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I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss, Vol. 11

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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.

I Shall Survive Using Potions!, Vol. 11

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By FUNA and Sukima. Released in Japan as “Potion-danomi de Ikinobimasu!” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hiroya Watanabe.

My long-running thesis about the FUNA books is that Kaoru, the protagonist of this series, is the “advanced” version, the one you read after you’ve already dipped your toe into the water with Mile and Mitsuha. Naturally, this means that she is much more difficult to get into and accept. She’s a pain in the ass, to be frank, too smug for her own good, and let’s not forget the occasional atrocities. She’s also unthinking about important things, though that’s something she shares with her fellow FUNA compatriots. But this book reminds me that we are not, of course, supposed to be rooting for her, really. Oh, sure, we’ll root for Kaoru when she’s going after people who are pure evil. For the most part, though, she’s going after shysters, scammers, and lowlifes, and taking them for all they’ve got. It’s kind of … petty? As such, when we see her screw up, which she does a lot in this particular volume, it’s just fun. Seeing Kaoru suffer is fun. There, I said it.

Kaoru is continuing to try to spread the word of Edith, but has suddenly found herself surrounded by those who know her older self. Francette’s descendant Falsetto has been sent there to protect Kaoru. The Eyes of the Goddess are being sent to protect Kaoru. Birds and dogs directed by Mariel are being sent to protect Kaoru. And the King and his Chancellor are panicking whenever anyone comes near Kaoru who they have not already thoroughly vetted. Still, they go ahead with the plan, which also involves Reiko making a name for herself as a hunter by capturing a rare, highly prized ingredient, and Kyoko opening another store in the capital, which gets a grand opening by showing off how to butcher and auction off a wyvern. With all this going on, it’s perhaps no great surprise that Kaoru occasionally forgets to pay attention to “daughter dying” rumors.

I will admit it was morbidly funny seeing the subplot with the Earl’s daughter. I was pretty sure the author was not mean enough to have her actually die, but it’s signposted relatively early in the book that an Earl has a very sick daughter and is paying a lot to get cures that might help her, and Kaoru does not make the logical leap and think “maybe I should, y’know, go there as Edith”. And to top it off, when she does figure it out, we get an almost Looney-Tunes run where she storms the mansion, administers the cure, and takes off… forgetting to disguise ANYONE in her party. But the capper is seeing her rationalize this and think “it’s OK, this will be fine” and then be called out on it by everyone. Even Kyoko, who is the biggest ditz in a party of three ditzes. As for the rest of the book? Same old same old. They’re at least concerned that the orphans have work PTSD, but haven’t worked out a solution yet.

This series is not for anyone but FUNA obsessives, but if you are, it’s still fun.

Mercedes and the Waning Moon: The Dungeoneering Feats of a Discarded Vampire Aristocrat, Vol. 3

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By Fire head and KeG. Released in Japan as “Kaketa Tsuki no Mercedes: Kyūketsuki no Kizoku ni Tensei Shita kedo Suteraresō nanode Dungeon wo Seiha suru” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Maddy Willette.

This series has a tendency to do things that I find very interesting but also do things that annoy me a great deal, and this third volume does not break that tradition. Last time I said that I wished Mercedes had more friends, as without them she might get a bit too up in her own head and/or sociopathic. Clearly the author heard me and thought “I cannot give you a friend, but would you accept a predatory lesbian who lives in one of those “country ruled by women who treat men like scum worlds?”. The answer to that question is no, I don’t really want to accept that, though I suppose it could have been worse. But then we also get a lot more detail as to what this world really is, as well as what Mercedes’ goal needs to be, and while that reads very much as “exposition ho!”, it’s also a lot more interesting than seeing Mercedes murder a bunch of prisoners because she doesn’t really care about them.

It’s time for an exam at school, but the exam itself barely starts before Felix and Sieglinde are kidnapped by mysterious men in white uniforms and taken to the kingdom next door. That said, it’s not REALLY Sieglinde, as they had thought that something like this would happen. After finding out who was the traitor in their midst that helped it to happen (no surprise there), Mercedes heads over to the Beatrix Empire, named after its Empress. There, men are treated like dirt, while women are rich and arrogant. Even the men sent out to capture Sieglinde end up being degraded when they return. Fortunately, Felix is able to avoid being horribly executed by… erm, dressing up as a woman, but stronger steps are needed. Like overthrowing the Empress.

Leaving aside the bits I did not like (misandry country and its residents, including the obligatory woman who enjoys having rape fantasies), there are some interesting bits of writing here. Frederick being the traitor is such a non-surprise that I don’t even care I’m revealing it here, but I did like his ironic hell, a case of “let’s pretend that you’ve gone back in time to make things better, only you fail every time and all it shows is that you are bad and pathetic”. It was chilling but also very apt, given what a horrible person he was. Speaking of chilling things that are not really given much gravitas, the fact that Mercedes keeps the Empress Beatrix locked in her dungeon while a clone rules the throne… and that Beatrix is surrounded mostly by monsters who don’t like her much… is given very little examination. Particularly by Beatrix herself, who not only suggested it but doesn’t seem to mind? Admittedly, she fell for Mercedes once defeated, so this could be due to that, but it’s still kind of disturbing.

So, a mixed bag again. Fortunately, after a three-year-gap, a 4th volume of this just came out in Japan, so I get to have mixed feeling about it once more in a few months. For fans of stoic sociopathic loli vampires, and I wish I could say there aren’t many of those, but…