- Anvilicious: The story is very blunt and direct in criticizing how LGBT communities are treated in Japan, ranging from disgust to over-idealizing to outright rejection and dehumanization.
- Base-Breaking Character:
- Rae. Many people dislike her for her motivations revolving around Claire, whether because it means she has no identity of her own and/or because her single-minded focus results in her making morally questionable decisions. Others like that she has a humble goal of protecting the person dearest to her and believe that her character stands well enough on its own.
- Lambert and Lene, especially Lene. Some people sympathize with them for being blackmailed into taking part in an evil plan, then nearly executed if not for Claire's intervention, while others are disgusted by their incestuous relationship and consider their actions, which include attempted mass murder and Lene's personal betrayal of her friend Claire, to be unforgivable. The fact that the manga adaptation makes it seem as though Lene took Claire hostage at knifepoint on her own volition and not because she was threatened makes it harder for some to sympathize with her, although some light novel readers remain sympathetic to her and consider that omission to be a point against the manga.
- Manaria is easily the most divisive character in the series. Her detractors loathe her for stirring up unnecessary drama by seemingly attempting to steal Claire away from Rae, but her fans love her for how she indirectly helps Rae and Claire get together. Another point of contention is how overpowered she is, since she toys with Rae for most of their duel then wins instantly with Dominator. She also draws considerable controversy for the source of most of her Broken Ace attributes; realizing she was a lesbian, she tried to enter into a sapphic romance with a castle maid that very quickly got uncomfortable when it became clear the maid wasn't a lesbian herself and Manaria was forcing the commoner maid into what are heavily implied to be sexual acts by leveraging her status as a noble. That she self-medicated following that disaster by whiling her time away in brothels brings to mind a lot of the stereotypes Rae herself is considered controversial over.
- Broken Base: To some, the fact that Lene and Lambert are in an incestuous relationship. Many fans are disgusted by this and dislike the implication that it's a forbidden love that people are supposed to sympathize with as much as Rae's feelings for Claire, not to mention the fact that it leads them to take part in a plot to kill the nobles at the school. Others, however, are more sympathetic towards the characters in question, both for their love for each other and the fact that they were forced to take part in the plot, since the people behind it were threatening to kill Lene.
- Fountain of Memes: Rae's incredibly lustful dialogue has made her a quote goldmine, helped along by her English actress absolutely Chewing the Scenery.
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In this interview with Erica Friedman
, the author says that Villainess wasn't very popular to start, going from a web novel to a digital book with a small readership. Inori credits English and Korean Fan Translation groups, who quickly began supporting the project in giving the IP its popularity. To wit, after receiving translations in the west, Yuri Hime saw it had an audience, and began serializing the series' manga adaptation, which lead to the work becoming more known in her home country. When the anime premiered, it got a same-day release in Japan with dubs in several languages. - Memetic Mutation:
- "Most relatable protagonist." Explanation
- "Are you what they call "gay"?" Explanation
- Superlative Dubbing: The dub for the anime is almost shockingly good, utilizing a bunch of voice actors with relatively small numbers of roles to their names that more than prove their capabilities in the field. Praise has been heaped on Rae Taylor's actress, Hannah Alyea, who expertly manages to adapt Rae's lovestruck attitude towards Claire from text to speech and still manages to sell the more contemplative moments where Rae's mask drops and she confronts her worries and weaknesses. Lindsay Sheppard has likewise seen an uptick in fans for her own approach to hamming up Claire's elitist personality while letting a lot of emotion seep through moments where Claire lets her own insecurities show. These two both are considered to sell the 'Beneath the Mask' theme of the story for their ability to seamlessly take the masks on or off as needed and maintain the characters they're voicing overall. Special mention should go to the end of the seventh episode, where Rae's voice seamlessly switches to a deeper cadence to help represent the fact she's recalling and recounting her time as an older office lady in her previous life, which really sells the emotional beat the scene is going for.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
- For some, Lene and Lambert. While they were blackmailed into taking part in the plot to kill the nobles, many still found it hard to accept that they suffered no real punishment for attempted mass murder. Their incestuous love for each other, which is supposed to be a sympathetic trait, ends up turning off many readers.
- It's difficult for some fans to have much sympathy for Manaria when she relays her tragic backstory, as they're too busy feeling sympathy for the maid that Manaria basically assaulted, coerced into kinky sexual activities with her by leverging her higher status, and caused to exile herself. Manaria's regret over her past behavior and understanding of how wrong she'd been to take her and her maid's love for granted that way can also ring hollow when she does not appear to have rehabilitated herself all that much in regards to how she deals Claire and Rae, being very hurtful towards them despite having strong feelings for them both.
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