Fresh from J-Novel Club, now also coming off the heels of an anime announcement, we’ve finally gotten the otome game inspired female protagonist take on the isekai light novel boom! I’ve been marginally aware about this for quite a bit, to the point where I was looking up Shosetsuka ni Narou! titles — a site which translates to Let’s Become Novelists!, dedicated to hosting/publishing user-created novels. Many titles that get noticed and become popular end up getting picked up by actual publishers–such as Kadokawa Shoten, Overlap, Hobby Japan, and several others–to be published as light novels and eventually even get adapted into anime. Among series that have gotten anime we have the likes of Overlord, Log Horizon, Re:Zero, KonoSuba, The irregular at magic high school, and even right now we have That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. What I’m trying to say is that this site is worth paying attention to. There are titles that have even gotten anime adaptations announced that are still in the production process and should be expected within the next year too, such as Rising of the Shield Hero, So I’m a Spider, So What, Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest, Kenja no Mago, and Didn’t I Say To Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! We haven’t gotten a date yet for Villainess yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s going to air maybe Summer or Fall 2019.

The premise of this series is pretty simple, and like most modern light novel titles, easily deducted from its title. The protagonist, a high school female otaku, ends up dying in a traffic accident after rushing on her bicycle due to oversleeping after spending a good chunk of the night playing a dating sim called Fortune Lover. She wakes up to find her memories of her past life flooding in after seven years of living as Katarina Claes, the antagonist of the very same game!

Overall, it was very charming to see the main character in Katarina’s shoes. The entire appeal of the story is that because she knows the main plot of the game, and certain character scenarios, she has to go out of her way to avoid setting off events that would endanger her life. It’s very frenetic in terms of how many events actually happen. However, because we’re firmly in Katarina’s headspace for the vast majority of the novel, it does not feel as hard to follow as it could have been. I’d say the clumsier parts involve the typical sort of lore-dump you’d expect in any isekai/transported-to-another-world story about how the world itself is set up and any sort of information we might need that could influence the direction the story takes. It turns quite endearing, though, whenever Katarina gets so invested in her recap/memory refresh, that she has to write everything down, or hold a “meeting” of sorts with her inner selves in order to plan her next actions at the introduction of a new main character who has a route in the game.

If you’ve read the blurb, checked out the cover, or listened to any other established fans of the series, you’d already know to expect that this series leans more into reverse harem-trappings of shoujo manga. That said, if that’s what you want, I guarantee you’ll be satisfied. Seeing Katarina blubber around like a dense milquetoast male harem lead, yet somehow exude hundreds of times more charisma and goodwill is incredibly fun and satisfying. What really sells this to me, but could undoubtedly turn off other readers, is a short change in perspective we get from each other characters who romantically begin to fall for her. It gets pretty repetitive, as we live events from their lives up to the point where they meet Katarina. Getting to see the exact moment they realize how much they love her, because of some offhand comment or act she made to them is so good! It gets incredibly silly because while reading from her perspective it becomes obvious from the shift in dialogue, or how their body language is observed, but Katarina herself is so clueless as to what it could possibly mean, since she’s just an otaku and can’t ever truly fit in completely in high class pseudo-European noble society.

It’s actually very genius the way this all comes together. One of my favorite tropes is honest idiots who attract others and don’t even realize how they’re bringing everyone together. Bakarina–as she’s affectionately called by fans–is such an idiot, that the second to last chapter has an excerpt POV from her personal maid, who noticed those exact moments when all of her friends became romantically inclined towards her, and shares her own story of how she came to love and appreciate the gospel of Bakarina herself. The premise of “consciously avoiding death flags” as the villain of a story who is just plain NOT accommodated in the writing to have any sort of decent or neutral ending basically flipped into “what if the villainess became the heroine instead?” because all she does is literally trigger events meant for the player character or even other NPCs, and has somehow gotten onto the “route” of every single suitor of the game and even one of the girls meant to be a rival character for one of those suitors.

Now, you may be looking at your screen now, upset that I have basically spoiled the entire story for you. I’m here to let you know–you won’t care once you read. This is truly a case where the devil is in the details, where the journey matters more than the destination, etc. I’ve had multiple laugh out loud moments from throwaway instances meant as single gags. One of my favorite moments is a scene where Bakarina’s first conquest, the third crown prince, Jeord, decides to propose to her in her manor’s field, only for Bakarina to feel awkward because she’s in the middle of gardening in her overalls.

Truly genius.

If you want more context, I implore you to read this book. As of now, there is actually a sale on Bookwalker that lets you buy the whole first volume for $4.15 until December 3rd. Naturally, you can also read it on J-Novel Club’s website if you have a membership. You can also purchase it on other sites like Amazon, NOOK, iBooks, and Kobo through their site as well. I had a wonderful time reading this, and I’d recommend it if you’d be into something the likes of Ouran High School Host Club meets The World Only God Knows, Meets Overlord.