One day, a sorceress in the Demon Lord’s Army realizes she was reincarnated as an antagonist in her past life’s favorite manga. Not only that, she’s the first to be killed by the heroine and her allies.
The title is a bit of a misnomer. Elle is one of the Demon Lord’s elite, although in skill and experience she ranks significantly below the other three. It’s why in the manga, the other three — Julius the incredible mage, Sereniel the seductress, and old man warrior Regulus — sneer at Elle’s demise. But she’s not nearly as incompetent as the title suggests.
With the war between her kingdom of magic users (Analia) and the neighboring kingdom of Gaea continuing, Elle knows it won’t be too long before the heroine, Aela, arrives on the scene. Before that happens, she’s going to go see her beloved Demon Lord. It’s forbidden to see or question the Demon Lord, so Elle is shocked when not only her plan is exposed, but Julius — whom was appointed by the Demon Lord to be her fiancé — takes her to the Demon Lord’s chamber. And then Julius helps her flee their homeland and build a village near the Gaea/Analia border?!
Of course, leaders from both end up finding the two deserters, and it’s going to take some persuasion — verbal and/or physical – for Elle to enjoy her new life.
While a lot of these villainess reincarnation stories star superfans of the series they’re now in, in Elle’s case, she’s at a slight disadvantage since she didn’t get to read the final chapters of Saint Aela of Gaea. The series was a shoujo fantasy manga with a reverse harem — which includes Julius, who ends up joining Aela’s team. So in combination with her being a twin-tailed tsundere loli girl, Elle’s not too comfortable with relying on Julius even though hiding behind Analia’s #1 could be a strategy for her to survive her manga death.
The best thing about this novel is that awakened-Elle still retains much of manga-Elle’s personality. The most obvious example is Elle’s wanting to use her corny catchphrase. At the same time, however, Elle hasn’t done many bad things that would make it obvious she’s had a sudden change-of-heart. Even her evil deed of kidnapping people is not a big deal since they’re all happier serving Elle than returning to Gaea.
But I liked how awakened Elle had a lot of manga-style corniness. You don’t often see that in these types of stories, and her quirky, short-tempered narration adds a lot of flair to the novel. The Weakest Manga Villainess Wants Her Freedom! has short interludes between chapters from another’s point-of-view, but otherwise, Elle is the star and wants to remain the star of her new home.
Unfortunately, the whole reincarnation aspect was rather limited in its use. The story sort of explains that Elle might have missed critical details because she didn’t read the last volume. But outside of knowing the characters, the heroine doesn’t use much of her past life knowledge — either of Japanese/Earth society or the manga’s storyline. Honestly, if Elle had just been suddenly inspired to go investigate the Demon Lord out of her devotion for him instead because of knowledge of her death in the manga, not much would have changed. In fact, in the very first pages, readers learn (and Elle is reminded) Julius is her fiancé, which was not in the manga. Plus, she and Julius leave near the beginning of The Weakest Manga Villainess Wants Her Freedom!, so there’s not much about fighting against predetermined events since the story is already off-course. The story might have been even stronger if it had been about two disillusioned government officials.
The reason why Elle is so high-ranking despite her inexperience, the reason for the war, how magic exists in this world — all of that ties together very well. The Four Grand Magi and Saint Aela’s party may fall into typical manga tropes (see: Elle), but they all have reasons to trust or distrust Elle and Julius. And it’s nice that while Elle is the protagonist of the novel, it’s not like she’s usurping Aela’s role. Aela is still a key part of the plot, and it’s easy to picture the war from her perspective. I wouldn’t mind a follow-up with her as the heroine.
If that were to happen, though, I hope it would do a little better with the post-final confrontation content. This one covers the final battle, and then it features an epilogue and an after story, both of which are set several months afterward. Considering the war (and Elle’s haughty personality), I would have preferred to see more of what happened immediately after the ending. Even a significant revelation (hinted in in an interlude) is reserved for these, and so it doesn’t have as much of an impact since so much has happened in those months.
Still, one of the advantages of The Weakest Manga Villainess Wants Her Freedom! is that everything is resolved in a single volume, and it’s a good change of pace to have one of these female villain isekai not drag out or be overly concerned about following Earth protocols. The author says she wanted to make Elle as adorable as possible, and on that front, she absolutely succeeded and made this light novel a fun addition to the genre.