The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess

Episodes 11-12

First of all, is it any surprise that a teenage girl with a rape fetish fantasized about vampires? Vampires are one of the oldest representations of sexualized loss of control in fiction: their targeting of the neck, an erogenous zone, the role of body fluids, the domination and surrender of the siring process… It's not my thing, but I get it. It's hard not to, being a millennial who came of age in the era of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then Twilight. And for a girl with Konoha Satou's predilections, it's an acceptably mainstream manifestation of her desires. Frankly, it's a little strange that the vampires aren't a bigger force in Dark History.

Things are looking pretty bad in the elf village. Despite Iana's efforts to prevent the vampire infestation from happening before it was supposed to start, the whole village has been turned. She tries to fight them off herself, because that's how she's always done it, but the hordes of vampiric elves threaten to overwhelm them. Eventually, Sol and Yomi give her a firm talking-to, forcing Iana to realize that she doesn't have to do everything herself. It's a nice beat, but also so standard for this kind of story that it's hard to get excited over it. There's always a turning point where the protagonist takes on too much and must come to realize that they're overwhelmed trying to shoulder their burden alone. The secondary characters come in clutch, power of friendship, blah blah blah.

These two episodes remind me why my interest in The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess started to wane around this point in the manga. Outside of the pitch-perfect parody of the psychosexual landscape behind edgy shoujo fantasy, it has yet to do much that's actually interesting with the world. I'm still having fun, of course, but Iana and her boys have to start doing something to distinguish themselves from other series stat. It's my understanding that the manga has a major tone shift not far past where I fell off.

But let's get back to the here and now. Shukuna leads Iana, Sol, and Yomi further and further into the catacombs, and to the surprise of absolutely no one, reveals that he's the vampire that turned the whole town! He was weak and alone, and he pursued the power of becoming the second in the vampire line to avoid being stuck as a mindless thrall. He bites Iana.

With each layer of the world we peel back, it becomes increasingly clear just how much everything revolves around Konoha to an alarming degree. The vampire lord, who looks just like Dio Brando, targeted the elf village in part as a ploy to draw her out, so he could make her his vampire bride. Her saint's blood makes her desirable to him, even though it means she's also immune to being turned. Nearly everyone with power in this world is motivated by a desire to either possess her or to protect her.

At first, all seems lost–Iana fawns over the vampire lord, who plans to use her to lure Konoha in. Sol has been neutralized somehow. As the Vampire King gloats, insulting Iana's appearance in the process, he loudly proclaims his intentions and inevitable victory. We all know what that means, right? The law of narratives means that he's seconds from his downfall, and while Dark History may wink and nudge at us, it's not here to subvert our expectations. If anything, a subversion would be a betrayal of its exploration of the crappy cliches that teenagers feel drawn to, at least at this point in the story. So it's not a surprise at all when Iana turns around and stabs the Vampire King with the cross she's been carrying around, having used Konoha's blood on her handkerchief to stop herself from turning and give her and Sol's weapons an extra bit of holiness.

She doesn't even feel bad about killing the Vampire King. She only created him because her friend pointed out that her cast was entirely the same-faced pretty boys! In the episode's biggest laugh, she imagines the slender, pretty boy vampire she created slowly ebbing away, replaced by the Dio Brando lookalike, whom she absolutely could not drum up any attraction to. Her lack of sexual excitement meant that even though some people out there might be into the more muscular look (hi, hello), she could safely treat him as a villain and not a potential harem member.

With the Vampire King out of the way, the elf village can go back to normal with everything fixed, right? But then Iana and Sol find Yomi collapsed on the floor, and Kagura comes oozing out of the ceiling. I have a heart attack and die, not a surprise, but I am at peace because, as previously established, being surprised is not the point. He reveals he's part of a shadowy conspiracy to awaken Konoha's saint powers called Schwartz le Chevalier. That name actually did almost take me out with its heady mixing of German and French, much like how people accidentally gas themselves when they combine bleach and ammonia-based cleaners.

And so, The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess begins to wrap itself up in the way that series do when they reach the end of their twelve-episode run long before the plot resolves. They've introduced a longer-term villain whose true aims are only hinted at. Sol stops to reflect on how his feelings toward Iana have changed–though he originally had his doubts when Ginoford called off his hit on her, he now trusts her and wants to protect her. It's disorienting, but Konoha seems happy about the shift in him. Ginoford recognizes her growth and now sees her as his own little sister and a partner in caring for Konoha. We acknowledge the ways things have changed, even though much looks the same, and hope that a second season may come someday.

Or, we buy the manga. As I said, I fell off on Dark History a few volumes in, when it seemed to be losing its satirical sharpness. There were external factors as well–employment insecurity, the shutting down of the Right Stuf, and starting classes again–but it was undeniably lower on my priority list. I barely remembered what happened after the Lady Amaryllis arc, even in the volumes I'd read. Now, however, I feel like it may be worth picking back up

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