By Len Kagizaki and Akira Shigaraki. Released in Japan as “Akujo Nisshi -Otaku na Akujo (?) no Shinkon Seikatsu-” by Maple Novels. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Emma Schumacker.

This review does spoil the biggest reveal in the book, sorry about that.

When I saw this was coming out one month after From Bumbling Prodigy to Villainess debuted, I was somewhat puzzled. Let’s face it, the two have a premise that’s so similar it’s almost eerie. But after reading it, I can see the differences that make this one stand out. For one thing, Bumbling Prodigy has one normal guy trying to deal with his very sheltered, eccentric, somewhat autistic nerd of a wife, with help from snickering servants. Whereas this title has the exact same thing, only the guy is also a nerd. There’s an evil dad. There’s a younger sister who uses the name of her older sister in order to go out and fool around, which gives the older sister the bad reputation. And yeah, that’s exactly the same here, though the reasoning behind it is very different. And both leads are hilarious. But in the end, the difference is that Avril is a savant, while Estelle is a nerd. In a good way.

Estelle Aublanc is sitting in her bedroom researching magic circles – which she’s done for the last ten years or so – when her father shows up and demands that she get made up gaudily and go meet with a prospective fiance. It turns out her sister has dragged her name into the mud, and now a marquess with a reputation for being cold wants to marry her. Estelle does not particularly care about the marriage as long as she can study magic circles. Though her father threatening to burn all her research does galvanize her to try at least a little. Unfortunately, trying to act like a “villainess”, like her fiance has requested, turns out to be difficult as she has no idea what one does. She doesn’t want to wear all that sticky makeup. She doesn’t really have it in her to be mean to servants. And what’s a callboy anyway?

To get the bad out of the way, like many in its genre, this book suffers from a bad case of “the same scene from a different perspective.” Estelle’s narration runs about 30 pages or so, then we get 15 or so from Gerald’s perspective giving us the exact same scenes and dialogue. This was annoying in Bakarina and its imitators, and it’s still annoying here. Other than that, this is a delight. I will try not to spoil but the most interesting part of the book is Estelle’s sister Alette. The fact that Estelle is so happy to meet everyone and everything helps disguise things, as she’s exactly the same when it comes to her sister. Alette’s scheming is rather brilliant, frankly, and I like that we get a younger sister who is neither evil NOR an innocent waif. Actually, while not having any explicit on-screen sex, this book is pretty spicy, especially towards the end.

So yeah, that’s why CIW licensed this one right after Bumbling Prodigy. They’re both winners. I look forward to the second book, though unlike Bumbling Prodigy it’s not being fast-tracked by the company.