Though I Am an Inept Villainess returns in January 2027
The body-swap court drama is coming back for a second cour in January 2027, with a new main visual and three cast additions for its harvest festival arc.
The court-intrigue anime Though I Am an Inept Villainess has been confirmed for a second cour in January 2027, and the production committee marked it with a new main visual drawn by the series' own character designer, Ai Kikuchi. The notices went up on the anime's Japanese and English sites on Sunday night, and the Japanese posts carry the date 21 September.
At a glance
Second cour: January 2027, with no day or broadcast slot named yet. Arc: The First Royal Outing, built around the harvest festival in the Shu clan's southern lands. New cast: Yūichi Nakamura as Kou Keikou, Shunichi Toki as Kou Keishou and Chiaki Kobayashi as Unran. New main visual: drawn by Ai Kikuchi. Trailer: none published for the new cour yet.
The arc that follows
The first cour left Reirin and Keigetsu - the two girls who swapped bodies on the night of a festival - with the curse scandal in the inner court settled and a wary friendship forming between them. The second cour sends the whole court south, where the Crown Prince and his maidens are due to hold the harvest ritual in the Shu clan's lands. Keigetsu hosts, and the English site makes clear she feels every ounce of the pressure.
It does not go to plan. An accident interrupts the ritual, Keigetsu loses control of her magic and the pair swap bodies for a second time, after which Reirin is taken by an unknown party while wearing Keigetsu's face. Reirin's two elder brothers are pulled into the search, and the show is promising a new figure behind it all.
Three new names in the cast
Yūichi Nakamura joins as Kou Keikou and Shunichi Toki as Kou Keishou, the overprotective brothers whose arrival complicates the rescue, while Chiaki Kobayashi plays Unran. The committee published all three names with short messages from the actors, and the returning cast is unchanged.
Who is making it
Most of the first cour's team returns: Mitsue Yamasaki directs, Sumie Noro is sub-director, Yoshiko Nakamura handles series composition, Ai Kikuchi is on character design and Yukari Hashimoto writes the music, with Dōga Kōbō animating. The source is Satsuki Nakamura's novel series from Ichijinsha, with character concepts by Kana Yuki and Ei Ohitsuji.
The first cour began on 12 July 2026 on the TV Tokyo network, and the English site still lists it as streaming worldwide. Its on-demand page names Crunchyroll across North America, Europe, Latin America, the CIS, the Middle East and Africa, Asia and Oceania, with Hulu in North America, Disney+ in Europe and Latin America, and Netflix in parts of Asia. The committee has not said whether the second cour keeps that spread.
Our opinion
Renewing a show before its first run has finished is cheap to announce and easy to postpone, so the interesting signal here is not the January 2027 line, it is the artwork. Committees ship a trailer the moment they have moving footage worth selling, and this one has gone with a still and three cast notices instead, which says the new episodes are still a way from finished.
The body swap is the engine of this series and its biggest risk. The first cour already resolved its central conspiracy, and the second immediately does the same trick again - another swap, another kidnapping - which is either escalation or a formula settling in for the long haul. Dōga Kōbō has the comic timing to stop the farce going stale, and a harvest festival gives the pair a backdrop the palace never could; the question is whether the story offers a reason for the second switch beyond the first one having worked.