Trapped in a Dating Sim is a brand-new isekai anime series starring the underdog protagonist Leon Bartfort, reborn in an otome game world as the third-born son of a minor rural noble. This means the odds are seriously stacked against Leon as he tries to thrive in a competitive school for society’s elites, but he knows how to work the angles. He’s smarter than he looks.
Trapped in a Dating Sim should appeal to any fan of game-based isekai anime, but recent episodes have made it clear that Dating Sim can also be directly compared to the gambling anime series Kakegurui, including the excitement of high-stakes betting and a cutthroat academic setting. Leon is almost the new Jabami Yumeko.
How Trapped in a Dating Sim Created The Isekai Hyakkou Academy
Many anime series with adolescent heroes take place either in an ordinary high school setting or a “magical” high school with a twist, and Trapped in a Dating Sim and Kakegurui both take this route. The latter takes place in the ruthless Hyakkou Academy — a private institution that only the sons and daughters of society’s elite may attend. These are no ordinary students — characters such as Saotome Mary and Yumeko thrive in a competitive, ruthless environment that rewards risk-taking and selfish behavior, creating a predatory social jungle where friendships and alliances are little more than tools to be used. Students are liable to form cliques or betray one another to get ahead, and the same holds true in Dating Sim.
Leon’s new school follows roughly similar rules, with students being the sons and daughters of powerful aristocratic families or even royalty, in the case of prince Julius in particular. Here, everyone knows someone powerful — usually their parents — and students will prey on one another accordingly. Lowly students such as the scholarship student Olivia are likely to get exploited, bullied or excluded, and the same holds true for Leon himself, who has low social standing due to being a third-born son. He and Yumeko both find themselves thrust into a jungle of gossip and classrooms, and Leon even partook in gambling in Episode 7 — something Yumeko herself would do as well. With Kakegurui as a precedent, it seems unlikely this otome school will change its predatory ways anytime soon. Instead, it’s the protagonist who must adapt or die.
How Leon Became The Isekai Jabami Yumeko
Settings like these will always keep the protagonist on their toes, and Leon Bartfort is doing his best to follow Yumeko’s example from Kakegurui. Both characters are wild antiheroes who make their own rules, acting like a bull in a china shop regardless of the consequences. Neither of them can beat characters like Momobami Kirari or Angelica Redgrave at their own game, so Leon, like Yumeko before him, embraces selfish chaos instead. Leon defies the rules and traditions of this school and pursues his own goals his own way, thus alienating most classmates while drawing the attention of a few other outcasts.
Leon’s wild antics and relatively noble personality drew the otome game’s original heroine Olivia to him, and when the scheming isekai villain Marie turned Julius against Angelica, Angelica’s social standing crumbled, and she had no one else to rely on — except Leon. Thus, Angelica joined Leon and Olivia as a rules-breaking rogue who relies on true friendship and trust rather than aristocratic family politics to survive, and it’s a good look for her. She, Olivia and Leon know that they can rely only on themselves and each other to survive, and that makes them the true heroes, not the shallow manipulators around them, which in itself is a risk these characters gladly take. Yumeko would approve.
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