First Look: Winter 2025 Anime Overview: Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad’s Been Reincarnated

Premise: Kenzaburo is a middle-aged otaku dad to an otaku daughter, and she plays an otome game in the living room a lot, so he’s vaguely familiar with it. Then one day he finds himself in the world of the game, and he’s turned into the game’s villainess. He decides he’ll play his role as villainess well and give the main character, Anna, a chance to shine, but unfortunately for him, he just can’t help giving wholesome fatherly advice and encouragement, so all the characters love him.

Sometimes you just want a sweet, wholesome show where people are nice and dads are good. While it may not have super deep characters or a fascinating plot, and it’s more cute than laugh out loud funny (though there is that amazing credit sequence), Dad’s Been Reincarnated fills that need well. It has a fun gimmick and a unique twist on a villainess isekai that makes it stand out. There’s a lot of annoying or gross things the show could have done that it neatly avoids—Kenzaburo barely comments on the fact he’s turned into a woman, instead just being pleased with how his eyes are better and his body is less achey. He also never makes fun of or thinks less of otome games and "girly" media, instead just respecting and committing to following the story.

The main joke of the story is our main character is a good dad and guy and thinks of all the characters as children he’s proud of and wants to nurture, so he’s just not that great at being a villainess. In fact he's accidentally so kind and supportive, it makes Anna adore him more than anyone else, and now she’s not particularly interested in any of the male love interests she’s “supposed” to end up with and wants to spend all her time with “Lady Grace”, and all the boys are so impressed with "Grace", he's inadvertently taken over the main character role. Despite the fact he keeps trying to set Anna up with one of the love interests so he can complete her route, everyone just sees how he's supported Anna and their affection levels up.

Another cool and fun little element is that we check in on his wife and daughter in “our” world a lot. Both of them are otaku just like he is, and they’re fully aware Dad’s been transported into the game (he’s in a coma rather than dead like most isekai protags, and his fam figures he’ll come back when the game is finished) and are actually playing it to move him along and witnessing his struggles. They’re both fun characters, and it’s sweet to see them nerd out together. Also Mom has actual good taste in isekai, and actually reminds her daughter about the earlier female-oriented isekai anime that predate the current isekai stories.

Seeing a Twelve Kingdoms reference in a modern show is incredible. I was so happy. I also realize being into the same stuff Mom is probably reflects how old I’m getting, though to be fair, I’ve been interested since I was 19!

Incredibly, this anime even manages to do a weight loss storyline and not be terribly offensive, which is an actual feat for anime. Anna gains some weight and decides to go on a diet, and Kenzo is actually against it and a little worried has to hold his tongue on giving her fatherly advice (some a bit eyeroll-y if well intentioned like “a lot of boys like girls with meat on their bones” and some very good and accurate like “it’s dangerous to diet when you’re young and you don’t need to anyway”) because he remembers how it annoyed his teenage daughter. Instead, he reminds her to be careful because it’s not worth putting her health in danger, and then soliloquies that it makes him so happy to see how much she enjoys her meals, which convinces Anna to eat the same amount but exercise more. It also does a crossdressing play and isn’t offensive about it.

It's truly a show with a good heart, and while it’s sometimes thin on plot and formulaic—it''s not gonna blow your socks off—it can be soothing to experience that. It’s not a complete story though, the ending episode even introduces a lot of ongoing plot elements. The implication that the real Grace was more complex and compassionate than she let on, and that she might still exist and be trapped somewhere, is genuinely very intriguing but the show only makes a few brief references to this possibility. I don’t know if we’ll get a second season that furthers these storylines, but I definitely wouldn’t mind one!