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holiday_wishes post!
First, some useful background knowledge for this list: In Japanese Light Novels, there's a specific power fantasy trope where a girl is reborn as the main female villain from a dating sim (or romance novel series or whatever) where she is doomed to die for being a terrible person; in the process of preventing her own death, she ends up making life in general better for just about everyone, and usually with more than a few of the original heroine's intended love interests falling all over themselves to get her to notice them.
Of what I've read of that trope so far, these are some of my favorites:
My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!
- Very heavy on the comedy aspect. Notable for the main character not only getting all of the male love interests to fall for her, but also many of the female characters as well! The first two volumes stand very well on their own, but then I guess everyone was having too much fun (or making too much money), so the series got extended, and now there's like. Eleven volumes out? And it not only has its own manga and anime, it has its own official manga AU spin-off?
The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen
- I have a pretty strong feeling that the author of this one is into multi-shipping, polyamory, and/or BL, because so far it's setting things up so the male love interests also have very interesting relationships with at least one other male love interest; you'd think that more "reverse harem" series would be BL friendly, but this is the most BL friendly one I've read yet! That said, the main characters also have some seriously unappealing names. The main character, Princess Pride (yes, really), is bad enough, but the first love interest we meet is named Stale. Still, overall a pretty entertaining series!
Deathbound Duke's Daughter
- This one makes me cry a little bit, because there's only two volumes out of an implied seven, and I have serious doubts about any others ever appearing. Nevertheless, it gets a place on my favorites list because of the worldbuilding and adventure focus. I desperately want to know more about what's going on in this world!
As the Villainess, I Reject These Happy-Bad Endings
- Unusual in that it's a standalone novel rather than part of a series. Well. Unusual for being translated as a standalone novel, I suppose; less guaranteed money than a successful series would get. The "happy-bad endings" in question are kind of romantic tragedy endings from the original game? Which is nice in fiction, but definitely less nice if you're living through it, and especially if you're not even getting a somewhat happy ending! The first third or so of the book is a bit stressful, in that the main character sets out to prevent the worst of a plague from happening, which. She mostly succeeds at, to be fair, but uh. If you want a world in which fantasy anti-vaxxers don't exist, this might be one to skip.
Cross-dressing Villainess Cecilia Sylvie
- This one deviates from the most common version of the trope in some interesting ways! Even setting aside the main character's method of avoiding doom (pretending to be an entirely different person, gender included), it's in a unique position because she tells other people about the story of the video game she's been reincarnated into, and gets help from them. Another interesting deviation is that it turns out she's not the only one who's been reincarnated into the game, and seeing how that mixes things up is quite entertaining! If you like the usual tropes of cross-dressing stories, with the identity porn and sexuality confusion, this one won't disappoint there, either.
Honorable Mention:
Since I Was Abandoned After Reincarnating, I Will Cook For My Fluffy Friends - The main character isn't actually reincarnated into a game or book she's familiar with, though the series does begin with her getting the villainess treatment: She's humiliated by a female rival and dumped by her fiance, the prince. She goes on to become a figurehead queen in another kingdom, supposedly buying time while the king figures out which of his four primary suitors he wants to marry, but since this is a romance series, I think we can all guess the actual endgame here. Lots of animal companions in this one.
A Lily Blooms in Another World - One of two stories I know of where the main character is a girl who takes the place of the main character in a dating sim and has fallen for the main female rival in the game. This one is a standalone novel, and more lighthearted than the other title (see below).
I'm In Love With the Villainess - The girl-romancing-the-villainess series. More serious than the other title, it has a lot of actual queer content and even discussion of gender identity and sexuality. Rae is manifested as the commoner main character of her favorite game, "Revolution", and sets her sights on her favorite: The game's main female rival, an aristocrat named Claire. The series starts out in a pretty rom-com-y way, but takes a more sober turn as the series goes on, as a rival for Claire's affections challenges Rae to take her own feelings seriously and the title of the original game becomes relevant. Complete at five books, this series also has a manga adaptation, and a re-telling from Claire's point of view that, according to reviewer Erica Friedman, actually adds a lot of interesting nuance rather than just repeating the same events from a slightly different perspective.
holiday_wishes post!First, some useful background knowledge for this list: In Japanese Light Novels, there's a specific power fantasy trope where a girl is reborn as the main female villain from a dating sim (or romance novel series or whatever) where she is doomed to die for being a terrible person; in the process of preventing her own death, she ends up making life in general better for just about everyone, and usually with more than a few of the original heroine's intended love interests falling all over themselves to get her to notice them.
Of what I've read of that trope so far, these are some of my favorites:
My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!
- Very heavy on the comedy aspect. Notable for the main character not only getting all of the male love interests to fall for her, but also many of the female characters as well! The first two volumes stand very well on their own, but then I guess everyone was having too much fun (or making too much money), so the series got extended, and now there's like. Eleven volumes out? And it not only has its own manga and anime, it has its own official manga AU spin-off?
The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen
- I have a pretty strong feeling that the author of this one is into multi-shipping, polyamory, and/or BL, because so far it's setting things up so the male love interests also have very interesting relationships with at least one other male love interest; you'd think that more "reverse harem" series would be BL friendly, but this is the most BL friendly one I've read yet! That said, the main characters also have some seriously unappealing names. The main character, Princess Pride (yes, really), is bad enough, but the first love interest we meet is named Stale. Still, overall a pretty entertaining series!
Deathbound Duke's Daughter
- This one makes me cry a little bit, because there's only two volumes out of an implied seven, and I have serious doubts about any others ever appearing. Nevertheless, it gets a place on my favorites list because of the worldbuilding and adventure focus. I desperately want to know more about what's going on in this world!
As the Villainess, I Reject These Happy-Bad Endings
- Unusual in that it's a standalone novel rather than part of a series. Well. Unusual for being translated as a standalone novel, I suppose; less guaranteed money than a successful series would get. The "happy-bad endings" in question are kind of romantic tragedy endings from the original game? Which is nice in fiction, but definitely less nice if you're living through it, and especially if you're not even getting a somewhat happy ending! The first third or so of the book is a bit stressful, in that the main character sets out to prevent the worst of a plague from happening, which. She mostly succeeds at, to be fair, but uh. If you want a world in which fantasy anti-vaxxers don't exist, this might be one to skip.
Cross-dressing Villainess Cecilia Sylvie
- This one deviates from the most common version of the trope in some interesting ways! Even setting aside the main character's method of avoiding doom (pretending to be an entirely different person, gender included), it's in a unique position because she tells other people about the story of the video game she's been reincarnated into, and gets help from them. Another interesting deviation is that it turns out she's not the only one who's been reincarnated into the game, and seeing how that mixes things up is quite entertaining! If you like the usual tropes of cross-dressing stories, with the identity porn and sexuality confusion, this one won't disappoint there, either.
Honorable Mention:
Since I Was Abandoned After Reincarnating, I Will Cook For My Fluffy Friends - The main character isn't actually reincarnated into a game or book she's familiar with, though the series does begin with her getting the villainess treatment: She's humiliated by a female rival and dumped by her fiance, the prince. She goes on to become a figurehead queen in another kingdom, supposedly buying time while the king figures out which of his four primary suitors he wants to marry, but since this is a romance series, I think we can all guess the actual endgame here. Lots of animal companions in this one.
A Lily Blooms in Another World - One of two stories I know of where the main character is a girl who takes the place of the main character in a dating sim and has fallen for the main female rival in the game. This one is a standalone novel, and more lighthearted than the other title (see below).
I'm In Love With the Villainess - The girl-romancing-the-villainess series. More serious than the other title, it has a lot of actual queer content and even discussion of gender identity and sexuality. Rae is manifested as the commoner main character of her favorite game, "Revolution", and sets her sights on her favorite: The game's main female rival, an aristocrat named Claire. The series starts out in a pretty rom-com-y way, but takes a more sober turn as the series goes on, as a rival for Claire's affections challenges Rae to take her own feelings seriously and the title of the original game becomes relevant. Complete at five books, this series also has a manga adaptation, and a re-telling from Claire's point of view that, according to reviewer Erica Friedman, actually adds a lot of interesting nuance rather than just repeating the same events from a slightly different perspective.
