By Sarasa Nagase and Mai Murasaki. Released in Japan as “Akuyaku Reijo Nanode Rasubosu o Katte Mimashita” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

Those who have read my reviews of this series know who my favorite character is, and I am delighted to see that this final volume gives her some wonderful things to do. After ten volumes where she has been a giant chaos gremlin, Lilia is now a mother, and has to face a situation where she will be deciding her own daughter’s fate for her. And there is a brief moment – it only lasts a page – where Lilia shows fear and regret over it. Now, Lilia being Lilia, she vows that she will raise her daughter to be the sort who can laugh at this sort of responsibility. She even manages to have praise for her husband and his actions in this book. that said, at the end of the day it’s the relationship between her and Aileen that’s more important. To both her and the narrative – this has always been a story that empowers women, and it does so right to the end, where the final fight literally takes all the men and puts them in a viewing room to watch the women fight.

Seven months after the events of the tenth volume, Aileen and Claude are headed off to a conference to decide the new ruler of Hausel, who needs to be able to predict the future, and also be a woman. She’s not concerned, as she is pretty sure that there aren’t any more otome game plots that can possibly kill her, off, right? Unfortunately, the antagonists of the tenth book are back, and Diana and Cattleya are determined to make Cattleya the new ruler by force, blackmail, and various other blunt object tactics… which of course include Cattleya marrying Claude and raising his new daughter, leaving Aileen to abdicate. This should be easy because, once she realizes what’s going on, Aileen goes back to the persona she put on for Book 10, which is an Empress with a button for a brain.

Honestly, it’s amusing how easy this is for Aileen and company to take care of. The antagonists are not only in the “this is a game” mindset that even Lilia has finally abandoned, but they also think that if things go badly they can destroy the world and get a reset, not understanding this is reality and it doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t help that they’re literally the only people not to immediately see through Aileen’s facade of stupidity, as all the other princesses and queen consorts are savvy enough to see what she’s doing. The ending shows all the women in the book working together to save everyone in the country, take out Diana and Cattleya, and also save Diana and Cattleya, because this is a book that has both its heroines and villainesses live happily ever after. Well, eventually. After some prison time, perhaps.

By the end of the book, we flash forward to the future, where Aileen and Lilia’s daughters are thick as thieves, and headed off on new adventures now that it’s time to go rule a country. Will we get more of the series set in the future? Probably not, this was a pretty excellent finale. One of my favorite villainess series. I’ll miss it.

By Sarasa Nagase and Mai Murasaki. Released in Japan as “Akuyaku Reijo Nanode Rasubosu o Katte Mimashita” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

Just when you thought it was safe to forget about otome games… Yes, that’s right. We had the main game that Aileen needed to destroy. Then we had the sequel. Then we had the other sequel. Then we had the fandisk. But at last, they have run out of game to use, and Aileen and Claude can relax and get down to the important business of Aileen giving birth. Unfortunately, guess what? That’s right, it turns out there’s another game, seemingly unrelated, but in reality it ties into all the other games in a very “legal grey area” sort of way. And you know what that means. War with Ellmeyer, Claude being offered an out by marrying someone else, and Aileen being offered certain death. It’s a bit less “if I make one wrong move I’ll be executed” this time around – Aileen is an old hand at this sort of thing by now – but it’s nice to get back to the basics.

Claude is off to the Kilvas Empire, and for once, Aileen is not coming along. She’s pregnant, after all, and all the games that could destroy her life have been conquered, so what’s to worry about? Oh dear. As it turns out, as noted above, we’re headed into the plot of Valkyrie of the Magic Lance, and Lilia is DELIGHTED to tell Aileen all about it, gleefully noting all the ways that the entire country could be plunged into chaos. So naturally Aileen does have to come along, promising to be very careful, of course. They’re there to attend a wedding of Vica, a young man who looks a lot like Claude, and Diana, a military Valkyrie who seems a bit… obsessive? Aileen being Aileen, she decides to pretend she’s an airheaded trophy wife, and discovers that Diana has secret plans… which involve a military coup.

Diana is one of the more unpleasant women we’ve run into in this series, and since it’s a 2-parter that will conclude with the 11th (and final) volume, we get pretty much no softening of her at all. Instead, we get a few hints that she’s the same as Aileen and Lilia – that is, she’s a Japanese reincarnation. Sadly, she’s also a bit of an idiot, thinking that everyone will just move all the budget of her empire to the military with no arguments. Vica is far more interesting, as he’s Claude’s mirror in many ways, and the two can’t help but feel sympathetic towards each other. And then there’s Aileen, who promises to take it easy, and then does not remotely take it easy. Fortunately, the kid inside her seems of hardy stock. Those who read this book to see Aileen be clever, figure things out, and then leave it all for Claude to do the heavy work while she manages everything behind the scenes will be delighted.

The book ends with (of course) Aileen and Lilia giving birth at the exact same time to twin daughters. (Lilia literally says that she thinks of her child as the result of her relationship with Aileen. Poor Cedric.) Unfortunately, the bad guys got away at the end of this book. So I’m sure Book 11 will have Aileen fighting her fate again.

By Sarasa Nagase and Mai Murasaki. Released in Japan as “Akuyaku Reijo Nanode Rasubosu o Katte Mimashita” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

Everyone loves a good harem series. But, unless you’re reading The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You or other polyamorous titles, you’re going to wind up with fans of one love interest happy and the fans of the other love interests disappointed. This is even true in a series like this one, where there’s been no doubt since the beginning of the first volume that Aileen and Claude were the OTP. This series was based around a series of otome games, and as a result there are any number of hot guys that you could, theoretically, pair a heroine with. Sadly, Lilia blew all that up, and Aileen kicked fate in the nuts, so we’ve got a few guys who are dedicated to their work. Can’t have that, though. This is a romance, and romances with lots of unattached love interests get hit with “pair the spares”. That’s the entire purpose of this volume, taking place a little while after the main series.

This book consists of three stories, but honestly it feels like the author had a complete volume that didn’t quite meet the word count and so they added a (normal-sized) short story to the start and a (very small) short story to the end. The first has Elefas going back to his homeland to find that he’s suddenly married to Neifa, one of the harem queens of Baal’s that he has no use for now that he has Roxane. He thinks he can quickly get out of the marriage, but sadly she’s brilliant *and* has big boobs, a deadly combination. In the final story in the volume, Claude and Aileen try to go on a date where it’s just the two of them, despite everyone trying to stop them. The story that takes up the most time, though, involves Walt and Kyle, who get involved, once more, with demon snuff, as well as a very mysterious “fairy” girl.

The reason to read this is the middle story, though I did like Neifa, whose use of “all-ages” a la Lilia makes me wonder if she’s another import from Japan. (Lilia is fantastic in her one scene, where she looks like she’s being serious for once but later turns out to be a troll as always.) But Walt and Kyle – OK, mostly Walt – are the reason to pick this up. Walt tends to wear his heart on his sleeve, so even as he’s told to investigate a teenage girl who’s suspected of making and distributing a highly potent demon snuff, and even after discovering that yes, she is doing that, he still wants to prove that she’s innocent, because it doesn’t match with her character. In fact, her character doesn’t match from one day to the next, which is a bit of a spoiler except that the cast portraits at the start of the book give it away anyway. This is basically a thriller where they’re working against the clock trying to stop a horrible chain of self-sacrificing against a virulently disgusting bad guy who’s been sexually abusive (so yes, warning for that), and thankfully the day is saved.

The day is saved without Aileen, who only makes small appearances in the first two stories – after all, they don’t involve her being executed if she makes one wrong move, so what should she care? The next book, though, sees us back in familiar territory once more, as the author admits that the series isn’t ending just yet.