from both within the academy and also those working in the Auvergne House. It's the superpower that twists and turns the game around from evil to good, and it's thanks to this Elegance Cheat skill from Kenzaburo's experience as a salaryman to showcase his forthcoming politeness, without the player himself understanding why his plot to remain faithful to the game's story only hilariously goes from bad to worse, thus making him the side main character instead, to both his wife's and his daughter's chagrin. It's for the humour and laughs, I'm telling you that.

I always have faith when it comes to studio Ajia-do's works, despite some missteps (that weren't to blame production-wise) in the past. The endearing touches that give the show its Midas touch are all over the place and treated with such elegance that you could tell that rookie director Tetsuya Takeuchi and his staff team have the delicate balance going into making the show look as elegant as possible (I'm telling you, the Elegance Cheat is real).

Even the OST sounds good...in its elegance (sorry, but this show is full of elegance puns that it's just SO noteworthy). Once again, Cider Girl (from their last venture from Komi-san wa, Comyushou desu a.k.a Komi Can't Communicate's Season 1 OP) delivers yet again another nice OP song, on top of a rather iconic ED song by actor Ken Matsudaira that's a Japanese mainstay. Regardless, you can't complain about a well-composed OST.

To say that Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan a.k.a From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad's Been Reincarnated!, has been a blast to watch from start to finish, I feel that it's rather underrated and underappreciated for such a work that provides a unique twist to an already proven formula. It has got its "Just for Laughs" comedic gags that strike puns at the very heart of Otakudom, and is so unserious in its BS delivery that no matter if the game's story was canon or filler, it would provide more or less the same delivery one would expect of a show like this.

Expect this villainess reincarnation story to surprise you, and just enjoy the heart and soul given that it's every bit worth your time.

And like the Student Council's vice-president Richard Verseau would say on a pun: Son-sational!

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Mar 27, 2025

TheEasternModie

Mixed Feelings

This show is a bit of a disappointment for me, because it could have been great, but it wants to be a parody without understanding the underlying genre (the villainess genre) well enough to be a good one. Which isn‘t to say that the jokes can‘t be funny, but the jokes aren‘t varied enough to carry the show throughout its whole runtime and the story and characters are basically non-existent. To give you an idea, imagine Konosuba (a parody of the standard Isekai genre), but take away all the actual story elements like the party meeting and fighting different demon army generals and also take ... away all the arcs that give you a better understanding of the main characters, so that their only contribution is to say their one line jokes like „Explosion“ all the time and nothing more. This is in principle what this show is. But if you want to read a more detailed explanation, continue reading.

1) Story

The story starts quite funny, because while you have the typical villainess genre setup with it playing in an Otome game, it‘s not a female player that gets transferred to this world, but a 52 year old salaryman from Japan, who only knows this game, because his daughter played it and now he has to live his life as the villainess of the story (named Grace). And that‘s pretty much everything there is to say. This is the first big issue with the show: it has no actual story. Usually in villainess anime, there is some form of motivation that drives the plot forward. Most often, it is the knowledge of the player that the villainess is going to have a bad ending as she usually gets punished for her actions, so they try to avoid that. But here, our MC just wants to play his role as the villainess. Despite being an Otaku knowing that this isn‘t what you‘d do in that situation. And also, he is obviously fumbling this idea which is one of the main gags. At some point, it is mentioned the goal might be for him to reach the ending of the game, but since we have no clue what that „ending“ is even supposed to be or if he has to be careful, the show is just a random collection of Slice of Life elements with no deeper story.

2) Characters

Now you might say, Slice of Life elements sounds fun. And they are on the surface. But if you don‘t have a story, then the characters become important, because you want to see them develop or just interact in different situations with one another. This is a second big aspect of villainess shows as these are not so much about strong powers, but dialogue choices as the underlying games are usually Otome games where you can romance different options. Sadly, this aspect is also heavily underdeveloped. Again, in a setup like this, you would expect some form of conflict coming from the fact that the MC is in the role of the villainess. Usually, the villainess already has some form of reputation and maybe even a group that copies her behaviour, so a sudden shift in personality means that people now either start to target her as well or they are very cautious expecting some deeper plan behind this nice facade. You know, something that makes the MC have to actually interact with these characters, understand them on a deeper level than what is shown in the game and by that, form new relationships. But not so here. Yes, Grace had a reputation, but from episode 1, everyone just accepts her shift in personality. Even the other bully characters completely change in the first episode to copy her new, more graceful appearance. Not only that, but all of the characters are very 1-dimensional. Again, a big thing about shows like these is usually that the MC gets a new perspective of the other characters because instead of them just being romance options, they can interact in all kinds of ways. But not so here. For one, because our MC doesn‘t know the game well enough to even make a comparison. But secondly, because all of these characters only have one quirk that gets repeated whenever they are on screen. And nothing more. Most egregious is that when it comes to Anna, the original protagonist of the game. Again, the show copies a lot of the surface level elements, like her being a commoner in a school for nobles and who is picked on by the villainess in the game, but instead of creating an interesting new relationship, Anna‘s whole character gets reduced to saying „Sasuga Grace-sama“. Yes, I know that the original MC (as well as basically ever other character) falling for the new villainess is also a trope of this genre, but at least put some effort in and don‘t make it happen in episode 1 already. Now, there might be ONE exception to this and this is Grace as they gave her a „reason“ to become a villainess, but this comes with its own problems. First of all, it's not really explored and only hinted at in a total of three short scenes. But more importantly, this whole "backstory" starts to make less and less sense the more we learn about Grace's surroundings. It's again very surface level. The author understood that the villainess shouldn't just be a villainess because she is in the game, but they didn't care enough to craft a world that actually supports this idea. Which in return means, the opposite happens as Grace's reason for being a villainess ir more or less just "because it's in the title of the show". Maybe they have a bit more planned with that in the future, but considering the show misunderstood every other part of the genre, I highly doubt it.

3) Comedy

But okay, so much for story and characters, but as mentioned in the beginning, this show wants to be a parody and one might say that they don‘t care much about anything else but the jokes. So are they any good? Yeah, they got a few chuckles out of me every so often. Obviously, since there is no development in story or characters, the jokes stay mostly the same over the course of the show, you will basically have seen them all by episode 4, but they can be fun regardless. There are jokes about the MC having a „cheat skill“ where all his actions and words get translated into „noble form“ which is kind of fun. There are obviously his attempts at being a villainess and either fumbling, because he is too much of a good guy or people around him misunderstanding and reading more into his actions (which is one of the jokes normal villainess genres like to do as well). There are the jokes around the other side characters, like how one is constantly doing dad jokes, which our MC obviously appreciates. And then, since our MC and his whole family are Otaku, there are obviously references to other shows. But this last point in particular was the weakest, because these references are often not included properly. For example, there is a father-son-Kamehameha reference, but the story didn‘t support this and it wasn‘t even funny in the moment. It was literally just „We need a reference here as a joke, pick one“. All in all though, I do think, the jokes are good and if you don‘t mind them not developing and just cycling through them, then you can have a fun time.

4) General criticism

Finally, there is one last critcism I want to adress, because while it might not be a big issue, I found this really annoying at times. As mentioned, there is no story or character development and obviously, you can‘t just have jokes every second, so one question might be: How is the rest of the time filled? Mostly by exposition. Really boring exposition. I am not joking. There is a whole exposition scene to explain the simplest four-element magic system I have ever seen for several minutes. And that‘s not even the worst part. The show repeats exposition at several points. This magic system? Yeah, it gets explained to us once when they basically get their element (to avoid spoilers I leave that vague) and a second time, when they fight for the first time with that element. It wasn't complex enough to have one exposition scene, but they really went and said "Make two boring exposition scenes". And this example isn't an exception, they did this several times over the course of the show, which resulted in some really boring moments.

5) Summary

All in all, the show is fine. It‘s a simple parody like a lot of the Isekai parodys where they just make fun of the surface level elements. If you like the jokes, it can be entertaining, but it‘s not a show where you should expect anything more. And it's definitely not a show where you will be interested in future seasons. For that, it just doesn't do enough or anything at all.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jul 27, 2025

Aku_Bukan_Wibu

Not Recommended

i dont recommend it too much. the comedy is very elegant, and the story is a bit unsatisfying for an isekai anime that people say is good. i thought the story of the MC would become overpowered and surprise everyone with his power, but it turns out his ability is only limited to how to socialize, this is a bit disappointing. the character design of the MC is also not sweet, and seems less feminine ... especially when the MC gets the power of a dragon, his attacks are ordinary, i thought his attacks would be so great that they would destroy the school building ... behind him. for the romantic story, there is none ... i am not impressed with the romantic scenes or love stories in this anime. so far the only thing that can entertain me is the comedy about misunderstandings. from me, i give a score of 6 for now, because i am not satisfied with the story of this anime, plus the story of his family in the real world is a bit strange in my opinion, it makes the story bad, because it is not a pure isekai anime. i always skip scenes or scenes that show his old family in the real world. i don't know what the story of this anime will be like in the future, but i'm sure it won't be better.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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