My Next Life As a Villainess! All Routes Lead to Doom!, Vol. 1

By Satoru Yamaguchi and Nami Hidaka. Released in Japan by Ichijinsha. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Shirley Yeung.

Sometimes you come into a title with a lot of buzz and hype and are greatly disappointed. This is not one of those times. I’d heard great things about this series, especially its humor and the “denseness” of its heroine, Katarina Claes (the series’ nickname is “Bakarina”). I’m pleased to say they seem to be accurate. This book is a hoot from beginning to end, as what could be yet another “protagonist dies and ends up in a game world” series – and yes, we’ve seen this premise before here even with a reverse harem – ends up getting bulldozed by Katarina stomping across the plot like a berserker. This is not to say that she’s evil – the opposite, in fact. She may be a loud tomboy, but Katarina’s innate niceness throws off the entire cast, and what should be her just trying to alter history so that she’s safe ends up being her creating a vortex of partners around her – male AND female.

The premise: a girl (we never do learn her original name) rushes out of her house after spending all night playing an otome game and gets kit by a car and killed. She wakes up in the game, as 8-year-old Katarina. Unfortunately, Katarina is the antagonist. IN Magical Academy seven years down the road, the spoiled and rich Katarina bullies and torments the player character heroine, and in the endings is either a) exiled penniless to the country, or b) killed. But now Katarina has the memories and the wherewithal to change her future. What’s more, she’s a rambunctious but basically nice girl, and so the arrogant haughtiness vanishes as she attempts to find various ways to fix things. She succeeds beyond her wildest dreams… but is completely unaware of the fact that her fiancee the Prince is now in love with her. As is her adopted brother. As is the Prince’s brother. As is her best friend Mary, showing that everyone falls for Katarina. Katarina notices absolutely none of this. After all, why would anyone be attracted to her? She has a villain face!

Like Obsessions of an Otome Gamer, this plays with its premise a bit and does not take itself seriously. Unlike Obsessions of an Otome Gamer, there’s no serious plotline to worry about. Everything here is for the sake of the comedy. The primary source of the comedy being Katarina’s thought process, which beggars belief at times… well, OK, all the time. Watch our heroine as she becomes an 8-year-old farmer, works on ways to create more convincing toy snakes to throw at her fiancee, and decides the solution to eating and drinking too much at tea parties is to take her own portable toilet the next time she’s there. Most of this volume deals with Katarina as a child, with only the final chapter having the now 15-year-old Katarina start university, and she still hasn’t met the heroine of the game. Still, I think she’s good. The book balances her narrative POV at the end of each chapter with the POV of the other characters, showing what they were like before they met her and how she changed their lives. It also has a good moral, spelled out at the end: treat people as human beings. Katarina is so blunt and straightforward that she can’t help but charm everyone she meets. (Also, kudos to the author for including the girls being in love with her but not making it for the sake of comedy – Mary and Sophia are the same as the guys, and there’s only one “but I’m straight!” from Katarina, said right after she’s spent a lot of time gushing about Mary’s beauty.)

I highly recommend Bakarina to light novel readers. You will laugh. You will cry… wait, no, you won’t. But you will laugh more. You will also wonder why Japanese authors try their hardest to avoid using the romanization “Gerald” (first Jellal and now Jeord).