“The game is up you witch!”
And with that accusation, the unflappable Rachel Ferguson is lead into the castle prison, to await sentencing when the king and queen return from their trip. Her crime? Erm, bullying the new girl who has just usurped her position as fiancée to the crown prince? Well that’s silly, since Rachel never did any of that, but if they insist, she COULD take a multi-month long vacation from her duties and etiquette lessons, especially since Rachel already went to the trouble of furnishing the prison after her personal spy network tipped her off to this plot.
And so begins the multi-month nightmare for everyone living at court, since Rachel certainly isn’t going to make their lives easy!
The “villainess genre” has spread from isekai into plain old fantasy stories, no transmigration required, although it feels a little funny to call Rachel a villainess since technically she never did anything wrong, before she got thrown in jail that is. Rachel’s circumstances will sound familiar to some light novel fans: engaged to the crown prince at a young age, she’s been replaced by another girl (who is Rachel’s opposite in every way) after the prince allowed himself to be seduced by her and it’s only then that Rachel decides to stop being nice and go a little nuts (but not ape-shit, that’s for her pet monkey). After all, if Prince Elliot won’t stop harassing her, trying to get her to “confess” to bullying his new love of his life Margaret, well, then Rachel doesn’t think that some retaliation is out of the question. Or improving her situation by smuggling in luxuries, or bribing the prison guards to be on her side, or setting up defenses so she can’t be removed from prison unless she wants to, etc.
In short, this is a very silly story and often in a bit of a mean-spirited way since nearly every character is incompetent, actively unpleasant, or both. That will be the biggest barrier to enjoyment for some readers; personally I think I would have enjoyed it less if I read the story in one go versus reading it in weekly chunks as it was uploaded on J-Novel Club’s website. There’s no one to truly root for per-say, unless you have a vendetta against a particular character, then you can certainly root for their opposition, like rooting for the other fiancées for members of Prince Elliot’s clique who are all unhappy with the actions of “their man.”
Heck, as the story reached its conclusion I wasn’t even sure what kind of ending I wanted since it was clear that Rachel truly did not want to be queen but that the current king and queen want her to be queen more than they care about which of their sons becomes king (forcing Elliot into a pond and nearly stoning him to death as a small child apparently left a very strong impression on them as to Rachels’ decision making capabilities).
In the end, Prison Life is Easy for a Villainess is a very silly kind of dark humor, but not the kind that involves rape, murder, or any of the other usual hallmarks. I am glad it was completed in only two volumes, since there really wasn’t any way to stretch it out further, and overall it was a nice change of pace from my wholesome “villainess” stories.