By 616th Special Information Battalion and Wuhuo. Released in Japan as “Doushitemo Hametsushitakunai Akuyaku Reijou ga Gendai Heiki wo Te ni Shita Kekka ga Kore desu” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Shaun Cook.

This is, as of my writing of this review, the latest volume in the series, and it’s been about a year and a half since it came out in Japan. I know that fans here in the English-speaking world tend to dislike those sorts of books, wondering why publishers would license it when it grinds to an unfinished halt. (The answer is almost always “because it was still ongoing when they licensed it”, in case you were wondering.) But yes, nothing is really resolved in this volume either – we’ve gotten up to the point where the “game” part of this would start, where the heroine is about to arrive at Astrid’s school. That said, I’m not exactly crying if this is all we’re going to get. The author loves writing morally bankrupt heroines, and even in a villainess light novel, a genre I’m particularly soft on, I think I’m starting to reach my limit with Astrid’s evil antics.

Astrid is still trying to figure out ways to avoid her fate (but not realizing that everyone loves her – it’s that sort of genre). She’s socking money away in a separate non-family bank account in case she has to go on the run. She’s getting familiars who are far more powerful than mere fairies. She’s conducting experiments on other students to see if they will murder small animals just because she tells them to. There’s a beach episode! You know, the usual stuff. Even as she tries her hardest to learn better magic/get more firepower, the world edges closer to the actual war that will likely trigger these events. And even her grades aren’t assured anymore, as she’s reaching the limits of what her previous life can achieve and realizing that science in another world is hard.

There are some cool set pieces in this. Astrid’s battle with the fenrir is pretty cool, and he seems to be a cool wolf familiar, albeit one that doesn’t really care if she’s got no soul. It is occasionally amusing seeing Iris having to deal with her friend’s crushes, and trying to help them along by drugging the crush to get a result… but not TOO much. Astrid’s mother, again, seems to know exactly what her daughter is doing despite Astrid’s best efforts to conceal it, and I wish we’d see her more than once a book. But yeah, I think I have reached my limit on watching “what if the villainess reincarnated decides to be more villainous” as a plotline. It doesn’t help that there are other areas of the book also starting to annoy me – Iris’ former bullies are now stealing her used underwear, because nothing says teenage lesbian crush like making it creepy.

This author pretty much does this type of character, regardless of the genre, and if you enjoy Her Majesty’s Swarm you’ll probably like this as well. If you like Villainess books, though, feel free to stop, as I’m going to.

By 616th Special Information Battalion and Wuhuo. Released in Japan as “Doushitemo Hametsushitakunai Akuyaku Reijou ga Gendai Heiki wo Te ni Shita Kekka ga Kore desu” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Shaun Cook.

Fans of genres that have twenty billion books in said genre tend to fall into two distinct types: those who don’t just want to read the same old plotline and characters, and those who do, because it’s their comfort food. In most ways, Villainess Reloaded falls into Category Two. This is a magical academy series with villainess overtones, and so we get a lot of the usual staples: heroine tries to avoid her fate but doesn’t realize everyone loves her; lots of magic discussion and magic experimentation; a beach episode; and yes, for a brief moment, we meet the game’s heroine, who Astrid proceeds to try to avoid. There’s even a maid who seems cool and frosty but secretly cares about her charge! That said, there is one teeny, weeny problem with this being a comfort novel that’s more of the same: Astrid has no morals or ethics, and is turning more evil by the day as we read about her antics.

The book covers Astrid’s final year in elementary school and first year in middle school. She’s experimenting with new ways to fire guns, including howitzers, but is running into an issue: a lack of electricity won’t let her make the truly big guns. That said, she also has other things to worry about. Her father is against her doing much of anything. She meets Adolf’s younger brother, who immediately becomes infatuated with her. (He’s 6, she’s 10.) The Magic Research Club that already exists on campus is an excuse to hang out and eat cookies. And worst of all, she needs money to fund her magic experiments. This means sneaking out on weekends to become an adventurer, going on dragon-slaying quests, and meeting with a cabal of Witches who are holders of the lost magic… which was lost because it’s pretty much “magic you can use to torture or kill people”. Will Astrid join them?

She absolutely will. This should not surprise me, given that I dropped Her Majesty’s Swarm, by the same author, for having similar issues, but the heroine of this tale is morally bankrupt. That said, I will give it major points for thinking of “what if a villainess tried to avoid her fate by becoming MORE EVIL”, which is certainly *not* more of the same old stuff. Seeing Astrid experimenting with blood magic, first on animals and then on herself, to try to remove her conscience is creepy as hell, and the fact that it’s clearly the author’s intention to creep us out doesn’t really help. We do occasionally see her backing away from the darkness – she thinks about killing someone as part of an experiment but doesn’t because she’s not “quite that heartless”. Oh yes, and there’s also the fact that, like Katarina, she thinks of her fate as something that is inevitable unless she puts up a constant struggle… which also makes her a warmonger in terms of her politics.

I’m not sure I could describe this series as enjoyable. Fascinating, perhaps. I’ll be reading the next volume in the series. That said, if you enjoy villainess books in general, there are others that can scratch your itch far more than Little Miss Sociopath and Her Armory.

By 616th Special Information Battalion and Wuhuo. Released in Japan as “Doushitemo Hametsushitakunai Akuyaku Reijou ga Gendai Heiki wo Te ni Shita Kekka ga Kore desu” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Shaun Cook.

Gotta be honest, I got the premise to this one mixed up. I am reading far too many of these villainess stories lately, and I had thought this was a “Peggy Sue” sent back to the past story like Tearmoon Empire. But no, it’s a “I’m the villainess in an otome game” story like Bakarina… in fact, clearly inspired by Bakarina in many ways. That said, while this is mostly light fluff, the choice of the author to start things off with an ominous, bloody prologue filled with death and a genuinely evil villainess for once had me raising an eyebrow… then raising the other when it’s never brought up again. Instead, for the most part, this is a pretty fun story of a military otaku, brought into an otome game world, who, like Katarina, tries to avoid her bad endings that will happen in ten years time. *Unlike* Katarina, she does so by making lots and lots of guns.

After the ominous introduction I mentioned before, we’re introduced to Astrid, a promising 4-year-old with a lot of magic talent and the daughter of a duke. She also, as you may have gathered, has memories of a previous life in Japan…a college girl who was a serious military otaku. What’s more, she knows this is the world of an otome game she once played… and that, yup, she’s the villainess who gets exiled in the end. As with Katarina, the idea of “being nice to everyone and not being evil” rarely occurs to her (though it does on occasion). Instead, she’s going to be spending time figuring out how to introduce rifles, pistols, shotguns, and grenade launchers via the power of magic, imagination, and the spirits that end up doing whatever she wants. Now if only she could avoid all those pesky love interests, who for some reason seem even more fascinated with her.

Obviously, there’s a lot of Bakarina here. The heroine is clueless about why all the love interests seem drawn to her, though Astrid is slightly more self aware… but that’s only a matter of degree. I’d argue that another good comparison is The Eminence in Shadow, as you see Astrid for most of the first half of the book just go nuts making and using all kinds of weapons, to the horror of her maids and family (with the exception of her mother, who seems to know everything Astrid is thinking… mostly as her poker face is terrible). The first half of the book is better than the second half, which shows Astrid as a six-year-old and then eight-year-old, going through school, studying advanced blood magic methods, helping other students, and trying to figure out why the prince in her class won’t leave her alone. In other words, it has far less dakka, and that’s not something you want to hear from a series like this, which depends on its gimmick of “Astrid’s Got a Gun”.

Still, it is interesting enough that I’ll pick up a second volume. Astrid desperately needs an injection of common sense, as she researches ways to affect the brain so that she won’t suffer from PTSD when she has to kill people to avoid exile. Realizing that she’s only creating her own fate now rather than avoiding it is beyond her narrowly focused mind, alas.