A Livid Lady’s Guide to Getting Even Episode 1 Review
We open at the Kingdom of Haldoria Royal Palace, and His Highness is berating Elizabeth. She’s his fiancée and is accused of doing wrong to Sylvia Lockit. Sylvia is sitting there smirking and smiling while Elizabeth gets accused of jealousy and shoving her down the stairs. Sir Friede immediately ends their engagement, and she is sent to the dungeon. That’s your cold open, and if you’ve watched enough anime in this lane, from Scarlet’s one-punch villainess rampage to the usual court disgrace setup, you already know the shape of the story.
The OP is fine. It’s not particularly impressive. My first impressions of the animation put it on par with “I’m Quitting Heroing”—not completely horrible, but not eye candy. Definitely not eye candy.
This series is a Studio Comet production. Now, I’d never heard of Studio Comet before this production, though I can’t say I’ve heard of every studio. But this fantasy revenge story isn’t coming from the normal channels like Zero-G, Passione, Diomedia, or J.C. Staff. What I found out is that Studio Comet was actually founded on January 21, 1986, by former employees of Tsuchida Production after that studio went bankrupt. They’ve been around since the OVA boom era; they did the original Dragon Quest anime (1989–1991), Humanoid Monster Bem (1992), and, more recently, Cute High Earth Defense Club HAPPY KISS! (2018). So they’re not newcomers fumbling a genre they don’t understand. They’re veterans working within budgetary constraints on a property outside their usual wheelhouse, something you can also see in their later work on A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics.
Who Is Elizabeth Leiston?
After the OP, we jump to a flashback and get a bit of backstory. Elizabeth Leiston was born to the Chancellor of Haldoria, Duke Sieg Leiston. She was engaged to the crown prince, and this wasn’t an arranged engagement. When she moved to the palace, she learned combat skills, but she primarily manages the kingdom’s clerical affairs.
There’s a conversation where the maid Mireille comes in, brings Elizabeth her tea, and comments that her fiancé, the prince, has deferred most of the political duties to her. At the same time, he enjoys lighter affairs, for example. So right away, the show is telling you something about who actually runs this kingdom.
Elizabeth is also a chairwoman. She started the Funnel Corporation herself, and she uses its profits for philanthropy and to help the impoverished. So we quickly see that she is a beneficent person. The way they push it is a bit rushed, but the setup is well done. It’s simplistic, but it works. They open with her getting fussed over, then move forward after the OP with a flashback of who she is as an individual. If it’s following typical anime fare, they’re trying to get us to the punch line, so to speak.
And isn’t that something: while she’s walking through town with her maid, she happens to hear the people speaking well of her at exactly the right time. Elizabeth has a moment of bashfulness, but her maid notes that no one has actually seen her portrait. That’s not the real reason Elizabeth looks at her ring, though. She desires to do more to help the people.
The Prince and the Power Dynamic
Then there’s the prince, talking to her about how hard she works as they sit in her office and how the Gaiko Corporation wants access to the royal family. Elizabeth points out that they skim more profit from their shops than necessary and that their behavior is unbefitting of the royal family. This upsets His Highness, who says this will damage his reputation—because she was going to issue a warning to them.
To reinforce the fact that he doesn’t like that, he basically tells her she should do what he says as his fiancée. He might as well have just said, “Know your place.” His Highness is presented as a typical fiery, blonde-haired spoiled-brat archetype. I like how she doesn’t back down, and she doesn’t raise her voice. She says, “Remember the reputation of the palace,” as he storms off like a spoiled brat kid. That dynamic—the two of them—works well.
Robert, a knight, is also present. As His Highness storms off, he says to Lady Elizabeth that he is simply weary and that perhaps she should offer him kinder words. As she speaks about how trivial matters can bring down a kingdom’s downfall, Robert feels slighted. His loyalty is obviously to His Highness. She says, “Please keep in mind that when the kingdom declines, it is the people who suffer.”
The Secondary Consort and the Setup
Her father comes in—the Chancellor—and he has to leave with His Majesty the King for the usual monster issue. This situation will interfere with the kingdom’s anniversary party next week, which will have to be canceled according to Lady Elizabeth. But His Majesty basically says the show goes on. Lady Elizabeth will represent the kingdom in their absence. As her father leaves, he says, “Don’t embarrass the ‘kingdom’—that whole save-face thing.”
Then we see the prince getting all huggy-huggy with someone named Lady Sylvia. She was adopted into the Barony of Lockit and recently arrived at court. Looks like it’s more than friendship between the two of them.
I hope Lady Elizabeth isn’t a fool, but I agree with her maid as they speak about Sylvia. Elizabeth says Sylvia needs to be taught how to act around His Highness, and then the maid says, “Why would you help the person he is cheating on you with?” We’re really following the kingdom rules here. Lady Elizabeth says it is her duty to assist with this as well and that there is nothing wrong with His Highness taking a secondary consort. The only thing that comes to mind that I’ve seen over the years is “The Last Emperor,” when he says, “I want a wife and a secondary consort.”
I’m not sure how this has a 13+ rating, but as Elizabeth and Sylvia sit and talk over tea, Elizabeth basically tells Sylvia she needs to watch what she does. She looks at her leg and notices it’s been bruised—because she was cavorting around with another gentleman. Elizabeth tells her she needs to refrain from being involved with any gentleman. There’s a right and wrong way to conduct yourself in the Royal House—interesting.
And just like that, as Sylvia is leaving, two things happen. Number one: she kind of grits her teeth. You can tell she’s thinking, “Who is this woman to tell me what I can and can’t do?” Except the word “woman” is replaced by another colorful metaphor. Even though those aren’t the words she says, that’s the way the animation conveys it. Then His Highness shows up, and she plays her role. She begins crying. He notices her leg, holds her, and says, “What did she do to my beloved Sylvie?” You can tell who he wanted to be with. He says, “I’ll make her pay.” And then we cut to the present moment we saw at the beginning—Elizabeth being sent to the dungeon.
The Anniversary and the Arrest
This happens in front of the guests at the anniversary party. There’s a member in the audience with red hair—I’ll call him the Kurama of the group—and he notices what’s going on. I think everybody else notices too, but they can’t say anything. Robert immediately jumps in and arrests her along with the guards to take her to the dungeon. And of course, the prince declares his engagement to Sylvia Lockit.
King Bulat Haldoria calls his son a moron. News travels fast. Elizabeth’s father tells the king that he believes his daughter can handle the situation on her own and that there is no time to waste. One month later, she is in the dungeon working for the kingdom while the prince gets to cavort.
Mireille and the Breaking Point
Lady Elizabeth has abilities. She calls the guard over and hypnotizes him as an unknown figure enters the dungeon. It’s her maid, Mireille, who can cloak herself.
Mireille brings news: Elizabeth’s father is leaving her to solve her own problems, much to her dismay, and the Funnel Corporation is being investigated—by His Highness, the prince. He’s also working to replace the corporation’s executives with his own people. The corporation is one of the kingdom’s largest contributors. Mireille wants to know why she cares so much about the kingdom. We also learn that Mireille used to be a slave and that Elizabeth took her in.
She tells Elizabeth that a rumor is spreading—that Elizabeth was driven by jealousy and attempted to kill the baron’s daughter and that she is trying to take over the kingdom behind the crown prince’s back.
I’m listening to Mireille go on, and the maid is more pissed about it than Elizabeth is. Elizabeth is so darn mellow and zen about everything. It’s almost like—you know what, she almost reminds me of Cleveland from *Family Guy* after Quagmire sleeps with his wife—just that dissociative calm while the people around her are losing their minds.
Mireille goes on about her father, the king, and how the prince didn’t appreciate her and how the baron’s daughter helped set her up. And then—it finally made her mad. I didn’t know she had that kind of strength. She punches the wall and does real damage. That’s the crack in the facade. That’s the moment the turn happens.
The Escape
The game is set. They’ll leave in five days. Elizabeth will accept the change in governance over her corporation. They’re instructed to leave the kingdom, except for a few to gather information.
Elizabeth can command Divine Artifacts—or rather, she can make mana into tools called Divine Artifacts. Hers is the Grimoire of Beelzebub. Interesting name, and I’m surprised Crunchyroll didn’t change it. It’s one of the Seven Grimoires that make up her Divine Artifact. It’s a recorder of magic, so basically, she’s OP, in the same “dangerous tools and dark fantasy weight” lane as The Witch and the Beast. It can record magic, including others’ magic. She can use magic she has no natural attribution to. She can only use water magic naturally. Forget what that makes her in the *Avatar* series—I guess she’s a waterbender.
She leaves an ice doll version of herself in the dungeon, and she and her maid use a mirage and make their escape. As she walks through the city, she hears all the negative crap people are saying about her—rather than earlier, when they were saying a bunch of positive stuff. How quickly people change. How quickly people change. Public disgrace and the long climb back aren’t new territory here either—Skip Beat! thrives on betrayal and getting even for a reason.
But this sentiment is true in reality. Even I remember no matter how much people hated George Bush Jr., when those stimulus checks came out, they definitely cashed them.
As they’re talking about her, she does stop to listen. Reminds me of Rocky III, when everyone was saying all the negative stuff about Rocky, and I think he was about to turn off the TV, and Apollo told him, “Nope. Listen to everything they’re saying, because they’re going to owe you an apology at the end.” I like that, even as bad as this is, she took her engagement ring off.
Viscount Lucas Lebrick
We cut to the Kurama dude, the redhead, and he’s talking about Lady Elizabeth and how, at age 10, she helped the empire when they were at war. He’s thinking about how stupid the crown prince was. Elizabeth came in disguised as a king. This guy’s name is Viscount Lucas Lebrick. She seeks asylum in his empire and mentions that everything she did for the kingdom was immediately forgotten by the people, who did so without a second thought. Now it’s juvenile in its execution, but again—hell, people actually operate like that. Your noble deeds today are immediately forgotten tomorrow.
To put it the way she says it: her time and efforts were discarded like trash.
She did not get rid of the engagement ring, though. She kept it only to make it freeze as she declared she would destroy the kingdom that rejected her.
The Corporate Power Angle
Here’s where this show gets interesting beyond the standard villainess-revenge template. Elizabeth isn’t just a noblewoman—she founded and chairs the Funnel Corporation, handles employment policy, and uses the profits for philanthropy and poverty relief. The prince isn’t just stealing her man or her status. He’s investigating her corporation, trying to replace its executives with his own people, and using the state apparatus to strip her of the institution she built to help the kingdom’s poor.
That’s a specific playbook. It reminds me of International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) and what they did in Chile. After Salvador Allende won the Chilean presidency in 1970, ITT presented an 18-point strategy to the Nixon White House aimed at ensuring Allende didn’t survive his first six months. The plan called for comprehensive economic warfare—denying Chile international credit, halting copper purchases, delaying fuel deliveries, and enlisting CIA assistance to create economic chaos to force military intervention. Chile eventually expropriated ITT’s assets, valued at approximately $170 million, in April 1972. After Pinochet’s coup on September 11, 1973, someone made a bomb threat against the ITT building in New York, citing “the ITT crimes they committed against Chile.”
The difference is that Elizabeth is the one who built the corporation, and she’s about to turn it into her instrument of counter-attack. That’s the ITT story. The same family of story as Aqua’s industry-long payback in Oshi no Ko Season 2, just with grimoires instead of the entertainment machine.
She was the institutional competence that held everything together—and the moment she was removed, the prince immediately started cannibalizing her systems for his own benefit.
If she launches a cosmetics company in future episodes, I’ll be giving a nod to Najica Blitz Tactics, because Najica ran a perfume company in addition to being an assassin spy. Same archetype—woman who weaponizes a beauty industry enterprise—but with radically different emotional weight.
Final Thoughts
The outro sounds like—I think the Blade outro, at least the first couple of seconds of it. I like the animation, though.
You’ve seen this villainess-revenge structure before—and you’ve seen kingdom-scale payback stumble when it loses the plot, the way Kingdoms of Ruin did. But the execution is grounded enough in real power dynamics, corporate infrastructure, institutional betrayal, and the way people forget your past deeds the moment rumors start that it elevates above the standard template. Elizabeth’s zen calm while Mireille rages, the punch to the wall, and the walk through a city that turned on her overnight—those moments land because they feel true. Not only true to fantasy. True to how systems actually work and how people actually behave inside them.
For another Episode 1 first-impressions deep dive in this same lane, see Chainsmoker Cat Episode 1.
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