By Saki and Haduki Futaba. Released in Japan as “Albert-ke no Reijō wa Botsuraku o Goshomō Desu” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Ray Krycki.

Usually when I say that a final volume of a series is doing what I call a “victory lap”, I don’t mean it literally. And yet that’s exactly what happens here, as we join the main cast as they take a tour of every major character we’ve met before, every major place we’ve visited, and have all the possibly comedy antics you could want. Honestly, probably more than you’d want. It’s been so long since the first volume that I’d forgotten how particularly thick-headed Mary can be when she wants to ignore things that troubled her, A lot of the humor near the start of this book is her having to be reminded of all the bad things that happened to her in previous books, and her having completely forgotten everything about them entirely. That said, she and Adi at least have an excuse: Their lovely daughter, who is the spitting image of her mother both in appearance and attitude and is ready to take the world by storm.

This volume takes place six years after the previous one. Roxanne, Mary and Adi’s daughter, has a mission. She’s written invitations for a big party where her mother has an important announcement, and now she plans to deliver them all by hand in person – by herself. Needless to say, this requires strategy, so Mary and Adi seemingly agree while also secretly tailing her. She starts off visiting the royal palace, where we meet Patrick and Alicia’s son Felix, who if nothing else proves that Alicia does actually seem to love Patrick more than Mary – romantically, at least. Felix joins Roxanne in her solo (?) jaunt, and Patrick and Alicia join Mary and Adi in tailing them. We then get to see most of the major characters from previous books, including Parfette and Gainas’ newborn twins (it makes sense they’d take six years to get around to this). But what *is* Mary’s big news at the party?

This is pretty much one of those “everyone is going to be in male/female pairings by the end of it” series, so it’s rather surprising that the most interesting parts for me was when it went outside that bubble. Helene, the single mother from the last book, has moved to Albert Country, and is being courted by BOTH of Mary’s brothers, as well as their attendant. What’s more, it’s made clear from discussions about the brothers that they function as a unit far better than they ever would when competing. It’s no wonder this is the one romance left up in the air – a woman marrying three men would likely be one bridge too far for most readers of this genre. Then there’s Mary and Alicia, who manage to reaffirm their relationship and also admit that they love each other – and that they are NOT the villainess and heroine in an otome game, something Alicia has to sort of pound into Mary’s head. They’re still my favorite part of the series.

The ending twist promises that otome game villainesses may continue into the next generation, but we’re not going to be seeing that. Let’s be content with Mary Albert, drill-less, happily married, with a lovely daughter and another child on the way. She failed spectacularly in trying to engineer her doom. But then, so did Katarina Claes, who I remind everyone debuted only one month before this series in Japan.

By Saki and Haduki Futaba. Released in Japan as “Albert-ke no Reijō wa Botsuraku o Goshomō Desu” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Ray Krycki.

Sometimes tropes are so omnipresent that I automatically assume they’ll be there, and I get tripped up when they don’t actually happen. This volume kicks off its plot when a young girl shows up, with red hair the color of Adi’s, and says that he’s her father. Naturally, my first thought was: girl from the future. This is despite the fact that she clearly doesn’t recognize Mary, Alicia, o the rest of the cast. But no, there is no time travel here. Instead we are once again dealing with a more common light novel subtrope, which is the idea that if you’re going to be a noble, you’d damn well better be a GOOD noble who cares about others. The actual backstory for this girl is more down to earth – she’s from a country that doesn’t give a crap about its poor, and it broke her family apart. This infuriates Mary and Alicia, who by their nature are shiny, honest people and can’t stand the idea of abusing power. Even if it’s justified in their head.

The other major plotline in this volume is that Mary Albert is pregnant. This is a happy surprise for her and Adi, but it’s also something they want to keep under wraps for the time being, as there are certain people who will make far too big a deal out of it. Like, new national holiday big. Fortunately, this strange little girl arrives and proceeds to distract everyone as they try to figure out whose child she is (I appreciate the fact that everyone knows Adi is so in love with mary that there’s no way it’s his secret child). Unfortunately, when they find out her exact circumstances, a field trip is in order. Which also consists of her brothers. And Patrick and Alicia. And Parfette and Gainas. And they all converge on one unfortunate lord who believes wholeheartedly that breeding is everything and poor people deserve to be abused. The odd thing is that he believes it to an extreme degree, rather than just being plain old evil about everything.

One thing I really appreciate about Mary Albert is that, despite being reincarnated in an otome game, etcetc., and being generally a very nice person, she is allowed to *behave* like an arrogant villainess, snikping and grumbling at people and acting like she’s going to let out with an OHOHOHOHOHO any moment – though she never does so. In a world with ditzy villainesses, acting villainesses, villainesses with PTSD, it’s nice to see one who doesn’t have a complete personality change even as she plots her doom. Actually, the plotting her doom thing seems to have gone well and truly tits up in this book, as her brothers renounce their claim to the head of the family, leaving it for her. This is unsurprising, but I think she’ll do a good job. I do appreciate how, even now that we’re close to the end, she still cares a lot about what happens to her fantasy fried chicken restaurants, and worries now that she’s given it to twisted friend 31 and twisted friend #2. (I worry as well.)

The next book is the last. I’ll miss this series, one of the first villainess books to come out in Japan. It was overshadowed by Bakarina, but Mary Albert accomplished a lot more. I wish her and her husband and her second and third wives well. What, they’re not her wives? I feel evidence suggests otherwise.

By Saki and Haduki Futaba. Released in Japan as “Albert-ke no Reijō wa Botsuraku o Goshomō Desu” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Ray Krycki.

Over the course of this series, we’ve had the original book, with the plot of the otome game, where Mary has to try to avoid… pardon me, create… her own doom. Then we had the second book which brings in the plot of the sequel, where she has to figure out how to interfere in a plotline that never involved her at all. And of course there is the anime adaptation, which ended up bringing in a THIRD woman trying to change things who runs up against the force of nature that is Mary. But most of those have been along the same lines. The heroine (really the antagonist) is defeated, and ends up, mostly, being won over by Mary. But what if we had a guy end up in the world of the game? A guy who is a minor son of a minor house in another country, not interacting with the plot at all. And he sees Mary defying her fate, and gets really pissed. Is the world of this otome game tough for a mob?

Mary is suspicious. Supposedly her brothers have revealed to her a necessary part of becoming the next head of the family, which involves touring other countries and showing that you have the right stuff to be a leader of the nobility. She’s suspicious because their supposed book looks an awful lot like a sweet and fun “take a vacation with our beloved sister” plan instead. Still, whatever. She’s happy to go to the nation of Feydella and meet her aunt and uncle. That said, she’s slightly less happy with the customs of the country, which is fine with men and women having multiple lovers, and thus everyone is hitting on her. Constantly. Worst of all, a minor noble accosts her and says that he knows her secret – she remembers this is a game and has been using her prior knowledge to manipulate things for her benefit.

The climax of this book is not unexpected, but it is rather clever, as it relies on something that I’d forgotten about this series. In general, for “I remembered my past life” sort of books, either characters remember almost from birth or at a very young age, or they remember right before the plot of whatever main plot they’re the villainess for has begun. And Mary is the latter – she only remembered her past life right before Alicia started school. She’s been worried about what everyone might think of her if she tells them the truth about her past life, mostly as the mob guy knows how to prey on insecurities. But, as Patrick points out, if she got her memories when she met Alicia, that means that all the time before that she was the ‘real” Mary Albert… and she’s always been like this. There was no change of personality whatsoever. Past life or no, Mary is ultimately a kind and clever (if daffy) heroine who attracts good people to her like flies. Which also means the antagonists of the other game and anime. But does NOT mean mob boy, who I suspect we won’t see again unless it’s in a comedy stinger.

So yes, good book, very satisfying. I think we have two more to go in the series, and there’s a limit to what new plots we can come up with. We’ll see what’s next.