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The Villainess Is Dead! Long Live the Empress! Redoing the Story After a Poisonous End, Vol. 2

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By Iota Aiue and Tsukasa Kuga. Released in Japan as “Shokeisareta Akujo wa, Taikoku de Kouhi no Za wo Tsukamu” by DRE Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Mac B. Gill.

There was a lot of this that I liked, but the middle part made me want to start flicking throughn it, and it’s mostly due to the big villain. Look, as evil beyond evil villains go, this guy is pretty good at avoiding the absolute worst. He doesn’t have a bowl haircut or an arrogant laugh. He’s not trying to sexually assault any of our cast. For light novel standards, he’s subtle. Likewise, his punishment is very apropos for this kinda on the cynical end of the spectrum world. But man, he’s a bummer. Whipping his daughter, murdering thousands with poison dresses and flowers, also providing the poison used to kill our main villainess, drove a family to suicide and enslavement… there’s a very definite reason why the emperor is giving Westalia a chance, even though it looks like he’s not. There’s a very real chance that if Elizabeth wins the competition, the country is doomed. Bit of a bummer, honestly.

Now that Westalia and Elizabeth have tied in the Empress competition, there has to be a run off. The Emperor decides that the two of them will gather artificial flowers. They get a budget and a warehouse, which they have to fill with them. Given Elizabeth’s family is in textiles, this is obviously very biased towards her, but Westalia suspects the Emperor has a bigger reason for doing this – he wants the Reyn family’s secrets uncovered and to see them destroyed – without Tiberio, Elizabeth’s father and head of the family, getting out of it and pinning it on someone else, as he’s done before. What’s worse, Elizabeth seems to be falling ill with symptoms that seem very similar to poisoning, and Paige recognizes Tiberio as the man who destroyed her family and sold her into slavery. Westalia is really, really starting this event in a hole.

There are, of course, reasons I did enjoy this book. Every time Westalia loses her temper and gets mad is not only kind of scary but actually comedy gold, especially when she gets the official scribe to implicate the villain but fails to realize that the scribe will also be describing her own acts as well. More importantly, though, this is a book about people who have been abandoned and broken by loved ones learning how to reach out and accept help. Westalia is trying to do things on her own, and it doesn’t work, she needs to work with and trust everyone, even after dying once. Paige has to get past her rage and despair about the death of her parents and learn how to work trough this positively. And Elizabeth has to realize that fighting back against her father is better than ruling as a puppet while she slowly dies. (That last one is harder than it seems, defying your abuser requires a lot of gumption.)

Fortunately, everyone lives happily ever after and recovers from being poisoned, except that one guy. And so the series is over, and it’s a good end. That said, only get this if you get all the villainess books.

The Legendary Witch Is Reborn As an Oppressed Princess, Vol. 5

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By Touko Amekawa and Kuroyuki. Released in Japan as “Shiitagerareta Tsuihou Oujo wa, Tenseishita Densetsu no Majo deshita: Mukae ni Koraretemo Komarumasu. Juuboku to no Ohirune wo Jamashinaide Kudasai” by Overlap Novels f. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Jeremy Browning.

I admit to being quite surprised that this volume wasn’t the final one. Frankly, all the plot guns and secrets have now been well and truly revealed (and yes, I will have to spoil a lot of them further down this review), and yet there is a 6th and final book that is going to wrap things up. I am worried that the final book will just be a big fight, but that’s future Sean’s problem. As for what IS in this book, well, as you’d expect, Claudia wakes up three years later, but it’s everything else that manages to be the surprise. We’ve got multiple master plans being carried out at the same time. We’ve got alternate universes. We’ve got even more reincarnations. We’ve got concealed backstories. And yes, we do have a bit of cool fighting, though even that is made up of “you fell for it!” gambits.

Three years after the fourth book, Claudia remains in a state of suspended animation, basically dead but her body remains as it is and doesn’t decay. Meanwhile, Noah has risen to become Commander of the knights, and spends his spare time meeting with all the other allies and friends Claudia has made in the previous four books to find out how to revive her, as it’s taking a long time. They’re a bit hurried as Lemilsia’s “mourning period” is almost up, and everyone knows the moment it is Sieghart is going to invade. And sure enough, he does, muttering constantly about making Adelheid his and being controlled by a mysterious person. As for Claudia, she has in fact woken up… in an alternate universe where her magic is still suppressed and everyone knows who she is. And in this world, Leonhard is her enemy.

If I had a nickel every time that a reincarnated noble who was formerly one of the most powerful witches in the country ends up fighting against what turns out to be one of her former minions who was deeply in love with her and that love has turned to possessive need and a complete disrespect for what she actually wants, I’d have two nickels. In fact, call it three, as this is also very similar to one of the previous books in this series. But yeah, if you’ve read The Countess Is a Coward No More, this might seem a bit familiar. That said, this series is better written than that one, and there are a lot more surprise twists, mostly involving Claudia’s mother, who we get to know here, and who turns out to be trying to look out from her daughter beyond the grave, which involves a complex memory spell that only lets people remember things when it’s needed. Handy, that. As for the identity of the person behind all this… well, yes, it’s her obsessive minion, but it’s who they’re possessing that’s the other big reveal. We’re getting the family back together for a reunion.

As of this writing, the 6th and final book is not out in Japan yet, so it will be a long wait. Ah well, there’s a new 7th Time Loop by the same author that just came out in Japan. That’s something, right?

The Hero-Killing Bride: The God-Killing Maiden

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By Aoikou and Enji. Released in Japan as “Yuusha-goroshi no Hanayome” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Faye Duxovni.

I spoil one of the major “surprises” of this book in the third paragraph, just letting folks know.

There’s an implication in the afterword of this third volume that there will be more, as the author says this is the end of the first “arc”, talks about an online-only prequel, and tries to blackmail readers into buying enough copies to justify more of the series by implying they’ll throw sex in later. That said, it definitely has the feel of a final volume, and al the plot beats and secrets are revealed for all to see, so I won’t be surprised if we don’t get more. Alicia is still Best Girl, but I admit I was less wild about this volume than I was the first two, mostly because, in order to wrap things yup, it ended up being over 50% fighting against an annoying bad guy. As a general rule, anytime I can read a scene and have the bad guy say “Don’t you understand? Your weapons are USELESS against me!” a la MST3K and have it work perfectly, your bad guy is too over the top.

Now that Alicia’s mentor (and her beloved cat) have disappeared, Alicia and Cion are going around trying to stop the demons and negotiate with their leaders. This does not go particularly well. It goes even worse when the saint is also kidnapped, and there’s a huge wolf guy who is reminding Cion a lot of her missing mentor. And then there’s the guy we meet in the prologue, a former slave who tried to destroy everything ten years ago or so and has now reappeared and is trying to do all that over again. That said, the bad guy is very good at making our two heroines doubt themselves. Cion, who admits in the heat of battle that she loves Alicia without actually realizing it, is thrown off her game by almost anything, but especially the idea that Alicia may actually be an assassin sent to kill her. That can’t be right, can it?

And then there’s Alicia. She’s always been able to do most anything involving mana, even as she complains about running out of it. She’s survived being dead. Twice. And when she got a transfusion she grew animal ears and a tail. Funny, that. Oh yes, and she’s an orphan. Now we get the big reveal that she is in fact the daughter of the demon lord, which allows the bad guy to twist the relationship between her and Cion (who, y’know, killed the demon lord). That said, Alicia’s ancestry was never really why we read this book – and if I’m being honest, whether Alicia and Cion end up as a couple is not the reason either. We’re reading this to see if Alicia can meld her intense cynicism and bitterness over religion and the world they live in with the kind, pure heart and desire to save people. Which she finally does, trying her damnedest to save everyone, even the villain who has already murdered a WHOLE LOT of people. Fortunately, she gets a reward of “ignoring her boss and going on a vacation with her girlfriend and cat” at the end.

So yeah, good series, but too much fighting and it felt like a “you’re being cancelled, wrap it up” volume. For fans of Executioner and her Way of Life, as always.