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If you love The Apothecary Diaries and are missing it right now, Crunchyroll has a new anime coming later this July that you’re going to want to keep an eye out for. The Apothecary Diaries is currently in the works on a major return later this year with both a new season of the anime and a feature film release, so fans have been hungry for it. But it’s also inspired a string of other cool anime projects that also dive into a more feudal China era with their own mystical mysteries at hand.
Satsuki Nakamura’s Though I Am an Inept Villainess light novel series is going to be making its anime adaptation debut later this July as part of the Summer 2026 anime schedule, and it’s going to be one of the many shows that Crunchyroll will have on offer for the coming slate. But now a new update has been revealed giving fans a cool new poster while also confirming a July 12th release date in Japan. You can check out the new look at Though I am an Inept Villainess below.
Though I Am an Inept Villainess Confirms Crunchyroll Release Date
Though I Am an Inept Villainess will be making its debut on July 12th as part of the packed Summer 2026 anime schedule, and Crunchyroll has confirmed that they will be streaming the new anime for fans in North America, Central America, South America, Europe, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East, and CIS. It’s going to have a notable staff bringing it all to life as well with a team at Doga Kobo, which has been taking the anime world by storm with franchises like Oshi no Ko, Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian and much more.
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Mitsue Yamazaki will be directing Though I Am an Inept Villainess for Doga Kobo with Yoshihoko Nakamura overseeing the series composition, Ai Kukuchi designing the characters, and Yukari Hashimoto composing the music. The voice cast for the anime currently includes Manaka Iwami as Kou Reirin, Natsumi Kawaida as Shu Keigetsu, Makoto Furukawa as Ei Gyoumei, Yuichiro Umehara as Shin-U, Hana Hishikawa as Leelee, and Farahnaz Nikray as Kou Tousetsu. But while its setting might seem similar to The Apothecary Diaries, it’s going to lean more into the mystical side of its world.
What to Know for Though I Am an Inept Villainess
Though I Am an Inept Villainess focuses more on the world of the concubines as they try and climb the ladder to get closer to the Emperor (and thus net more political power for themselves). Five clans are trying to get closer to the prince, and it’s one named Reirin that is getting the most attention so far. But when a villainess named Keigetsu is jealous of this, she uses a magical spell to force the two of them to swap bodies. This means Keigetsu is now being favored, and Reirin needs to face the villain’s punishments.
It then becomes a series about how Reirin needs to use her skill and political maneuver abilities to somehow survive sudden death and make her way through the world in this new body. If you loved the political side of The Apothecary Diaries, this one should scratch that itch.
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