By Ageha Sakura and Kurodeko. Released in Japan as “Imokusa Reijou desu ga Akuyaku Reisoku wo Tasuketara Kiniiraremashita” by Overlap Novels f. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Vasileios Mousikidis.

In the first volume, we saw how Agnes was physically, mentally and emotionally abused by her family, and it was pretty terrible (the abuse, that is, not the book). In the second volume, we hear how actually a number of young noble ladies have this problem, and many of them are cracking under the strain and falling for handsome guys with vague mind control powers. And now, in the third volume, we’re told that it’s pretty rare to find a teenage noble girl in Desnim who is NOT abused by their family in some way. Heck, even when we get the classic setup in this volume – abused, Cinderella-esque older sister, arrogant and spoiled younger sister – it rapidly becomes clear that the younger sister is not actually LOVED by her family or anything, and that if they lose their scapegoat they’re perfectly happy to offer up scapegoat number two. Oh, yes, and other noble girls are raped by priests until they’re driven mad. Meanwhile, Agnes and her husband flirt shamelessly and plan an official wedding ceremony.

It’s been a year since Agnes arrived in Sutrena, and she’s is happily married to Lord Nazel (who is very happy to perform his husbandly duties all the time now that Agnes is mostly over her shyness). Nazel wants to have the big wedding ceremony they never had when they were married, and cajoles Agnes into it. This will require a priest sent from the capital, who is rather downtrodden and overworked, so quite happy to end up in a domain where people appreciate him. They also need a silver ring from a different domain, and meet the pleasant lord, his wife, and their two children. One of whom looks like she’s about to fall over dead from overwork at any moment, and the other of whom looks like she was born to hold her hand in front of her mouth and Ohohohohohoho. So yeah, family abuse. Sadly, things then get worse. For both daughters.

We’ve seen “good older sister, spoiled brat younger sister” endless times now in light novels, to the point where I was ready to roll my eyes. It’s a credit to the writing, though, that I rapidly realized that Furla was not going to end up with a fate worse than death, nor was she going to be arrested with her parents (whose crime is treating their child like crap, really). No, this is about getting an incredibly selfish young woman who, deep DEEP down, realizes that she’s nothing special to understand that all her safety and security is now gone and that she can’t simply simper at someone and get her own way. Technically things don’t end well for her – she’s another of Agnes’ endless parade of former nobles who are now maids, and the guy she’s fallen for is in love with this series’ equivalent of Superwoman. But frankly, compared with where she could have ended up… Furla does OK. She’s even learning laundry.

I will once again be annoyed at the author for yet another “I don’t swing that way” joke, which is tedious. Other than that, the fact that this series pinballs between dark abusive tragedy happening right off screen and Agnes and Nazel being flirty and happy and adorable is both the series’ greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Also, still don’t know why there’s a chibi-Agnes on each cover.

By Ageha Sakura and Kurodeko. Released in Japan as “Imokusa Reijou desu ga Akuyaku Reisoku wo Tasuketara Kiniiraremashita” by Overlap Novels f. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Vasileios Mousikidis.

I try not to take these books too seriously. Most of the authors don’t want me to get too deeply into the politics, and I try to say “it’s just a book, I should really just relax”. At the same time, well, I have to say more in these reviews than “looks good apart from the homophobia at the end, I’ll read more”. And so… man, these villainess books really want to have their noble cake and eat it too, don’t they? Lady Bumpkin’s first volume showed that she was abused by her family, not uncommon in series like these. Now, in the second book, we discover that apparently young women being whipped by their families to ensure they grow up properly is a THING that happens in this country. The nobility in this book are 80% terrible. But the 20% who aren’t are going to save the day. As for the commoners? Well, there’s Robin, the villain. And, erm, Agnes’ maid. Nobles may be evil, but god save the king, I guess.

While Agnes and her husband are making the best of things in their remote territory, all is not well back at the capital. Mia is jealous of everyone who comes near her lover Robin, and that’s because Robin has been seducing ladies left, right and center, and then the ladies get disowned when it’s discovered. One of these ladies is Liliane, the fiancee of Torre, a knight who ends up becoming Agnes’ bodyguard. It seems the princess and her lover don’t actually like each other that much. Back in Sutrena, Agnes is discovering that her magic may be far more powerful than had previously been expected, and Nazel is discovering that there’s a lot of corruption out here as well, which is perhaps helping the increased monster attacks along. All this culminates in Nazel having a young lady try to kill him… the aforementioned Liliane.

So yes, as with many series of this sort, being of noble blood is inherently a good thing, and nobles are of course the best to rule. (Sarcasm implied.) But when you turn selfish, arrogant, or downright evil, you become the BAD sort of noble. And I have to admit that the contrast between the two sat awkwardly with me. The King has a plan to oust his wife and daughter, but he’s in a weak position, so has to do it over the course of years, mostly by letting it happen. There’s slavery in this world, though offscreen, and illegal. The women who aren’t sold into slavery all end up as maids in Agnes’ mansion, because they are “sullied’ in the eyes of their family, I assume. This is contrasted, bizarrely, with Princess Mia, who after the fallout is exiled to a remote island, where after a year or so of whining proceeds to buckle down, admit she loves reading and studying when Nazel is not around her, and ends up revolutionizing the prison island. It *does* make sense for her character to an extent, but the tonal whiplash made my neck ache.

I also genuinely wanted Robin executed, and his punishment and threat of prison rape did not sit well with me either. Agnes is the best part of this, and I’ll read more, I just the the world she lives in.

By Ageha Sakura and Kurodeko. Released in Japan as “Imokusa Reijou desu ga Akuyaku Reisoku wo Tasuketara Kiniiraremashita” by Overlap Novels f. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Vasileios Mousikidis.

I’ve never been very good with photoshop or meme creation, and I generally only embed cover images to these reviews in any case. But I will admit, about 20 pages into Lady Bumpkin, all I could think of was that Shrek meme and seeing him saying “She doesn’t even have a loyal maid!”. Now, I am aware that the loyal maid comes later, yes, but I’ve gotten so used to seeing these abused daughters who are simply surviving from day to day in their House O’ Evil Nobles have at least the one loyal maid to be the ally in their corner keeping them from completely losing it. Agnes has had to deal with this solely on her own, where even the help doesn’t help. Fortunately, she’s in luck, in that she’s in a villainess book. No, she’s not the villainess. The villainess is in fact a villain. And he’s just as innocent as most of the villainesses are in this genre, because oh dear, the princess is terrible.

Agnes Evantail is the eldest daughter of an old-school noble house. And I mean really old school. Her parents have furniture that’s outdated, clothing that’s outdated (including codpieces, Christ), and makeup that’s outdated, and they force Agnes into all of those (except the codpiece) before sending her out into a noble world that now regards those things as comical in order to find herself a man. Oh, and when she fails her father hits her. At one of these humiliation events, the princess and her fiance happen to be at the same party… and Agnes watches with horror as the princess denounces her fiancee, Nazelbert Florescruz, as a horrible person who has bullied her new boyfriend, a baron’s son – who has also gotten her pregnant. She insists he be exiled to the frontier… and since Agnes was the only one to help him up after he was knocked over, and she’s a national laughingstock, she’s told to become his wife.

Regarding that cover, I have to assume it’s metaphorical and that Agnes is holding her younger self, as they haven’t even gone beyond kissing on the cheek by the end of this volume. Most of this volume trundles along exactly as you might guess, with the occasional exception when we see Agnes getting the shit beaten out of her, as these sorts of books usually stick to emotional abuse. Once she’s disowned and heads to the frontier with her new disgraced husband, things definitely improve… though not right away, as they’re going to a territory where the previous noble in charge was an abusive rapist louse, so no one trusts them. Fortunately, and feel free to roll your eyes a bit, Agnes’ “useless” magic turns out to secretly be awesome, making this the distaff version of all those “weakest is really strongest” books. Minus the harem.

That said, as you’d expect, once the two of them are away from everyone else, we get a lot of sweetness and cuteness, along with Agnes turning out to be beautiful once you get the heavy makeup and heavy dresses off her. There’s little new here, but the writing style is breezy and fun, and I really liked Agnes. I’ll read more.