Follow TV Tropes

Following

Literature / Endo and Kobayashi Live!
aka: Endo And Kobayashi Live The Latest On Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/live_commentary_villainess.png
There's always another route. note 

Endo Aoto and Kobayashi Shihono are members of their school's broadcasting club. Kobayashi is a passionate fan of the otome game Love Me Magically! (Magikoi for short), especially its misunderstood and ill-fated villainess Lieselotte. Kobayashi convinces Endo to try the game and when the two play together, they discover they are able to communicate with one of the game's love interests, the prince Siegwald, who's betrothed to Lieselotte. Endo and Kobayashi decide to take this opportunity to change the course of the game so that Lieselotte does not have to die and everybody can live happily ever after, by guiding Siegwald's actions through a play-by-play commentary.

Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte (ツンデレ悪役令嬢リーゼロッテと実況の遠藤くんと解説の小林さん / Tsundere Akuyaku Reijou Lieselotte to Jikkyou no Endo-kun to Kaisetsu no Kobayashi-san, literally "The Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte, the Play-By-Play Caster Endo-kun and the Colour Commentator Kobayashi-san", also unofficially known as "Endo and Kobayashi's Live Commentary on the Villainess") is a light novel written by Suzu Enoshima and illustrated by Eihi. It also has a manga adaptation by Rumiwo Sakaki serialized in B's-Log Comic since 2019. The novel and manga are licensed for English release by J-Novel Club.

An anime adaptation by Tezuka Productions started airing on 6 January 2023. It has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks and is streamed on its streaming network, HiDive.


Tropes:

  • Adaptational Context Change: During Endo's backstory arc, his school's baseball program is described as "a fairly strong team in their prefecture—the key word was 'fairly.' [...] [T]hey weren’t famous across the country by any means." while in the manga it's described as "a powerhouse team that had made it to Koshien numerous times." This has some bearing on his feeling of being "run of the mill" and the mental effects of his Career-Ending Injury.
  • Adaptation Deviation:
    • Different adaptations disagree about what happened before commentators plays the round where the fourth wall disappeared.
      • In the novels, after getting Endo interested by having played the fandisc, he also played a round of the Harem Route.
      • In the manga, this round happens after Endo played the fandisc.
      • In the anime, this round is the first round Endo ever played. Kobayashi gives him the fandisc after finishing for the day and asks him to watch it himself.
    • The anime adopts a significant bulk of the commentators' initial discussion of Love Me Magically!, including Endo's opinion on Lieselotte's route of the fan disc, as well as their opinion on the harem route, to Episode 2, which adopts the second chapter of the novel. These discussions are both in the beginning of the novel and the manga adaptations, in Chapter 1B and Chapter 1 respectively.
    • Both manga (Chapter 5) and anime (Episode 3) adaptations of Chapter 2B of the novel remove Kobayashi's discussion about different types of Romance Game players: the type who takes the protagonist as Self-Insert, and the type who plays Shipper on Deck among the cast. Which also foreshadows Love Me Magically!'s being in a "God's viewpoint".
    • Endo and Kobayashi have a meeting on how to handle Witch of Yore in all versions. The problem is the location is different in every version: Kobayashi's home in the novel, WcDonalds in the manga, and their school in the anime.
    • During Leon's social debut, a mouse is released by Elizabeth and in the chaos, she grabs him and slips out of the party. The difference between adaptations is where the mouse comes:
      • The manga shows Elizabeth hiding the mouse in her sleeve and releasing it, having put it to sleep with magic beforehand.
      • The anime shows Elizabeth performing some magic to teleport the mouse into the room.
    • Kobayashi is not named the club captain in the novel, but she is in the anime.
    • In Chapter 2B of the second novel, the Broadcasting Club presents a radio drama. In Episode 9 of the anime, they presents a Dramatic Reading drama using the same script, in front of audiences. This is probably due to having to give Endo and Kobayashi some face time.
    • In the novel, Lirenna is universally seen as a Loser Deity by the entire cast, with Endo even calls out on her for it. In the anime, the cast is more respectful of her, with the proviso that she is now co-equal with Endo and Kobayashi.
  • Adaptation Distillation: When chapter 2B of the novel is adopted as the first part of Episode 3, most of the background information as to Endo's relationship with baseballnote  was omitted. However, since most viewers can understand how soul-crushing a Career-Ending Injury can be, Kobayashi's positive influence on Endo—which is the entire point of the chapter—still comes across.
  • Adaptation Expansion:
    • Episode 1 of the anime added the following material that is neither in the novel nor the manga:
      • When the commentators started playing the game, they started at a scene before the "studying at the courtyard" scene used in the novel and the manga, one that involved the students having lunch at the dining hall. During this scene, Kobayashi gives an introduction to all 5 romanceable characters, including Artur who isn't in that scene.
      • While the novel mentioned the rest of the Broadcasting Club took a Leave the Two Lovebirds Alone attitude regarding the commentators, the first episode of the anime inserted a scene of the rest of the members Sitting on the Roof, clarifying they're indeed Shipper on Deck, especially regarding Kobayashi's Positive Friend Influence on Endo.
      • Towards the end of the episode, we see Kuon Kirise shooting for a film, and after the take is filmed successfully, he takes out a copy of Love Me Magically! and stares at Fiene, and monologues he'll "get to see" her "soon enough".
      • After the previous scene, we have Siegwald and Lieselotte reminiscing the day's events.
    • The beginning of Episode 2 added scenes of Endo walking to and from Kobayashi's house to continue with the commentating. It contains two things that count as foreshadowing: Endo passes by a group of teens practicing baseball on an Artificial Riverbank in the morning and sees news about the Koshien on his smartphone as he returns, as well as bumping into Kobayashi's older sister Chiyono at the entrance of the Kobayashi residence.
    • When Chapter 10 of the manga adapts Chapter 5A of the novels, it greatly expands upon the backstory of Elizabeth and August. The anime mostly followed the novels when that part was animated as the first part of Episode 5, however a brief scene of Elizabeth Fast-Roping down her room and then entering August's from the balcony was added for Adaptation Expansion.
    • While Siegwald and Lieselotte were certainly going to marry anyway, only the anime has a scene of their wedding at the end.
  • Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: One that's caused by Adaptation Dye-Job. In the anime, Siegwald's hair changed from platinum blond to golden blond. This means the part of the ribbon incident (animated in Episode 2) about Lieselotte having a white ribbon to symbolize Siegwald no longer makes sense.
  • Adaptational Explanation:
    • Neither the novel nor the manga explain in detail the nature of Endo's Career-Ending Injury, other than the fact that while it does not affect his daily life, it's not a good idea for him to pitch. In the anime, the x-ray of his right shoulder was briefly shown, from which we see he suffered a bone fracture in that region.
    • Neither the manga nor the novels explains how Elizabeth and August could meet and consummate their relationship. The anime added a scene of the former sneaking out of her house through Fast-Roping for this purpose.
  • Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Siegwald gives Lieselotte a head pad as he tries to calm her down from the embarrassment of being princess-carried.
  • Age-Gap Romance:
    • Given Fiene's in-universe age is 15, two of her romantic options in Love Me Magically! involve this: Leon is 8 years older than her, and Fabien is 4 years younger. Based on Kobayashi's descriptions, it is intentional on the developer's part.
    • Elizabeth is involved in two. First, she was in a mutual relationship with August, who is 7 years older than she is, and second, Leon, who is 10 years younger than her, has a crush on her that grew out of a Precocious Crush but persists to this day.
  • All There in the Manual: In-Universe. Lieselotte got her own route in fan disc that explains the motivations behind her behavior. Kobayashi considers it absolutely imperative to play to understand why she acts the way she does in the main game, confusing Endo as to whether he should play the fan disc first.
  • Altar Diplomacy: The Marschner Duke tends to see women as pawns for political marriages, which causes quite a bit of damage to his daughter and granddaughter.
  • Always Identical Twins: Adelina and Katrina, two of Lieselotte's younger sisters, are identical twins. They look so identical that their Identical Twin ID Tag is the direction they part their hair.
  • Arranged Marriage: Like any other girls' fiction that is set in a medieval European setting, this is very common. The novel even notes that Artur's not having a fiancée (because priests have to marry a priestess) was unusual.
    • Lieselotte and Siegwald were engaged since they were children, and that was nearly the simplest case.
    • Bruno allows Baldur to choose one of Lieselotte's sisters to marry, in exchange for Baldur being Bruno's heir. This is not dissimilar to the Mukoyoshi arrangement that's common in Japan.
    • Fabian is introduced to the Riefenstahl family with Bruno entertaining the idea of an arranged marriage between him and one of Lieselotte's sisters. Cecilie experiences Love at First Sight when she first meets Fabian.
    • Bruno's brother August was originally engaged to Elizabeth Marschner, which was a Perfectly Arranged Marriage. But at the time they could marry, it's obvious that August was dying from a Soap Opera Disease. The Marschner house attempted to dissolve the engagement and has Elizabeth marry Bruno, claiming the engagement was to the "head of the Riefenstahl household" rather than August specifically, and the two decided to hell with the formalities. Bruno also quickly married his fiancée to ensure the Marschner house wouldn't be able to marry him off to Elizabeth anyway.
  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Lieselotte thinks her little sisters find her annoying, but it's shown that in the game canon they take her inevitable death very badly and tearfully and angrily call out Siegwald and Fiene for causing it. More positively, they also make excuses to give Liese alone time with her fiancé even as they pretend they just don't want to spend time with her.
  • Battle Couple: In the novel's timeline, Siegwald/Lieselotte and Baldur/Fiene are both adventurers with similar combat profilesnote  and are strongly in love with each other. In some of the Baldur-route endings in Magikoi, this is played straight as well, as Baldur will elope, marry Fiene, and become commoner adventurers together.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: Endo's crush on Kobayashi is the result of two of these on one day, several hours apart.
    • At one point Endo's class has to field teams for the intermural ball-sports event. Some in the class, knowing Endo's quit the baseball team but not the cause, started pestering him to join the softball team. Endo, who thinks he's still not ready for non-competitive play, gets into a bind. Kobayashi then announced Endo had already joined the Broadcasting Club (which wasn't really the case), which help the matter to be resolved.
    • Walking home after visiting the Broadcasting Club clubroom, Kobayashi reminded Endo that "baseball isn't just about the players," and there are many other things that rely on sports such that a retired athlete can apply their experience to. This causes Endo—who has been without an aim in life for months—to realize there are things he is still Worth Living For.
  • Big "WHAT?!":
    • In Episode 5 of the Animated Adaptation, the rest of the cast gives out a big "Ehh!?" when it turns out the invader of the Riefenstahl estate is Fiene's mother Elizabeth.
    • As Lieselotte regained some consciousness and realizes she's being princess-carried by Siegwald, she gives out a big "Eeee—!" in shock.
    • Episode 11 contains so much revealations that this happens a few times.
      • The entire group goes this when Witch of Yore turns into Lirenna, the creator goddess.
      • Fiene, and later Baldur, go this again when Lirenna reveals that they are the reincarnations of the first humans.
  • Bland-Name Product:
    • After a round of commentary, Endo and Kobayashi have burgers and fries at (where else?) WcDonald's during Chapter 17 of the manga.
    • In the anime, Magokoi is published for PZ, in addition, there's what it looks like a Playstation 5 in the clubroom.
  • Blatant Lies: Lieselotte's explanations for helping Fiene are such explicit denials that they wrap right back around to being endearing.
    • This new Magic Wand? Liese's spare. Oh, it happens to be specially tuned for support magic like Fiene uses? What a coincidence.
    • Those spare school uniforms—all four sets for each season? Liese's hand-me-downs. Yes, Liese and Fiene are in the same school year, what of it?
      • Liese does this again when Fiene stays at the Riefenstahl Mansion—she gives Fiene a lot of "hand-me-downs" that are custom-made to Fiene's size. And given the differences in their body builds, it's highly unlikely for Lieselotte to have any hand-me-downs that would fit Fiene.
  • Breach of Promise of Marriage: The Marschner family attempted to sue the Riefenstahl family of this after they considered August unfit to marry (due to him dying) and Bruno hastily married his fiancée to defy his own breach.
  • Call-Back: At one point during the fall term, Lieselotte has shown signs of succumbing to her despair and feelings of inadequacy and jealousy due to being manipulated by the Witch of Yore. Siegwald is distressed with this development, but the commentators opt not to tell him what to do beyond "follow[ing] your heart." Eventually he recalls the time the "gods" "ordered" him to kiss Lieselotte in the first scene, and decides to repeat it by himself to show how he feels about Lieselotte. It works.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Kobayashi's Lieselotte plushie that's on her backpack. It's the key of resolving the story's climax.
  • Commonality Connection: This is the reason behind many things in the plot.
    • The Witch of Yore possesses Lieselotte because both see themselves as having an unrequited one-sided crush towards the person they love. This is why Lieselotte is able to avoid this in the novel's timeline.
    • The reason it's Endo and Kobayashi who got into the God mode instead of Kuon is their relationship is similar to Lieselotte and Siegwald, in that both sides have a Cannot Spit It Out problem.
    • The reason Kobayashi is fixated on Lieselotte is due to them both being Insecure Love Interests; in Kobayashi's case it's due to being Always Second Best to her older sister Chiyono.
  • Creator's Culture Carryover: Like many girls' stories with a similar setting, the Medieval European Fantasy is often a veneer on things that are essentially Japanese. No European countries start their school year in spring as the Academy does, but Japan does that. Post-Roman European also don't have the idea of adopting an heir as Bruno does, but Japan does that as if nothing happened.
  • Crush Blush: After Siegwald kisses Lieselotte's cheeks on Kobayashi's "command," Lieselotte goes bright red, ears and neck included. It is at this point Siegwald believes in the commentators' claim that Lieselotte is just being Tsundere rather than being a true Alpha Bitch.
  • Divided Deity: The Creation Myth of the MagiKoi universe involves this; the entity that created the universe is unity in form but, when they descends to the universe's equivalent of Earth, it was divided into a God Couple, Kuon and Lirenna.
  • Dramatic Reading: A somewhat more serious version: when the anime adapted Chapter 2B of the second novel, the Broadcasting Club's School Festival activity of a Radio Drama is modified to a "Dramatic Reading drama," which is effectively doing the same thing, but in front of the audience.
  • Don't Think, Feel: According to Baldur, this is the usual way the Riefenstahls learn swordplay and magic.
  • Double Standard: Rape, Divine on Mortal: Inverted. Kuon's Mad Love towards Eve and her reincarnations, despite the latter's dissent, is treated very unsympathically in the work.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: This is a chronic problem for the Academy's teachers. In this setting, peers already have their responsibilities to fulfill, so teachers are selected from nobles who don't have a peerage, such as a peer's younger and/or illegitimate children. This means some students, especially those who are heirs appreant of peers, look down upon their teachers. The scene in Chapter 3 of the novel/Chapter 6 of the manga/ Episode 2 of the anime about seniors instructing freshmen is explicitly stated to exist because of this.
  • Dumb Muscle: The Riefenstahls, not unjustifiably, have this kind of reputation among the rest of the high society. This is partly because they hire professional managers to handle their civilian affairs.
  • Dysfunction Junction: At first, it looks like only a handful of the cast have problems. But eventually, after Kobayashi off-handedly mentions the Dark and Troubled Pasts of one more character (Lyon and his Bastard Angst in the novels, Bruno and his unfulfilled Big Brother Instinct in the manga), Endo is sure this trope must be in force in the world of Magikoi.
    Endo: Why is everyone's backstory so dark?! What the heck, Magikoi?
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Baldur, Fabien and Leon all have brief speaking roles in the first episode of the anime. While Baldur's appearance is just about an episode earlier from the original, both Fabien and Leon appear half the series early.
  • Easter Egg: Discussed. Kobayashi notes that it's possible to clear the game without a love interest by Level Grinding Fiene until she's powerful enough to beat the Witch of Yore on her own, but even then Lieselotte and Baldur will still die. She also grumbles that all that effort doesn't unlock any new endings or even any new CGs.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Endo and Kobayashi go above and beyond, aiming for "The Happiest of Happy Endings," foregoing any lesser, but still positive endings. They manage to pull it off.
    • They get everyone together for the battle against the Witch of Yore, normally only possible with the Harem ending, and without the latter's Esoteric Happy Ending implications.invoked
    • Everyone (sans Artur) gets paired off with an age-appropriate partner, avoiding the issue of Fiene romancing an 11-year-old or her teacher.
    • Fiene and Lieselotte become good friends, but avoid the yuri route.
    • Fiene is adopted as Lieselotte's sister, but without the political interference of her grandparents.
    • No one dies.
    • The goddess Lirenna is freed.
    • Kuon is contained.
    • Fiene and Baldur become a couple without ruining either's position.
    • Sieg and Liese get married.
    • Endo and Kobayashi get to attend the wedding.
    • Last but not least: Even Endo and Kobayashi themselves get a happy ending romance-wise.
  • Elopement: Both in the Magikoi canon and in the novel, Baldur has seriously considered that as he finds himself falling in love with Fiene. This often succeeds in the game, but rendered moot in the novel.
  • Esoteric Happy Ending: In-Universe, Endo and Kobayashi have a dislike and distrust for the golden route harem ending. Yes, everyone survives, but they're firm believers in monogamy and furthermore doubt the wisdom of having so many political figures attached to a single girl. This is later shown to be a wise concern: In this ending, Fiene is discovered and adopted by her maternal grandparent's ducal family, but said grandparents are actually manipulative bastards who attempted to assassinate their own daughter, Fiene's mother, for refusing to break off her engagement to her dying fiancé. Also, while they don't seem to mind a Fiene x Liese pairing, they would still much rather Liese end up with Sieg.
  • Everybody Lives: This is already an ending that exists in Magikoi as the Harem ending but neither Kobayashi nor Endo like it because of its implications. They want to try for a different ending that still has everyone survive but with more conventional romantic relationships.
  • Excited Title! Two-Part Episode Name!: Unlike most examples, this trope applies to the series title, the one localized by J-Novel Club to boot.
  • Facepalm: This gesture is versatile enough to appear several times throughout the series, due to the different meanings it can convey.
    • In Chapter 2B of the first novel (adapted into Chapter 5 of the manga), Endo hides his face when he starts to cry as the TV broadcasts his school's (losing) first battle of the Summer Koshien.
      He covered his face with both hands; whether he was trying to hold in his tears or hide from his team’s stinging defeat, not even he knew.
    • In Chapter 4B of the first novel (adapted into Chapter 8 of the manga), after Fiene speaks of Baldur's recent not-Love Confession to her, and suspects it's not appropriate to a person of his station to speak that to a commoner. Lieselotte has to do this, all flushed and then apologizes to Fiene on her cousin's denseness.
      Lieselotte pressed a hand to her forehead upon hearing the story. She’d frozen in place with a terrible look on her face.
    • In Chapter 5A of the first novel, Fiene does this in shame, due to her mother's actions, as Bruno explains some matters about his family.
  • Family Eye Resemblance: Bruno has been able to recognize Fiene being August's child owing to both having Innocent Blue Eyes.
  • Fast-Roping: In a bit of Adaptation Expansion / Adaptational Explanation in Episode 5 of the Animated Adaptation, we see Elizabeth doing this to sneak out of her room to meet August—it is implied that it's how Fiene gets conceived.
  • Fictional Video Game: Most of the story takes place in Love Me Magically!, a hybrid Romance Game/Eastern RPG. The player takes the role of Fiene, with the first half of the game being the "common route" where the player interacts with the capture targets to decide which route the player will enter after Lieselotte's Demonic Possession, which marks the second half of the game. The second half of the game has two objectives: romancing the chosen target as well as defeating the Witch of Yore who resides in Lieselotte.
  • Fix Fic:
    • Endo and Kobayashi are creating one on the fly with their commentary that Sieg can hear.
    • Kobayashi suggested the possibility of the two writing this early in the novel, right after Endo played the fandisc and nearly got a nervous breakdown from it.
    Kobayashi: But that’s the best part! Let’s watch Liese-tan suffer through her cruelest fate and cry together! And once we’re done, we can use our depression as fuel to write Sieg x Liese-tan fanfics!
  • God Guise: Siegwald assumes that the voices communicating with him are the gods of his land, and Endo and Kobayashi are happy to roll with it to get him to listen to them.
  • Handshake Substitute: In Episode 6 of the Animated Adaptation, Endo and Kobayashi did a fist bump to celebrate Lieselotte successfully fights off the Witch of Yore.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: In-Universe. Both Endo and Kobayashi know the ending CG for Magikoi's Reverse Harem route, which includes a scene of Fiene and her mother being accepted back into House Marschner. However, Elizabeth's recollection of the events surrounding Fiene's conception in Chapter 5A of the novel shows the older Marschners are very power-hungry people who won't mind killing their granddaughter. The commentators concluded, in Chapter 5B of the novel, that the ending effectively means the Marschners effectively gained control of Fitzenhaven as Man Behind the Man rather than the "Happily Ever After" style ending the game portrays.
  • Heir Club for Men: This is practiced in the Magikoi universe, and is especially evident in the Riefenstahls' succession plans. Bruno has several daughters, but he would need to adopt Baldur as heir. And after Fiene's parentage comes to light, she becomes Bruno's successor as she's undoubtedly the most senior Riefenstahl of her generation... but only for property rights. The title of the marquis goes to her (supposedly male) spouse.
  • Homoerotic Subtext: Endo and Kobayashi occasionally comment on "yuri developments" in Lieselotte's interactions with Fiene. They elect not to explain to Siegwald what they mean by that, especially since it actually wouldn't be too crazy for things to develop in that way based on what they know.
  • Heroic Build: Probably due to genetics of being in a line of Magic Knights, the several Riefenstahls in the series tend to have rather large frames. To begin with, Baldur is 1.91m in height, and Lieselotte is noted to be "tall for a woman." The only exception is Fiene, who is petite like her mother.
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: In episode 5 of the anime (and only in that rendition), August initially asked Elizabeth to forget about him as he knows he's dying, but Elizabeth declined.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The novels use the word "Disc" instead of "Book" for numbering purposes. For example, the first volume of the novel is called Disc 1. For the Animated Adaptation, it uses the word "Chapter" for "Episode".
  • It Runs in the Family: While the Riefenstahls are better known among the high society to be full of dumb muscles, the single trait is seen in all family members so far is being very determinated towards their love. Lieselotte can't bring herself to criticize Baldur over this because she knows she is also this to Siegwald. This is also implied, albeit more nuanced, for Bruno towards Josephine, and for August towards Elizabeth. Cecilie also shows signs of following this toward Fabian from their first meeting alone.
  • Jack of All Stats: Most of the possible members of the Player Party have their own niches (such as Combat Medic Fiene, Support Party Member Artur, or Person of Mass Destruction Fabien). Lieselotte and Siegwald, however, are designated as "all-rounders".
  • Japanese School Club: Endo and Kobayashi being in the Broadcasting Club is part of the premise. Since the club handles most public announcements of the school, it has a visible presence at their school, and has more members than what can be classified as a Club Stub— Episode 9 of the anime shows at least 9 members. Its is also noted to have a relaxed atmosphere, with the club room stuffed with things that has nothing to do with what they're supposed to be doing.
  • Leave the Two Lovebirds Alone: According to the novel, the Broadcasting Club has other members besides Endo and Kobayashi. It's just because Endo has such an obvious crush on Kobayashi that the other members just give them more time together.
  • Level-Up at Intimacy 5: The second half of Magikoi partly runs that way; while Fiene's stats can be improved by Level Grinding, the stats of her chosen partner(s) are solely determined by Fiene's Relationship Values. Their actual battle stats aren't even visible to the player.
  • Like Brother and Sister: Baldur is groomed as Bruno's successor for the title of Marquis Riefenstahl, conditioned on Baldur marrying one of Bruno's daughters. However, since he has been living with Bruno's family for so long, he can only see Bruno's daughters as his sisters, rather than any kind of romantic interest.
  • Little Miss Badass: Lieselotte's little sisters, including a 12-year-old twin and a 9-year-old girl. In the novels, it was they who apprehended Elizabeth in Chapter 5A. Cecilie, the youngest, even ends up taking and passing the royal knights exam to affirm her intent to protect her love interest, Fabian.
  • Long-Lost Relative: Fiene is actually the daughter of Lieselotte's father's older brother and his fiancée, making her and Lieselotte first cousins. Fiene's mother Elizabeth ran away to protect her daughter from her family after he passed away from illness which is why neither girl ever learned about their family ties until Elizabeth arrives at the family manor. Lieselotte has her father adopt Fiene into the family to ensure her protection.
  • Love Ruins the Realm: This is Endo's problem with the harem ending. Specifically, other than Fiene, the MagiKoi case consists of some of the most important people of their generation: Siegwald the Crown Prince, Siegwald's fiancée; Lieselotte, Artur the future High Priest, Baldur the heir of a military aristocrat house, Fabien the Person of Mass Destruction, and Leon the dark mage. A harem ending may cause Cock Fight among these people... or, in other words, a civil war.
  • Love at First Sight: Cecilie for Fabian. As Cecilie explains it, she considers Fabian very pretty but she also loves how humble, kind and gentle he is despite holding so much destructive magical power.
  • The Magocracy: Only the ruling nobility of the game's setting can use magic, which makes Finne's status as a Mage Born of Muggles all the more surprising. Because she isn't.
  • Magic Wand: Its role is discussed early in the story. Magic wands are not required to use magic, since Fiene has been using magic despite being unable to afford one. However, they are essential in controlling the use of magic; without a wand, it is easy to cause misaiming.
  • The Maker: In the Magikoi world's Creation Myth, an unnamed entity created the universe out of Primordial Chaos, but when descending on their equivalent of Earth, It divided into the male god Kuon and female god Lirenna.
  • Marry Them All: Kobayashi explains that the only route where Lieselotte survives is the harem ending where she enters into a relationship with Fiene alongside everybody else. Endo finds it an Esoteric Happy Ending, believing such an arrangement could never work out in the long run and that so many nobles, including the crown prince, vying for the attention of a commoner would plunge the country into chaos. Kobayashi agrees that they were probably not meant to think about it very hard. This turns out to be an accurate assessment: Not only does the above problem exist, but it also relies on Fiene falling under the control of her evil maternal grandparents.invoked
  • Medieval European Fantasy: The setting of Magikoi is a place of kings, castles, and magic. Character names indicate inspiration was drawn from Germany, specifically.
  • Medieval Universal Literacy: Downplayed, at least compared to other novels of this subgenre. Fiene can read, but as the first scene demonstrates, she is less learned than her noble classmates. Justified as her mother is a noble, but having a less than stable childhood among the commoners means she may not have the opportunity to learn as much.
  • Mistaken for Romance: Part of Lieselotte's intent of her actions in the first scene is to defy this trope for Fiene. Being the Naïve Newcomer, Fiene might not know that many of her schoolmates were betrothed. So the impression of her trying to romance boys in the Academy would lead to disrepute.
  • Mood Whiplash:
    • The readers were not prepared when the baseball match on the TV triggers Endo recalling his (rather heavy) backstory. It's even more whiplash-y in the novels, when the commentators were talking about Baldur when a siren goes off on the TV.
    • Chapter 14 is mostly light-hearted and deals with Fiene and Baldur's feelings in a hopeful way... and ends with Lieselotte being manipulated by the witch again whom is trying to make her succumb to her despair and feelings of inadequacy and jealousy.
  • MST: Am In-Universe example where Endo and Kobayashi provide a commentary on Kobayashi's favourite Otome Game as a means of practice for Broadcast Club they're in... until Siegwald hears them and starts reacting.
  • Multiple Endings: There's at a minimum a "Best End," a "Good End," and a "Bad End" for each of MagiKoi's routes. On top of the conventional ends, there's at least a harem end, where Fiene enters into a relationship with all the targets plus Lieselotte.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: Two of them form a big chunk of the backstory.
    • The unitary Creator is divided into two gods, the male god Kuon and the female god Lirenna, as it descends on Earth. The two gods then created Adam and Eve, the first two humanoids of the Magikoi universe. Then Kuon fell in love with Eve and killed Adam for being the competition.
    • After breaking off out of the incident above, Lirenna was corrupted into the Witch of Yore and attempted to kill different reincarnations of Eve, up to and including Fiene.
  • Mythopoeia: The story dipped mildly into this, with a Creation Myth involve a Creator God Couple, and how their relationships among themselves and the first humanoids affect the Magikoi universe up to Lieselotte's time.
  • Never Suicide: Elizabeth suggests the reason for persisting rumors of her having Driven to Suicide due to August's death was her parents; she thinks they're trying to kill her and making it look like suicide.
  • No Inner Fourth Wall: Part of the story's premise is that Endo and Kobayashi, as players, can communicate with Siegwald, a game character.
  • New Game Plus: Discussed, but when Kobayashi and Endo make a quick save, the notice that Fiene's stats are maxed out for the start of the game leading them to wonder if the trope is in play, but Kobayashi is unsure outside of the game recording what endings the player has gotten. It becomes more important when it's implied that Fiene's has Past-Life Memories when she gets angry at Baldur's Declaration of Protection.
  • Non-Uniform Uniform: While the Academy's uniforms include a robe, a blazer, and a pair of slacks or a skirt, only the robe is strictly enforced during class. This is why Lieselotte is usually seen wearing a full dress; she wore it under the robe when in class, such as in Chapter 6 of the manga. On the other hand, Artur only puts his robe on one shoulder.
  • Ocular Gushers: In episode 2 of the anime, Endo recalls he went into that as he played Lieselotte's route of the fandiscinvoked.
  • Off the Rails: Endo and Kobayashi's intent to change the story to a Lieselotte/Siegwald ending, by definition, makes the Magikoi universe go off the rails. And it's quite literally so, since Kuon is effectively in the Game Master's position, so Endo and Kobayashi are literally doing what the Game Master wants the least.
  • Officer and a Gentleman: The Riefenstahl family is a noble house that originated from a long line of military officers, and its members generally conform to this trope, in that they are usually well-spoken (if not a bit exuberant) and take honor seriously. However, they also have a reputation for being the muscleheads among the noble class, as they continue to have a "strength above everything" mentality, as well as (according to Elizabeth) having the tendency to be less than subtle at times. Indeed, Lieselotte is the rare Riefenstahl seen to be able to use her brains equally well, while Baldur's personality is considered by Lieselotte to be rather stereotypical among her family members.
  • Offing the Offspring: Scandalized by their daughter Elizabeth having an illegitimate child in the form of Fiene, the Marschner duke sent assassins for more than a decade to hunt down the child in question. Elizabeth suggests that her father is trying to hunt her down as well, in order to make her kill herself for August's death.
  • Omega Ending: The "god route" (and by extension its ending) can only be unlocked after getting all endings, including the bad ones. That's a total of more than 20 of them.
  • Parental Marriage Veto: The reason why Fiene grew up as a commoner: her maternal grandparents issued one against what would have been a Perfectly Arranged Marriage.
  • Perfectly Arranged Marriage:
    • Siegwald and Lieselotte have been arranged to be married since very young, but their relationship has been a troubled one due to Lieselotte's aloofness. However, Lieselotte really does love Siegwald and he finds himself falling in love with her as he begins to understand her personality.
    • In the previous generation, August and Elizabeth truly loved each other and were happy to wed. Unfortunately, since the former was dying and the latter has power-hungry parents, they attempted to undo the engagement despite everyone else being happy with it.
  • Play the Game, Skip the Story: In-Universe. According to Kobayashi, it is possible to play MagiKoi completely as an Eastern RPG and ignore the Romance Game elements, but even playing this way does not prevent Lieselotte and Baldur's deaths.
  • Plot Armor: Lieselotte and Baldur will always die unless the player enters a line that involves them.
  • Poor Communication Kills:
    • Lieselotte truly wanted to befriend and help Fiene even in Magikoi canon. Unfortunately, a combination of needing to put up noble decorum, her own embarrassment, and Siegwald's misinterpretation of their interactions leads to her appearing as an Alpha Bitch and Siegwald breaking off their engagement and Lieselotte being overcome with despair and being possessed by the Witch of Yore, resulting in her death.
    • This also applies to Lieselotte and her father when she became betrothed to Siegwald. His well-meaning intention was to protect her from any feelings of loneliness and neglect because of the many royal duties Sieg would need to fulfill when he became king, but what he said can be interpreted — at worst — as telling Lieselotte that she should expect herself to be akin to an Unwanted Spouse, and/or warning her that Silly Rabbit, Romance Is for Kids! The result was unwittingly destroying Lieselotte's self-esteem and confidence, which affects how she behaves around other people and leaves her vulnerable to Demonic Possession.
  • Portmanteau Series Nickname: Both In-Universe and without.
  • Pose of Supplication: After the Witch of Yore is defeated she turns back into Lirenna. After Lirenna realized what she did (as in, nearly destroying her world), she goes My God, What Have I Done? and does this to the Magikoi cast for nearly continuously for about 10 minutes of Episode 11.
  • Post-Injury Desk Job: After Endo's Career-Ending Injury, the leader of the baseball team offered him a managerial position in the team, which Endo refused.
  • Power of Love: Used a lot.
    • Why Lieselotte can fight off the Witch of Yore's possession in the novel's timeline? Because she now believes Siegwald loves her.
    • Similarly, Kobayashi fights off Kuon's corruption due to Endo's Love Confession.
    • Invoked by Kuon. He creates Love Me Magically to obtain the faith of maidens so that he can create a link back to the world he created. It's just two Ordinary High School Students accidentally usurp his position...
    • A more platonic example: During the climax, Lieselotte is able to present herself in front of Endo and Kobayashi mainly due to Kobayashi's fixation on Lieselotte. How fixated? Since it's unlikely for the publisher to make merchandise for an Alpha Bitch character, she made her own Lieselotte plushie!
  • Princess Carry: After Lieselotte collapsed on Academy grounds in Chapter 16, Siegwald princess-carried her all the way to the Riefenstahl mansion.
  • Primordial Chaos: Before The Maker's creation of the Magikoi universe, the universe was in this state.
  • Radio Drama: In the novel, this is a fixture of the Broadcasting Club's School Festival performances due to their domain over the school's PA system; in the anime it changed to a Dramatic Reading performance instead.
  • Really Royalty Reveal: To everyone's surprise (including the commentators), it was suddenly revealed during the time when Fiene is staying at the Riefenstahl mansion that she isn't the commoner she always believed herself to be. Her mother Elizabeth turns out to be the daughter of a duke, and her Disappeared Dad August was Lieselotte's paternal first uncle. And since August was Bruno's elder brother, but for Fiene's illegitimacy, she's the most senior grandchildren of the previous marquis.
  • "Reborn as Villainess" Story: Endo and Kobayashi, two Ordinary High School Students in the broadcasting club decide to play an otome game as commentator practice. In the game, the villainess Lieselotte is the jealous love rival who ends up being possessed by the Witch of Yore and dies in most routes. However, supplementary material reveals she's not an evil person, just a misunderstood, massive tsundere who can't help but act harsh. While Endo and Kobayashi are playing and providing commentaries, however, somehow their voices can be heard by an in-game character: Prince Siegwald, one of the capture targets and also Lieselotte's fiancé. While bewildered at first, eventually the two of them try to use their ability to communicate with the game characters to guide all of them to happy endings, especially the tragic villainess Lieselotte.
  • Reincarnate in Another World: While Endo and Kobayashi Live! is traditionally considered an isekai series in that characters from Earth directly interact with a video-game universe, transmigration is not used as a major device. Particularly, no characters on Earth get transmigrated anywhere. There are, however, characters who transmigrated from the ''Magikoi'' dimension to Earth.
    • Averted Trope for the ending, as Endo and Kobayashi are personally brought to Magikoi to attend Liese and Sieg's wedding by Lirenna.
  • Reincarnation-Identifying Trait: Successive reincarnations of Adam and Eve have somewhat similar looks, something Kuon knows very well. In fact, his interest in the Kobayashi siblings is due to their visual similarity to Eve, and thus perfect to work as a Soul Jar for the spirit of Fiene, the current incarnation of Eve.
  • Reincarnation Romance:
    • ...Sort of. Fiene is the reincarnation of an ancient woman that one of the creator gods in the game's world fell for. But he was already in a relationship with the goddess and said ancient woman loved someone else anyway. The goddess turned into the Witch of Yore in anger and the ancient god is still attempting to manipulate and stalk Fiene, this time by twisting the narrative to get her "back".
    • In the anime Baldur is declared a reincarnation of Adam, which mean their romance with Fiene also count as this.
  • RPG Elements: Part of Magikoi's gameplay is essentially an Eastern RPG, however, true to its Romance Game nature, the player can only control Fiene, while the rest of the battle party's stats are decided solely by Relationship Values, and hidden from the player's view. In addition, the player can only level grind Fiene, and since there's only a limited amount of in-universe time, the player needs to balance between grinding and romancing.
  • Royal School: Due to the fact that only nobles are capable of using magic, Royal Academy of Magic's student body are all aristocrats. Fiene herself turns out to also have noble blood.
  • School Festival: Chapter 2B of the second novel discusses the Broadcasting Club's activity during the school's two-day school festival—their domain over the school's PA system means what they do is a bit different from others. The first day involves allowing students to "get something off their chest on air," and an interview-style bit with members from the club. On the second day the club does a radio drama.
  • School Play: In a certain sense of it. the Broadcasting Club's School Festival activity includes a radio drama (in the novel), or a "dramatic reading drama" (in the anime). Kobayashi wanted to adapt a version of what they experienced in Love Me Magically! (in other words, the entirety of the first novel) for it, but the club captain shoots it down, calling it a blatant "public display of affection". Eventually, they used a modified script of the one used two years ago.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: When discussing how to help Fiene in Chapter 5 of the novels, or Chapter 10 of the manga, or Episode 4 of the anime, Artur mentions what that person really needs is a marriage certificate between her parents. And since the clerics handle vital statistics...
    Artur: After a few letters to some of my family in the upper class of the clergy, Who's to say it can't be made to exist?
    Siegwald: (Taken aback) ...!! Hold on, are you...?!
  • Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: Whereas the heroine Fiene and the love interests wear pretty modest and simple clothing, the (nominal) villainess Lieselotte dresses much sexier, with a choker around her neck and a dress that leaves her shoulders bare and opens in front to reveal her corset. There is an in-universe justification for this: the novel states the dress code of the Wizarding School merely requires wearing an over-robe during class, and most girls take off their robes after classes, showing their full dresses underneath. Fiene is too poor to afford the dresses, so she tends to put the over-robe on at all times.
  • Shipper on Deck:
    • Endo and Kobayashi ship Lieselotte/Siegwald and are banking on them being together so that Lieselotte won't fall into despair and the best ending possible for everyone can be achieved. In addition, despite Lieselotte's canonical love towards Siegwald, there isn't a single scenario where the two can have a happy ending.
    • They also ship Fiene/Baldur since it gets Fiene out of the way of Lieselotte/Siegwald and saves Baldur from his doom.invoked
    • On the other hand, the first episode of the anime makes it clear the rest of the Broadcasting Club ships Endo/Kobayashi.
  • Shout-Out: The translator's choice of calling the Fictional Video Game Love Me Magically! aka MagiKoi is clearly inspired by Majikoi! Love Me Seriously!.
  • Simple Solution Won't Work: The commentators note early on that they could just tell Siegwald exactly what will happen, but choose not to out of a sense of not wanting "spoilers". As the commentators get more emotionally invested though, they note that if they explained what would happen with Lieselotte and the Witch of Yore, then they'd just be forcing the couple into a relationship, which would definitely not be healthy for either of them. Thus, all they can do is paint Lieselotte in the best light they can in hope that Siegwald can naturally fall in love with her. After Siegwald confirms his feelings for Lieslotte when the Witch's haunting of her dreams becomes obvious, the commentators tell Sieg and Fiene as much as they can about the Witch of Yore and how they can beat her.
    • When it comes out that Fiene is the illegitimate daughter of both the Marschner and Riefenstahl houses and that she and her mother had been on the run from the Marschners, Bruno asks why they didn't seek refuge with the Riefenstahls. Elizabeth points out that the Riefenstahls would have gotten into a lot of hot water for protecting a bastard child, and in the worst-case scenario, the two families would have gotten into a bloody war. Fortunately, Arthur and Siegwald are willing to use their connections to alter the records so that Finne is no longer a bastard, allowing the Riefenstahls to officially adopt Finne as rightful heir to the house.
  • Single-Target Sexuality: The Riefenstahl line tends to be very passionate towards their chosen loves. This includes Lieselotte with Siegwald, August with Elizabeth, Baldur with Fiene (who is also a Riefenstahl) and Cecilie with Fabian. In particular, Lieselotte is noted by her father to be extreme even by the family's standards.
  • Sliding Scale of Free Will vs. Fate: Comes into play with the Beta Couple of the series; Fiene and Baldur. Endo and Kobayashi originally aim to pair the two up to be invokedShip Mates for Lieselotte and Siegwald, partly to avoid conflict between Lieselotte and Fiene and partly to avoid Baldur's death flag. It later gets implied however the Baldur always died in the original routes because he was in love with Fiene and would always try to protect her.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: Elizabeth's parents are only referenced to and never given any speaking role. However, their role in shaping Fiene's early life cannot be understated.
  • Someone to Remember Him By: Fiene was conceived when Elizabeth and August decided to consummate their relationship during the last days of August's life; he died around the same time when Elizabeth found herself bearing his child.
  • Spanner in the Works: Endo and Kobayashi inadvertently became this to Kuon, the creator god stalking Fiene, when they are the ones that connect to the Magikoi world instead of him. Because of their interference, Lieselotte doesn't become fully possessed by the Witch of Yore and the intensity of her love even restores the witch to her original identity as Lirenna, the creator goddess.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: The version of Elizabeth and August's story that is known to most of the high society (including Siegwald) treats the two as these because what they knew is that they never got married when August died. Subverted. What the two actually did was consummate their relationship nonetheless, which is the closest to an elopement they can get as August was terminally ill. What's more, they were able to conceive a child before he died.
  • Supernatural Elite: The only magic users are the nobles.
  • Switching P.O.V.:
    • Every chapter of the novel is divided into two sections; the first one is always the Magikoi world in Siegwald's point of view while the second section is more variable—sometimes it's about the commentators, and sometimes another Magikoi character gets A Day in the Limelight.
    • In-Universe, Magikoi only follows the point-of-view of Fiene. After the disappearance of the fourth wall, Kobayashi and Endo find that they can designate people as having received "divine favor" and follow their viewpoints, and designate Lieselotte and Baldur so that they can better help along their romantic prospects.
  • Talking to Themself: In Episode 11, we see several scenes of creator-god Kuon conversing with the person he possessed. The latter quite clearly don't endorse the former's actions.
  • The Game Come to Life: Endo and Kobayashi originally played this round of Magikoi as commentator practice, so they aren't even intending to play it—they just left the game run on autoplay. But after they confirmed Siegwald can hear what their commentaries through the screen, several oddities with the save file, especially this save file does not allow Save Scumming, causes them to realize they're probably in an interface to another equally real dimension, and the Magikoi cast are real people.
  • Two Gamers on a Couch: Kobayashi and Endo originally planned to just make live commentaries for the game, which is not that different from this trope's setup. At least, before they noticed Sieg can hear what they say from the other side of the screen.
  • Underdressed for the Occasion: Endo, who was trained as an athlete for most of his life and has no romantic experience, has no clue about what to wear on a date with Kobayashi in Chapter 5B of the novel. Eventually, he wears a sportswear-branded T-shirt, Capri jeans, sandals, and a shoulder bag, something even he finds to be inadequate for such a situation.
  • Understatement: At one point Endo suggested he just "cried a little bit" over Lieselotte's backstory. The narration then points out:
    The definition of “a little” varied from person to person, but [Endo] Aoto had shed enough tears that both he and [Kobayashi] Shihono knew he was lying. However, being the high school boy that he was, he simply couldn’t admit that.
  • Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Endo and Kobayashi knows what will happen in the Magikoi world and how to prevent it, but opt not to tell Siegwald any of these, but instead give commentaries on what's happening around him. This is because they recognize Siegwald, being the Wise Prince, would feel compelled to love Lieselotte for the country's good against his feelings if they told him what would happen, something Lieselotte will eventually sense and thus will still cause her Demonic Possession. The commentators want Siegwald to sincerely love Lieselotte. This is outright lampshaded in the first episode of the anime.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: The whole plot sparked off because Endo and Kobayashi felt sympathetic for Lieselotte and Baldur's nearly no-win situations in Magikoi. When the reality sets in that on some level their game is, well, not, they decide to do something about it. Their actions of clearing up the misunderstanding regarding Lieselotte lead to developments such as Fiene being recognized and adopted into Lieselotte's family, a development impossible in the original canon when Lieselotte was alive. It also leads to Lieselotte's intense feelings of love bring the Witch of Yore back to her original goddess form.
  • Wham Episode: Chapter 5 of the manga. It starts off a continuation of the previous chapters, with Kobayashi talking about Baldur during a break from the gaming, except afterward when the summer Koshien game on the TV makes Endo recalls why he is the Broadcasting Club—at a time he was enduring the angst over a Career-Ending Injury. Worse, the chapter ends with a sinister-looking person complaining why he can't "get into that side" of MagiKoi...
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Also overlapping with What the Hell, Player?. Kobayashi mentions that, in the Bad End of the Siegwald route, Lieselotte's sisters will viciously tear into Fiene in their grief over her death, yelling that Fiene's happiness was bought with Lieselotte's pain and despair.
  • Wizarding School: Most of MagiKoi's plots happen in the Royal Academy of Magic. And due to the Supernatural Elite setting, it doubles as a Royal School.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Fiene's grandparents, who send assassins to hunt down Fiene.
  • Writing for the Trade: The manga is created on the assumption that each volume contains 5 chapters, so particularly important content tends to happen close to the end of each volume.

Alternative Title(s): Endo And Kobayashi Live The Latest On Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte

Top