After finishing Season 2 of My Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, I’ve been thinking about how the “villainess as protagonist” that has reached English-speaking fans over the past couple years, but also the specific qualities that make the character of Katarina von Claes especially charming. What I realized is that it’s her contrast between her perception of herself and the reality of who she is to other people. She thinks of herself as a cunning mind, but she’s actually incredibly naive.

The premise of the series is that Katarina is a girl from Japan reincarnated into the body of a “villainous elder daughter” character from her favorite visual novel. Knowing the often unfortunate (if not deadly) fate that awaits her along every route, she tries to rewrite game history and avoid all bad endings for Katarina. In doing so, however, she ends up making all the boys (and even some girls) fall for her as she breaks down social mores of high society through being a Machiavellian spaz. Katarina can both concoct a years-long scheme to future-proof herself, but is utterly clueless to the affections of those around her (until they’re made beyond outright).

I was trying to think of a similar character, and what I came upon is a very different heroine who is actually also an isekai protagonist who reincarnated into a girl’s body: Tanya Degurechaff from The Saga of Tanya the Evil. The subject matter may differ (magical international war vs. magical romance), yet the similarities are prominent. Like Katarina, Tanya’s goal is to survive, but their mistaken ideas about how other people think constantly throws wrenches in the works and leads to more trouble. In both cases, there’s a comedy of errors.

Will we see a Season 3? I think there’s enough material from the light novels and enough love for the series that it’s bound to happen. Katarina’s too charming not to have more, and the inconsistency between her self-image and how others perceive her is too strong to deny.