By Bakufu Narayama and Ebisushi. Released in Japan as “Danzaisareta Akuyaku Reijō wa, Gyakkō-shite Kanpekina Akujo o Mezasu” by TO Books. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Alyssa Niioka. Adapted by Lex Reno.

Content warning: this book’s main plot contains, and my review discusses, pedophilia, grooming, and brainwashing people through drugs and gang rape. The last two are implied but not seen, the first two are definitely seen. Reader discretion is advised.

I’ve called these books difficult to read before, but none of them quite hit like the middle of this book, in which Claudia has to deal with a village of people whose “Chieftess” (does that word get gendered?) is easily one of the worst antagonists in the series to date – see above for why. Fortunately, this is what Claudia and Sylvester are here to fix, though both of them castigate themselves that they didn’t even know it was happening till she conveniently got kidnapped. Sometimes being royalty means finding out about problems that people are deliberately keeping from you. Especially when they’re once again a plan of Nigel’s, the series’ overall big bad, who isn’t in this book but whose presence is felt. Corruption turns out to be – literally – an incredible drug.

By now everyone agrees that the running for the fiancee position is over, and Claudia and Sylvester’s engagement party date is set. Unfortunately, before this can happen, Claudia and Helen – out on the town incognito, with Claudia also disguised as a maid – run into a boy who is dressed as a child detective – because he is one, in fact – and he’s on the run from some goons. They quickly hide in a cart… which then drives off to a remote village, and that village turns out to be the one the boy (Kiel) was investigating. (Helen was able to get away and is getting help.) They find the villagers are all very happy and content… a bit TOO happy and content. The whole village feels a bit like The Stepford Wives. What’s more, people seem to occasionally disappear for no reason. What’s really going on?

So yeah, as indicated earlier, things are very screwed up in this book. What started as a discovery of a pain reliever that allows the village to make a bit of extra cash has suddenly become a village-wide “ritual” when the girls in the village have their first period or the boys have their first “nocturnal emission” to drug them with an aphrodisiac and then have the others in the village rape them till they grow happy with it. The girls in the village who have NOT gone through this yet are quick to side with Claudia and Kiel. The chieftess in particular is a hedonist and pedophile, who literally gropes Kiel to see if his balls have dropped, and openly leers at Claudia. The book is well written as always, and help arrives in the nick of time. But I have to ask, was this trip really necessary?

The series is still ongoing in Japan, and a glance at the blurbs of future books suggests things don’t get easier for Claudia even after her engagement. Hopefully, though, they involve a few less things for me to warn the reader about.

By Bakufu Narayama and Ebisushi. Released in Japan as “Danzaisareta Akuyaku Reijō wa, Gyakkō-shite Kanpekina Akujo o Mezasu” by TO Books. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Alyssa Niioka.

It’s been a while since the start of this series, and it’s become very hard to remember that Claudia had a life before this one. I mean, we hear about her life as a sex worker on a regular basis in the series, but that’s not what I mean. I mean the “Condemned Villainess” part of the title. And since we haven’t thought about that part as much, it can be hard to remember, not to put to fine a point on it, how gullible and naive Claudia was, and how easily she was led around by the nose. That’s not the Claudia we have here, who is the belle of everyone’s ball, the apple of everyone’s eye, and saving the world one yakuza organization at a time. Unfortunately, there are still shadowy people in the background who very much want things to go badly for the main cast. And as a result, since Claudia can’t be a condemned villainess, someone else is going to have to step to the plate.

We’re dealing with another country next door, and things are pretty bad there. At a masquerade ball, the delegation from Parte, a neighboring country whose citizens seems to hate Harland more and more by the day, have arrived, and they bring with them Niamilia, a noble woman who ends up being suggested as the prince’s fiancee in order to prevent a potential war. But what of Claudia? Well, another of the fiancee candidates, calls her out at the party (can’t have a villainess book without public call out), saying Claudia is an evil woman who uses her mob to traffic in slaves and also murdered a noble the other day. Claudia is, needless to say, above most of these accusations, but given that she IS the secret mob boss of a yakuza organization, she decides to investigate… and finds that someone has been impersonating her.

So yeah, my favorite scene in the book is right at the end – in fact, it’s one of the extra stories added for the book. Throughout the book, we get Wendy, who if she’s been in previous books I’ve never noticed, and she is horrible. She’s easily led, falls for an obvious loser who is luring her into a trap to do his bidding, ignores the advice of the maids who have her best interests at heart, and ends up literally orchestrating murder to prove that Claudia is SECRETLY EVIL. It’s a good look at how conspiracy theories can take hold in someone, and she is teeth-grindingly annoying throughout this book. But at the end, as Claudia leaves the prison where Wendy resides till her exile, she realizes, Oh, that was me. That was literally me in my last life. And thus it affects her more than it otherwise would, and therefore affects us more as well. Claudia gets a time travel get out of jail free card Wendy probably ain’t getting.

All this plus our horrible antagonist from last time, who isn’t in this book in person but who makes his presence felt throughout. These books are difficult but rewarding reads.

By Bakufu Narayama and Ebisushi. Released in Japan as “Danzaisareta Akuyaku Reijō wa, Gyakkō-shite Kanpekina Akujo o Mezasu” by TO Books. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Alyssa Niioka. Adapted by Vida Cruz-Borja.

The general premise of “heroine goes back in time to her earlier self” stories, which Japan calls Yarinaoshi Loop, is that our protagonist tries to change things in order to change the future and in the end ends up changing everyone else’s lives for the better as well. Sometimes this ends up being the entire kingdom, where we see her do things like unite various kingdoms and solve famine (looking at you, Mia). But occasionally our heroine has a narrower focus. Claudia, in her first lifetime, ended up being sold into a brothel, and had firsthand experience of what a wretched life it is, as well as how, for so many women, there may be no other choice. We’ve already seen her rescue Helen from that life in the first book, and in the second book disguise herself to invest in the brothel she used to work in. But she’s not done. Here we see she wants to make sex work legal. Light novels rarely venture into this area.

(As a side note, if your villainess does not look at least as hot as Claudia does in that suit and hat on the front cover, try harder.)

There’s another foreign prince arriving in town, this one from fantasy… Britain? Denmark? One of those. Prince Seraphim is there to visit Sylvester. They have a Church problem – Seraphim’s nation is not monotheistic, and therefore the church which rules over Sylvester’s nation, as well as most of the others, dislikes them and won’t trade with them at normal prices. Seraphim is looking for allies. Meanwhile, Claudia accidentally murmuring about business when she’s thinking about ways to save the sex workers means her father gifts her a business to run – actually, more accurately an entire shopping center. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s in Seraphim’s home country! Now they’re all traveling to try to do various things, the most important of which may be to stop the evil church guy that always pops up in Japanese light novels.

The most interesting part of this book, aside from its putting the plight of sex workers front and center, is the addition of the cardinal, Nigel. Towards the end of the volume, the book felt it was moving far too fast, and I briefly wondered if it was a two-parter. That’s not the case, but I get the feeling that the author realized as they were writing Nigel that he made a great antagonist for Claudia now that Fermina is out of the picture. Nigel fills a lot of villain tropes – besides being a churchman who loves luxury and will happily kill women and children to get minions to obey him, he’s also dreadfully bored and regards Claudia, an unexpected element, as a challenge. Clearly we’ll be seeing more of him.

This isn’t fantastic, but is on the high side of very good, and Claudia is a great lead character. I’m happy to read more.