AstralRabbit summed it up nicely. I’ve read up to around 51 chapters so far, and once she started the Last MC route late into the series, she became a typical woman going for the typical bad boy, which irritates me to no end. Bad boy is an assassin for her brother…who is out to end her life. I’m dropping it.

... Last updated on November 30th, 2021, 10:48am

[as of chapter 48]

Spoiler Free TL;DR

If you have negative perceptions of this sub-genre, look no further than the equivalent of filth upon your shoe. Of white pain upon white wall. Of moss upon stone. Fuck me this is bad, and a whiskey made it worse. Contentless to the point of hoovering up my willpower. Didn’t even do me the solid of being HOT, contentless trash. no thank u, nxt.

Review

“When the Villainess is in Love” is a nothing burger. Holy shit, what a waste of serviceable art.

I am dry, dry, DRY! Gasping for some semblance of intrigue. There is a deficit stretching from the plot to those that inhabit it. The setting, to the details within it. The fact that the anime “Diabolik Lovers” has an average of 47% on AniList versus the 78% for this manhwa is a crime. At least “Diabolik…” was funny! It wasn’t trying to be anything more than an advert for an alternative portion of intellectual property. It’s also not falling flat on it’s face while attempting one of the most well trodden genre conceits in recent years. If anything, “When the Villainess…” takes all the most vacuous of inspiration from a female lead being surrounded by candy coloured (and coded) bishounen, in the romantic equivalent of limbo with blue balls, and slaps the “Villainess Isekai’d” trope on it. These relationships and characters are as empty as anything made to solely serve the purpose "to advertise".

What whiff of edge hinted at in the original novel has been totally bled out for our MC, a Labrador-esque simpleton, who can say anything and do anything. There are not limits placed upon her by her post or her position in the story. She has unlimited wealth, no present enemies (okay, a mirage of a half-brother) and a NON-EXISTENT deadly illness. She barely even goes through an arc with most of her main coterie before they are lapping at her heels. W. T. F. I genuinely have never seen an isekai with similar premise that has this little in tangible hooks. There is a character you like born and raised in crippling poverty, still living on the streets? Drop a house on it! Where is the fluff? I can’t lie on a couch as thin as a pillow case.

This is rotten at ground level. Interpersonal drama is the only avenue this story has for titillation. It doesn’t and can’t give it to me. The first boy, Mr. White Haired Knight, has the longest arc with the most development from “unfriendly” to “possible lover”. His presentation in the story makes very little sense to me and borders on incoherent. He lacks definition separate from his razor sharp abs. This is less obvious for other characters because they have such short interpersonal arcs with the MC that they demonstrate a truncated brevity of character as to be incognito from inception. The MC doesn’t become friends with "novel characters", she becomes friends with characters from throw away omegaverse fanfiction sold for 50p in Poundland.

I should also note for posterity that when I say “serviceable” art, I really mean it. The MC and male character designs are attractive (but unmemorable), but every other piece of presentation mimics that which it presents. Dull, lifeless and rote. Well done, the backgrounds are… okay. The panel and frame composition… are present? Even I’m not sold on that last one. At least the detail on the musculature of our male harem looks human anatomy-ish! But while many of them show themselves off provocatively, the fan service is still non-existent. The MC doesn’t even have the decency of allowing my most base elements to be satisfied.

I did originally give this a 55 because it didn’t insult me and I did quite like looking at the male character art, HOWEVER, I’ve talked myself into considering “MUHHH QUALITY”. My qualitative meter is reading "nooooooooooo".

It’s ridiculous and sweet and I’m loving it. Kind of like brainless fluff that makes you smile.

... Last updated on August 25th, 2021, 2:08pm

Beautiful drawing, trash love development

The story started out pretty good - the premise is interesting and different enough from other otome isekais. The art is pretty too.

The first two guys got a decent amount of screen time and I can see why they’d fall for the FL. When the third guy was introduced it got kind of confusing though, since we barely saw him, the FL barely interacted with him, and somehow he has a crush on her? I guess it must be her looks? I assumed they’d get to know each other more later on.

Then the fourth / final ML gets introduced and despite the story making it clear that this character is super cold-hearted to begin with and has no reason to like the FL at all, seems like he really likes her from the get-go?

I’m at the end of season one, and I see the story going one of two ways. It could be that the latter two MLs have ulterior motives for being seemingly infatuated with the FL and haven’t actually fallen for her in the span of a couple hours together and it’s part of the plot. Or, it’s just questionable writing where despite how these men are supposed to be cold and ruthless, they just happen to behave totally out of character for the FL.

Dropped ch.47
Kind of surpringing that this one is so popular. Everything is tropey and formulaic, and the reverse harem plot is as unwelcoming as always, The FL is an idiot, which is fine, but ends up coming off selfish and superficial as the MLs love her for no real reason, and because of misconceptions about her, and I think the introduction of the 3rd ML is where everything really starts falling apart. The the 4th's

Man I don't know. It's a guilty pleasure. It's objectively not that great, but it's fun. It should annoy me (it has almost every shoujo isekai trope I dislike tbh) but it doesn't for some reason. Maybe because it updates so slow any irritation I felt would have cooled off by the next chapter? Idk

Romance? Nah this isn't romance. This is dense FL walking around and getting attention for no apparent reason. Literally the kind of FL that gets usurped by a isekai'd person! It's fluff without any heart-throbbing romance, so yeah it kinda fails at fluff as well.

This would have been a really good book if it didn't rely so heavily on the same rinse and repeat tactics to get the males to fall for the FL. All of the interactions are, meet males, interact with them a little, cough up blood so that sympathy compels them to love her, and then rinse and repeat.

While it is funny to see the overreaction to her dying, the humor quickly gets lost behind the FL's insensitivity to the characters she herself calls friends. She gives this touching dialog about how friends are supposed to act, but then she remains oblivious to the fact that her friends are sad she is dying. She isn't even stupid as she is just written by the author not to care.

Her lack of caring is even more annoying as she is presented as someone who cares so much about these men that she saved them from their death endings, but somehow doesn't care enough to notice they are so torn up over her dying that they are literally suffering from the 5 stages of grief?

This complaint is just a personal complaint, I don't like unnecessary ogling, the FL ogles so much that even when people are sincerely pouring their heart out to her, she isn't listening to them. I've got nothing against ogling, but the way she is written to ignore the men, she may as well just be a guy gawking at all the boobs on every girl trying to have a conversation with him.

Overall the story isn't bad, its just ok. I don't plan to drop it, but I also don't plan on suggesting to anyone. I feel if the characters had been fleshed out more, and if the author just let the characters react and grow from the things happening around them, then I feel it would have been a lot more enjoyable for me to read.

... Last updated on April 25th, 2021, 9:42pm

I feel a bit bad giving this such a comparatively low rating - but I just don't enjoy the story as much as other people seem to.

The plot just follows into the genre's pre-made foodprints - and it's slipping along the way. We get a bunch of handsome male characters - they aren't completely generic but they all seem to obsess over the female lead a little too easily. Some of their feelings also seem to be linked to pity which brings me to my biggest concern in the series:
The FL's denseness. She got the badass facial features of her predecessor (who would have made a much more interesting protagonist imo) but not much else. She is way too dense to understand when her actions come out as flirtatious, she doesn't get when the males all start simping for her despite being a die-hard fan of the novel in which all of them appear and act the same way towards the heroine as they now do towards her, she doesn't understand people pitying her.
Yet, somehow she continuously benefits from her denseness because no one is holding her accountable for anything. Never mind the fact that she is essentially depressing the hell out of everyone who cares about her by pretending to be terminally ill.

There also seems to be plot cycle that repeats itself after every couple chapters.
FL does something nice > 1 or multiple ML simp > FL too dense to see the simping > 1 or multiple ML try to explain it to her > FL starts coughing blood/saying something ambiguous that sounds like she is about to die > one or multiple ML feel too bad to continue the conversation > FL rests/has flashback and REPEAT.

To sum it up:
I wish more authors would have the courage to write actually flawed characters - instead of explaining all bad actions away with denseness.