Helen: Rei’s life was an unhappy one: she was an overworked office worker whose one pleasure in life was diving deep into the lore of the visual novel “Revolution”. But now Rae has found herself in the game, living the life of the heroine and she’s not wasting her shot. Forget the three princely love interests, forget magic, forget the upcoming revolution, her only goal is to seduce the villainess!
I’m very amused at how light novel licenses seem to come in unintentional waves of similar titles; I’m sure that it’s total coincidence that both Seven Seas and J-Novel Club (A Lily Blooms in Another World) are putting out yuri light novels about characters getting isekai’d into visual novels and then pursuing the female villainess instead of one of the male leads at nearly the same time but I’m still amused by the timing. I’m even more amused by this progression in light novel, isekai leads: we have gone from them being heroes, to being the “villains” to now wanting to romance the villains (and doing far more than just “romance” in Rae’s case).
Rae, like many other leads, has undergone a bit of a de-aging while jumping lives (from an adult working-woman back to a high school student) and I must confess that this is a staple trope that I wish was used a bit less often, especially in cases like this where it’s not a straight-up reincarnation! Normally I can successfully ignore the weird implications of this but given how aggressively Rae pursues Claire, the villainess of “Revolution,” it was hard not to think “gee, we have a working woman who has just discovered that her favorite character is in fact real and is acting in a manner that would be pretty uncomfortable if she was a man!” Rae pesters Claire all the time, she’s clearly getting off Claire’s insults towards her, and goes so far as to become Claire’s maid so she can spend as much time as possible with her.
The story tries to present this as more funny than anything else but I couldn’t help being a little skeeved out about it. There were certainly moments between the two of them that I liked, some serious and some more silly (like when the two of them have a magical battle as an assignment), and I did like the detail that Rae was a die-hard fan of Claire in her past life, digging as deep as she could into background research so she could write the best possible fanfics about Claire. It seems as if Rae isn’t treating Claire like a real person yet however, or treating any of this as real since she doesn’t seem too concerned with the upcoming, literal revolution which has begun to flare up in this volume. I wonder if this will be addressed more in the future two volumes, as Rae may have been an adult once but she clearly still has some maturing to do.
Speaking of things I hope are improved in the next volume, I was pretty disappointed with the illustrations in this volume. Not only did the choice of which scenes to illustrate seem strange (you have a canonical chance to draw the characters looking stunning in a gender-bending maid/butler cafe and you don’t take it?!) but the art itself looked sloppy. The cover illustration is fine, quite pretty in fact, but the interior art looked as if the penultimate draft had been turned in instead of the finished, polished illustration. Due to the oddly long chapters there weren’t many illustrations to start with and I do hope that these details turn out better in volume 2.
While the covers for the next two volumes seem to spoil where the story is going, I still want to know how Rae and Claire become closer and how they survive the upcoming revolution!
Helen’s rating: 3.5 out of 5
Rai: In early reviews that popped up, I’m in Love with the Villainess won the praise of many notable people in the yuri community. As a yuri fan myself, I had high expectations for this light novel and was excited to read it. Unfortunately, while I did enjoy it to a certain extent, volume 1’s flaws make it difficult for me to love it as much as others did.
This light novel is about Rae (real name: Oohashi Rei) who gets transported into her favorite dating game. Instead of being interested in the male love interests, Rae is infatuated with the villainess, an aristocrat named Claire Francois. The game and novel’s setting takes place at a magic academy where both commoners and aristocrats attend. Rae makes it her mission to become close to Claire. Since she played the game religiously in her previous life, she knows what is going to happen in the future and uses that to her advantage. This comes in handy because the world’s political system is in turmoil and a revolution is brewing.
With the ever-growing number of isekai series, sometimes it’s hard to find a premise that hasn’t been used a hundred times. I’ve never encountered a series where the protagonist was sent to a dating simulation. There were some typical isekai elements – like Rae “inventing” new items that aren’t available in this world – but overall, the premise was refreshing. And although I don’t really show it in my reviews, I can be pretty political, so the concept of revolution was very interesting to me.
The problem with this book was the main character — I really did not like her. Rae isn’t just love-struck when it comes to Claire; she is obsessive to the point it’s both creepy and annoying. Claire is a classic tsundere type that also happens to have disdain for commoners. Rae loves teasing Claire and making her embarrassed. Claire’s embarrassed or haughty reactions are multiplied by the fact Rae is a commoner who shouldn’t be disrespecting nobility. Specifically, Rae adores saying submissive yet teasing comments like “Don’t you think Miss Claire is especially radiant when she’s insulting me?” Some of Rae’s comments are a bit sexual, which I didn’t like either.
Rae’s and Claire’s dynamic forced a few chuckles out of me, but it got stale very quickly and irked me as the story went on. I find Rae to be a bit stalkerish — it’s one thing to be persistent; it’s another thing to force yourself into someone’s life without their consent. Near the beginning of the book, Rae manipulates her way into becoming Claire’s personal maid. This did not sit right with me. I guess it’s excusable since it’s important to the plot and gives Rae a reason to be around Claire 24/7; this also leads to Rae befriending another maid named Lene. Additionally, as we find out later, Rae has ulterior motives and is trying to prepare Claire for disastrous events in the future. But it still bothered me greatly. There had to be other ways to go about it.
I’m sorry, I’m just not crazy about Rae. Even though we find out her reasons for loving Claire so much (in her previous life and in this one), she lacks depth and does not grow at all during the course of the story. Claire is a little better — we see *a tiny bit* of character development on her part — but it’s not much. I honestly like the side characters, such as Misha, Thane, or Yu, more than the two main ones, which is kind of depressing.
Speaking of Rae and Claire, there is no romance between them. Rae’s love is unrequited, which isn’t surprising considering her behavior. Claire doesn’t even see Rae as a friend; Rae is a “filthy” and irritating commoner that happens to be her maid. If you were hoping for some romance in this volume, sadly you won’t get any. There’s some discussion about queer people which I appreciated, but it’s not anything too deep. I would have preferred an actual relationship that wasn’t chock full of questionable behavior on both sides. (Characters aren’t meant to be perfect, but both of them are pretty ridiculous.)
That being said, this is only the first volume of the series, and it was pretty short. I believe there are at least two more volumes, so there is still plenty of time to develop the characters, Rae and Claire’s relationship, the general story, and the world they live in. I like the world a lot and the overall plot was entertaining, particularly toward the end. I’m in Love with the Villainess has tons of potential – I just hope next volumes live up to it… and that Rae changes her ways.
Rai’s rating: 3 out of 5