“Regalia of Saints, Demons, and Maidens” wasn’t a particularly good otome game but, as Aileen tells us, the art and voice acting won it many fans and thus sequels and fan discs were created! Thankfully for Aileen she’s played some of those games too and can see when the second game is starting up in her new world (even if her stealing the sacred sword and having Claude both remain the Demon King and reclaim his title of Crown Prince are wild deviations from the first game). There are some things only she can do to keep things from going out of hand, so it’s time for Aileen to marshal her allies, gain new ones, and keep fighting against heroes and villains alike to create a good ending for everyone.
As volume 2 of I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss opens up we receive confirmation that Lilia, the protagonist of the first game/actual villainess of the first novel, is in fact a reincarnator just like Aileen. But just when I thought that explained a few things, the story then goes to say that she only regained her past life memories at the climax of the first novel, a.k.a. towards the “end” of the first game. Unlike Aileen, who has fully embraced the fact that this world is now her “real life,” Lilia continues to see the world as just a game and be rather nasty about it and there were more than a few times when the plans she suggested suggested that she had some prior knowledge of events. That made me wonder if she was another reincarnator when reading volume 1 but apparently no, the fact that she tried to convince Claude to marry her instead and even completed another character’s route sometime during or even before the events of the first volume (one who Aileen remarks is an especially difficult target) is all luck and intuition on her part. It’s just a weird plot hole for Sarasa Nagase to have created for themselves, in some ways a reveal that Lilia had full knowledge of the game the entire time and was still outsmarted by Aileen would’ve been an even more delicious twist.
Then again, when Aileen/the readers encounter the protagonist of the second game, Serena, she also turns out to be far more shallow and more easily led around than her game counterpart, which is an interesting contrast to the romance options/final boss of “Regalia of Saints, Demons, and Maidens 2 ~ Kingdom’s Fall and the Saint of Salvation” who Aileen finds to be much more nuanced and complex than they were in the game. Perhaps Nagase is trying to make some deeper commentary on self-insert player characters (if that was the case then I don’t think they succeeded) or perhaps there is some deeper “lore” behind these inconsistencies. Aileen never played every single game in the franchise and Lilia taunts her at points with her fuller knowledge of the series’ story, implying that there is a reason for some of the more mystifying details of the story, and I can certainly see Nagase keeping that idea in reserve for future volumes, especially since the series is still on-going in Japan at 10 volumes.
While I wasn’t sure if another book was needed after volume 1 wrapped up so neatly, I did really enjoy the stories of volumes 2 and 3 and once again feel like there’s not really a need to continue further. By the end of the third volume a lot of the major characters have become a bit unhinged, doing things that the developers would have never imagined and even the more “low-key” events (like the extents Alieen goes to hide the fact from Claude that she’s posing as a male student for the events of the second game) are hilarious in their purposeful absurdity. Aileen comes out of the second volumes with a harem of retainers, not suitors, and the way they acknowledge that she’s “broken” another character into becoming hers in volume 3 was one of the gags that had me laughing the most.
That said, it’s a shame that the manga adaptation ended after covering the first volume since this series is a bit sloppy to read and with the fast pace of the anime adaptation, the manga version is definitely the “best” of the three. While Yen Press doesn’t list their entire localization staff, translator Taylor Engel is a familiar name to me and thus I’m inclined to believe that the weird grammatical choices were a carry-over from the original Japanese. I continue to wish that the story had been written in first person rather than third, the brief bits where it is in the first person flow so much more smoothly, and the lack of indicators to signify who’s talking left me confused in many scenes (especially in the second volume where “he” could mean “anyone other than Aileen”). I had to reread a number of passages just to sort out who was talking and that’s not something I have to do often!
It’s not unreadable but these issues are jarring enough to give me pause about whole-heartedly recommending the series, which is a shame since the story really is kooky fun and I’m not sure the anime will fully be able to capture that. Aileen is good at rolling with the punches, strategizing, and bullying everyone around her except for Claude and that basic dynamic really does lead to a lot of fun moments (and they’re firmly established as a couple by this point so there’s no drawn-out will-they-won’t-they plot). Once again, I’m not sure this series needs further volumes/what future volumes would even cover, but it sounds like the developers of “Regalia of Saints, Demons, and Maidens” are going to milk their cash cow for all it’s worth and that Aileen is going to have to deal with crazy things in order to see her demon king of a husband on the human throne!