By Bisu and Yukiko. Released in Japan as “Tensei Oujo wa Kyou mo Hata o Tatakioru” by Arian Rose. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Esther Sun.

It’s been so long with everyone in the cast adoring Rosemary that it’s sometimes a surprise to remember that there are those who don’t love Rosemary, and part of this is because she’s been kept in bubble wrap for most of her life. It’s only now that she’s married to Leonhart and has a few world-changing innovations under her belt that she can afford to move on to the really, really impossible tasks of shoujo light novels: the grand ball with catty nobility all present and correct. Fortunately, Rosemary is still so utterly gorgeous that almost everyone who sees her either falls in love or gives up. Oh sure, there’s the King’s annoying cousin, who fragrantly tries to get Leonhart to take his daughter as a mistress in front of Rosemary. But clearly he’s too stupid to love, so there’s no way that he’d actually be part of the main plot, right?

Now that Rosemary has used her protagonist powers to not be evil and executed, and to make sure that her family all love each other (well, mostly, the King and Queen still mostly exist as a political marriage), she has to deal with the fact that that family wants to protect her and see her safe, especially now that she’s pregnant.This means her mother wants to help her choose the proper dress for the ball, while her brothers, who want to help but can’t see her change, are left to fume outside. Even her father, who has lived his entire life under the rule of “it doesn’t matter if I’m an asshole as long as the end result is good” spots her exhaustion at the ball and deliberately screws up her hair to force her to leave early and not get sick. This is not even mentioning her husband, or bodyguard, or any of the 80,000 others. Boy, you’d have to be REALLY DUMB to try to go after her!

The bulk of this book is Rosemary setting up a harvest festival for her nearby village. They used to have a big one, but it gradually petered out, and she wants to peter it up again. This is helped by her actually caring about the wives and grandmothers of the village and wanting to see what their traditional foods and crafts are. Speaking of crafts, we also see her interacting with her autistic jewelry designer Ayame (I usually try not to diagnose fictional characters, but sometimes it’s impossible not to) and Ayame’s childhood friend/minder Hiiragi, who would probably be married to her if she weren’t in love with Rosemary and making delicate jewelry pieces, in that order. Oh yes, and there’s even the son of Duke Evil, who is trying his best to save his family and domain from dear old dad’s plotting, and he ALSO falls in love with Rosemary while also seeing she already has the perfect husband.

With all this going on, it’s no wonder she doesn’t give birth in this. There’s no sign of Book 11 in Japan, either. Oh well, we’ve got enough adoration of Rosemary here for three new books. I do enjoy this, but hope you don’t hate perfect characters.

By Bisu and Yukiko. Released in Japan as “Tensei Oujo wa Kyou mo Hata o Tatakioru” by Arian Rose. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Esther Sun.

That’s right, it’s back! The popular TV comedy “Everybody Loves Rosemary” has returned for a new season a year and a half after ending forever, and she’s just as adorable as ever. I will assume everyone buying this knows what to expect because they read the other volumes, but wow, I had forgotten how much everyone just looks at her like she hung the stars in the sky. And, to be fair, her ideas are good in a “thank God this is not real life but an otome game” sort of way, and she is not only able to inspire everyone around her, who still adore her and desire her even though she’s married to Leonhart, but also manages to find a prince and a princess from different countries who also hate themselves and inspire them to change how they view the world and become better people. Who needs therapists when you have a gorgeous blonde?

Some time after the events of the main series, Rosemary is happy as a clam. She’s married to Leonhart, and manages to match his love in enthusiasm if not necessarily in stamina. She’s now the duchess of a vibrant, expanding city, mostly vibrant and expanding because she’s in it. Her hospital is going great guns, and other nations are also interested. Most importantly, they’ve found rice and soy sauce! Yes, the inevitable Japan analogue that always turns up in these books has turned up, and the Third Prince… falls for her immediately, and is promptly devastated when she admits she’s married. A princess we briefly met in an earlier book is here to try to arrange a marriage with one of Rosemary’s brothers, mostly out of obligation, but winds up depressed after seeing how Rosemary is just so fantastic at everything. And there’s something secret that not even Rosemary knows about yet.

Technically this is a spoiler for the last part of the book, but come on: the moment Rosemary says she’s feeling tired, eating weird things and is even gaining a bit of weight at last, the reader should be able to figure out what’s actually happening. Rosemary’s pregnancy delights absolutely everybody, even the other love interests, who have been alternating between gnashing their teeth at her happy marriage and grudgingly being happy for her. Now they’re all picturing her as a mother and are over the moon. The best scene in the book was from the POV of her mother, who is told by her husband (after he tells his sons, I note) that Rosemary is pregnant. It’s a delight to see the king behaving like a normal person, as he realizes that he’s been a terrible dad to her for so long, essentially treating her like a prized student, that he has no idea how to be a grandfather. The queen happily notes they can learn about it together. I really liked this.

There’s already a Vol. 10 out in Japan, so we’re not done with Rosemary and her utopia just yet. It requires a lot of patience to put up with all the adoration, but this is still a lot of fun to read.

By Bisu and Yukiko. Released in Japan as “Tensei Oujo wa Kyou mo Hata o Tatakioru” by Arian Rose. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Esther Sun.

Last time I wondered if this final volume in the series would be a victory lap, or if we would have one last plot twist for Rosemary to deal with in order to save her life. As it turns out, there’s nothing to worry about, this is pure fluff, an absolute victory lap that consists entirely of everyone praising Rosemary to the skies while she herself acts like a lovestruck teenager and frets that she’s about to screw everything up at any moment. Spoiler: she doesn’t. There’s always been an element of “everyone thinks of the best possible reasoning for our heroine’s behavior” to this series, but it’s tended to be balanced by action sequences or suspense. Here there’s none of that, and even the romance is handled fairly early, so it really is just wedding prep, wedding, and having all the other love interests get a narrative bit about how sad they are but how happy they are for Rosemary. The word “schmoopy” was invented for books like this.

After the events of the last book (and reassuring herself that her cat is not in fact dead), Rosemary spends the bulk of the first half of this book recuperating. Of course, that does not mean that she’s not doing things. First of all, she and Leonhart finally confess to each other with words and everything, and get across that, rather than merely tolerating the other’s presence, they are in fact giant dorks in love. This means there’s a wedding coming!… in two years time. While we wait for that, she says a final farewell to Kanon (who goes back to Japan, though she’ll return for the wedding itself) and concentrates of learning how to become a duchess, because the status gap between princess and count is too large, so they’re giving her a duchy to solve the problem. And, of course, there’s the hospital and medical schools. Plus, y’know, the rest of her harem.

As with prior volumes, the books alternate between Rosemary and various other characters. Most of this is what you’d expect, but we do meet Leonhart’s family, the most interesting part of the book. They’re husband, wife, and three sons, Leonhart being the eldest, and the men in the family all have the quirk of being uninterested in romance till they meet the one woman who they will love the rest of their days. As such, they’re a bit worried about Leonhart, as the princess might be trying to selfishly coerce him. Then they meet Rosemary, who is practically perfect in every way, and are quickly adoring her like everyone else. If you are the sort of person who is bothered by this, I assume you dropped the series long ago, but with no serious plotline to balance out the praise, it gets to be a bit too much even for me.

In the end, they get married and the book ends. I was wondering if we’d get a flash forward to the future, which we don’t in terms of Rosemary, but I did like the epilogue, which shows what her real legacy will be. So yes, I enjoyed this series, a good one for a combination of “avoid my fate” reincarnation and suspense thriller.