Reviews for My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

Most Isekai protagonists max out in Strength, Inteligence, or Wisdom, and overpower their enemies with powerful fighting abilities and magic. Destruction Flag Otome's protagonist did none of these, instead placing all of her skill points into Charisma, and the result is Katarina Claes. Katarina, a noble, hits her head one day and remembers her past life as a Japanese high school girl in which she played a dating sim which was identical to the world where she now resides. Unfortunately, she seems to be the villainess, and any route that involves her character results in her death or exile. Deciding that this is unacceptable, Katarina decidesto evade disaster early by protecting herself from all possible outcomes. The end result is both comedic and wholesome as she locates 'capture targets' from the game and resolves their personal traumas before the game can even begin. Unfortunately, with all those points in Charisma and nothing in Intelligence, Katarina is too dense to realize that EVERYONE she comes into contact with sees her as a saint for her empathetic actions, and she remains blissfully unaware of the growing romantic rivalry between her newfound friends.

And I'll be honest, it worked on me too. I like happy, wholesome stories, and watching Katarina muddle her way through making people's lives better is both funny and uplifting, and I found myself grinning like an idiot from cover to cover. While characters see limited use after their respective arcs end, they make for great jokes and help move the plot along or brighten things on the rare occasion that the subject matter gets serious.

If you are reading this review and wondering how much of this story is going into the anime, my expectation is the equivalent of LN volumes 1 and 2 or up to Volume 4 Chapter 2 of the manga, with the story ending where the Otome Game itself is supposed to end.

While I am a massive fan of the anime, I have to face the facts about the novel - it just isn't very well written. Instead of writing a scene from the perspective of all of the characters involved, the author repeats the scene from each character's perspective who happened to be there. While this wouldn't be an issue if the retelling added any depth to the scene, the author oftentimes repeats the scene nearly word for word. Additionally, the author has the characters repeat nuggets of information over and over again. A lot of times the info drops are also word for word from other placesin the novel. Sometimes it will repeat after only a page or two. All of this repetition padding out the length of the book gets really old really fast and made me want to skim or just skip entire sections of the novel. Reading a light novel from a franchise I already love shouldn't be a grating chore...

The way the book is written also threw me off. The sentence/paragraph structure is basic and simplistic. Although light novels tend to have a simpler writing style than full length novels, they still manage to contain functional paragraphs, exposition, and clear progression of the plot. This had very little of that - the author jumped from point to point without fleshing out the idea they only just tried presenting, and the paragraphs don't really convey a single idea and are more so just a collection of sentences which happened to be thrown together like that.

I had really high expectations going into this light novel considering how great the anime was. However, if you really want to read the story, try the manga since it will circumvent most of the writing issues the novel presented - this light novel was a grand disappointment.

So I randomly got recommended the trailer for this on Youtube and I had to watch it. At first I didn't really know how to feel about it but after reading the manga, holy shit it's amazing. Story- The story follows a girl named Katarina Claes, a princess. The girl trips and hits her head on a rock and starts remembering her past memories. Only then does Katarina notice that in her past life, she was an otaku that loved the otome game “Fortune Lover”. She finds out that she has been reincarnated into the otome game villainess! All routes she's the villainess include her eitherdying or being exiled into another country, and Katarina has to stop that from happening! But how will she do it...?

First of all this was a brand new concept I never really thought would work well. But DAMN WAS I WRONG. Every chapter left me on the edge of my seat. I really wanted to know more. It was such a great story and I enjoyed it. The only bad thing I'd say is one of the biggest plot twists. I honestly expected it to happen but otherwise it was amazing.

Art- The artwork to this is really good and really nice. They can make Katarina look like both a badass and a dumbass at the same time.

Character- WHERE DO I BEGIN?! I loved everyone in the story so far. I couldn't hate anyone. Katarina's character is incredible. She's so stupid but at the same time she's so smart?? She's also such a sweetheart and has changed everyone's lives for the better. She is honestly my waifu and my best girl of all time. Everyone's different stories were so fascinating, I loved it to bits. I will hug everyone in the series now.

Enjoyment- I enjoyed this story from start to finish. It was such a fun series and I'm so happy I read the story.

Overall- I 100% recommend reading the manga! I'm currently reading the light novel and I love this series so much!