Reincarnation anime can get tiring after a while, but some of them like Reincarnated as the 7th Prince attempt to give fresh twists to well-established tropes by making the body that the protagonist reincarnates into ridiculous. The villainess subset of the genre is naturally restricted in this regard, since the protagonist must always become a female humanoid as opposed to an inanimate object or animal, for example. However, a new venture into this reincarnation subgenre on Hidive called From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad's Been Reincarnated! attempts to make who the protagonist was before their death the ridiculous aspect of the overall transformation.

At first glance, From Bureaucrat to Villainess appears to fall into the trap that even the best reincarnation anime succumb to. What normally happens is this ridiculousness provides a cheap shock factor that quickly wears out its welcome and fails to meaningfully contribute to the story. However, the...