Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan (悪役令嬢転生おじさん, Middle-Aged Man's Noble Daughter Reincarnation / The Old Man Reincarnated as a Villainess / From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad's Been Reincarnated!) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Michiro Ueyama. It has been serialized in Shōnen Gahōsha's seinen manga magazine Young King Ours GH since March 2020, with its chapters collected in seven tankōbon volumes as of August 2024. An anime television series adaptation produced by Ajia-do Animation Works is set to premiere in January 2025.
Synopsis[]
In his previous life in modern-day Japan, he was Kenzaburou Tondabayashi, a 52-year-old civil servant—and now he's the villainess! Reborn as Grace Auvergne, the drill-haired villainess of an otome game his daughter used to play, Kenzaburou is quite confused.
From the little information he possesses, Kenzaburou knows he should be a haughty noble girl, but the disciplined older man is simply unable to act in such a manner. His calm and kind aura leads him to befriend the heroine and further endear him to the student body as the pinnacle of elegance. As he tries to keep the story on track, Kenzaburou will have to draw on his years of experience in the workforce, his perfect Japanese manners, and his family-oriented morals to fit in with the fellow kids.
Bibliographic information[]
Written and illustrated by Michiro Ueyama [ja], Akuyaku Reijō Tensei Oji-san started in Shōnen Gahōsha's seinen manga magazine Young King Ours GH [ja] on March 16, 2020. Shōnen Gahōsha has collected its chapters into individual tankōbon volumes. The first volume was released on December 16, 2020. As of January 4, 2024, six volumes have been released.
| No. | Japanese release date | Japanese ISBN | English Released | English ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | December 16, 2020 | 978-4-7859-6827-4 | ─ | ─ |
| 2 | August 2, 2021 | 978-4-7859-6968-4 | ─ | ─ |
| 3 | April 5, 2022 | 978-4-7859-7114-4 | ─ | ─ |
| 4 | December 28, 2022 | 978-4-7859-7308-7 | ─ | ─ |
| 5 | June 5, 2023 | 978-4-7859-7406-0 | ─ | ─ |
| 6 | January 4, 2024 | 978-4-7859-7578-4 | ─ | ─ |
| 7 | August 5, 2024 | 978-4-7859-7726-9 | ─ | ─ |
Character[]
Kenzaburo Tondabayashi is a 52-year-old civil servant. He was leading a full life, balancing his daily work with his otaku hobbies and building a family with a good relationship with his wife and daughter, who are otaku just like himself. However, after his last memory of saving a child who was almost run over by a truck by taking his own life, he found himself as Grace Auvergne, a 15-year-old duchess in another world.
Although he understood that he had been reincarnated in another world and that the Grace he had reincarnated was the villainous daughter in the Otome game "Magical Gakuen Love & Beast," which his daughter was playing, Kenzaburo, who did not know the game's contents, played his role as the villainous daughter in his way and tried to bring the game's hero and his target together. However, because of his innate good-naturedness and the parental perspective that only an uncle can provide, he comes to be adored by the game's protagonist, Anna Dole, who should normally be disliked, and is even liked by the game's target, the handsome men (even though Kenzaburo has no intention of doing so).
Meanwhile, in Japan, Kenzaburo is hospitalized, unconscious, without any noticeable trauma after the accident. Kenzaburo's daughter Hinako returns home after leaving her mother at the hospital for hospitalization procedures. She discovers a game console in the living room with "Magical Academy Love & Beast" still running. The game, which accepts almost no operations other than reading messages, including turning on the TV, proceeds on its own, and when Grace appears on the screen, the message says "Grace (Kenzaburo). Convinced by Grace's words and actions in the game that her father's consciousness has entered her in the game, Hinako decides that she needs to clear the game in order to restore her father's consciousness, and proceeds with her mother who easily accepts this unusual situation.
She and her mother, who readily accepts this unusual situation, proceed through the game, and for the first time are able to interfere in the game during the "Beast" summoning event, which is a feature of the game. Hinako follows a mysterious message and inserts her hand into the LCD TV screen, mixing two Beasts that look exactly like Grace and Kenzaburo, the two deformed heads summoned by Grace in the game, to create an ancient dragon (Ancient Dragon) Beast with conflicting attributes, fire and water. Grace is concerned about the giant hand that appeared when she was summoned and a familiar voice, but the game progresses without any way for him to hear directly from his wife and son.
However, when Grace's brother Adrian appears, it turns out that he can connect the game world with the real world, albeit for a short time. Taking advantage of his second chance, Grace-Kenzaburo learns from a letter given to him by his wife and child that his body in the real world is still alive.
Kenzaburo Tondabayashi
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Grace Auverne
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In the series, Grace's soul is confined to a bird cage within her. However, when Kenzaburo's consciousness is knocked out by the Sleeping Dragon, she reemerges to reveal her true form and speak in her original language. The Sleeping Dragon refers to his presence as world-shaking in the plural, suggesting that you will play an important role alongside Kenzaburo.
Abilities[]
"Okay, don't panic. I just have to remember I'm playing the role of the cold-hearted Grace Auverne. A true villainess wouldn't satisfied by merely putting distance between the heroine and her love interests! Yes, exactly! This is all part of an evil plan!"
― Grace-Kenzaburo inner thoughts
Grace Auverne (Kenzaburo Tondabayashi) is the protagonist of this work and the villainess of "Magical Academy: Love & Beast". The Dukes of Auverne are said to be second only to the royal family in power, and Grace has a harsh personality, lecturing Anna about the difference in status on her first day at school. She has the magic power next to the royal family in the kingdom where the game is set. She/he can cast magic spells (fire, Water, etc.) Because of this, she or he studies the flow of this Otome game.
- Kenzaburo doesn't have any cheat-level abilities, but he's basically a civil servant and has excellent practical skills, contributing greatly to the student council's operations, and he quickly adapted to magic by using the kanji, he had memorized from his job, taking the hint that magic can be "practically any character, as long as you can put it into an ancient language you understand well."
After being possessed by Kenzaburo, she is no longer conscious, but her knowledge and memories are inherited by Kenzaburo. The magic of this world is effective by inputting arbitrary effects with a wand on the activated magic team, but Grace can expand the effect and shorten the input shortcuts, using Japanese characters from Kenzaburo's knowledge.
- The magic wand is an important magic tool to download basic magic information. After, inscribe an order inside the circle with an ancient magiscript. The reason words are used to write orders in a magic circle or to recite incantations is to tap into the raw "verbaligy" of the words themselves. "Verbaligy" is a form of mana that latently exists within words.
- For a word to harbor any verbaligy, it must be used across the ages by many people until it has a rich history. That is why it's used for sorcery, which is all old-fashioned and has fallen out of modern use. An ancient magiscript is the perfect fit. For example, when she writes Fire (火), it will create a small fire; when Flame (火火) is written, it creates a massive fire.
- Grace magic is moderate and not very powerful, but in Kenzaburo's knowledge, he uses the kanji that he knows and combines them to give meaning to the magic itself, skillfully applying them in various creative ways.
Although the original Grace had a harsh personality both in her own and other's eyes, in her recollections, she gives rather straightforward instructions, although her words are harsh, and since she does not appear to be a villain with her snarling and cursing, she is described by many readers as "not so villain-like" (although her "words and actions are straightforward," she is not a "villain" in any way). (However, the part where she is mistaken for a villain because of her harsh words and deeds is one of the templates or stylistic beauties of works in the villainous daughter genre.) Incidentally, according to Mathilde, who has known her since childhood, "She is a strict person, but she is not a person who gets angry without meaning."
On the other hand, she recalls that as a child, she enjoyed watching Waltz's workshop and the gardener's work, but as a result of her ladylike education, she developed a villainous persona. At Grace Auverne's request, Meister Waltz makes one-of-a-kind tools that are not found in this world, like an "Abacus" arithmetic board, and she had a magic wand incorporated into her fan's monture. She dubbed it the "Magic fand," in her experience rather bothersome to walk around with both wand and fan, so she had family craftsman makes this for her.
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Orion (オリオン)
A beast of an ancient dragon born by synthesizing the magical powers of Grace and Kenzaburo by Hinako. Normally, each beast should have only one attribute, but it has two attributes. When it has a fire attribute, it has a red body color, and when it has a water attribute, it has a blue body color. It does not accept instructions from Grace Kenzaburo and requires Hinako's operation to switch attributes. Instructions from Grace Kenzaburo are not accepted, and it is necessary to operate Hinako to switch different element attributes. |
In the game's signature system, the Birth of the Beast event, he even gained Orion, an ancient dragon with the attributes of both Grace (Fire) and Kenzaburo (Water).
"Because tsundere characters are most always total pushovers!"
― Grace-Kenzaburo personal opinion
Because of Grace Auverne's charisma, she was able to be pulled by Kenzaburo Tondabayashi interpreted as a "growth and calm personality" rather than being suspicious of becoming a different person because of the "elegant conversion (elegant cheat)" that she activated. For her survival in this world, she/he studies and practices swordsmanship, she/he studies and practices swordsmanship. Her or his swordsmanship is so decent that she or he can protect herself in a dangerous situation.
- Kenzaburo's words and actions are converted into those of his uncle and those appropriate for the occasion as a lady, which Kenzaburo calls "elegant conversion (elegant cheat)" (however, it does not seem to apply to some old man gags and otaku terms = tsundere, flags, etc.). (On the other hand, since all corresponding gestures are converted, there is a disadvantage of not being able to intentionally change language or gestures, such as in theatrical performances.)
- Meanwhile, with a wealth of game knowledge that can be said to have mastered RPG games, he quickly grasps the current situation and borrows the help of timely student council members if his magic power is insufficient, or calmly unleashes a three-attribute attack to quickly grasp the enemy's attributes, demonstrating the skill of a veteran gamer. Kenzaburo is also a serious Otaku himself, so his game-honed dungeon strategy is evident in the dungeon walkthrough, where he uses traps and shortcuts to clear dungeons with ease.
At the same time, she gradually began to shy away from watching the servants at work because she thought it was "unladylike" to do so. Her fate in the game is unknown, and we do not know if her doom awaits her or not. According to Hinako, there is a branch in the prince's route where an evil spirit fights Anna and possesses him.
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Production[]
According to the postscript in the first volume of the book, Ueyama, who had been self-identifying as a manga artist since his debut in 1990, felt a sense of crisis when his two most recent serials were canceled after a short period. He liked the "villainous daughter" stories, and when he published a prototype of this work as a doujinshi manga on social networking sites, he received an explosive response of approximately 160,000 likes, which led to its commercialization.
In the usual otherworldly reincarnation works, the protagonist is reincarnated into another world after losing his life in the present world, but in this work, the protagonist is reincarnated unconscious but alive, and his family in the present world is watching over his activities in the other world, which is an unusual setting. When asked about this point in an interview article, the author replied, "I drew this manga to end it with a happy ending", so it's not right that Kenzaburo dies leaving his daughter and wife behind. You could say that I went back to that kind of starting point.
TV Anime[]
In January 2024, it was announced that the manga would receive an anime television series adaptation. It will be animated by Ajia-do Animation Works and directed by Tetsuya Takeuchi, with series composition by Shingo Irie, character designs by Haruka Matsunae and monster designs by Yuki Miyamoto. The music is composed by Natsumi Tabuchi, Misaki Tsuchida, Tsugumi Tanaka, Reiko Abe, and Kaho Sawada. The series is set to premiere on January 10, 2025, on the Super Animeism Turbo programming block on JNN affiliates, including MBS and TBS.
- Staff:
- Director: Tetsuya Takeuchi
- Series Composition: Shingo Irie
- Music: Kaho Sawada, Misaki Tsuchida, Natsumi Tabuchi, Reiko Abe, & Tsugumi Tanaka
- Original creator: Michiro Ueyama
- Character Design: Haruka Matsunae
- Art Director: Chiho Wada
- Sound Director: Toshiki Kameyama
- Director of Photography: Kotomi Murayama
- Art Setting: Morihito Ōhara
- Color design: Haruko Nobori
- Editing: Rie Matsubara
- Monster Design: Yuki Miyamoto
- Prop Design: Ryō Hirata
- Theme Song Composition & Lyrics: Yurin (OP)
- Animation Production: Ajiado
- Broadcaster: Mainichi Broadcasting System (Super Animeism TURBO) & Tokyo Broadcasting System
Sentai Filmworks licensed the series in North America for streaming on Hidive. In South and Southeast Asia, the series has been licensed by Muse Communication.
Web Radio[]
Kazuhiko Inoue as Kenzaburo Tondabayashi and M. A. O. as Grace Auvergne are the voice actors and actresses behind "Uncle Villainous Order Radio," which will be available every Thursday starting January 9, 2025 on Cho!A&G+ and YouTube's MBS Anime & Drama Channel.
Reception[]
In 2020, the manga was nominated for the sixth Next Manga Awards and placed fourth out of the 50 nominees with 17,633 votes.
External Link[]
- Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan ─ Piccoma Website
- Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan ─ Pixiv Website
- TV Anime "Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan" Official Website
- TV Anime "Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan" Official (@tensei_ojisan) - Twitter X
- Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan ─ Wikipedia JP
- Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan ─ Wikipedia EN
Trivia[]
To be added.