Title: An Observation Log of My Fiancée Who Calls Herself a Villainess

Creator: Shiki (author) + Natume Hasumi (illustrator)

Demographic: Shojo

Themes: villainess, romance, fantasy, comedy

Status: Completed + Fully Translated to English

Published By: Alpha Manga

LINK: Kindle (3 Volumes) + Full series on Alpha Manga

Official Summary:

Because Prince Cecil is extraordinarily intelligent, life is boring for him. His days are without much excitement, but he becomes engaged to Bertia, the daughter of a marquis. The first thing she says to him when they first meet is quite baffling. She claims she is the “villainous heroine” in the story of his life!! According to Bertia, she has memories of her previous life. In a certain “romance game” she played in her life before, she played the character of the “villainess.” Her purpose in her new life is to become an exemplary villainess and ruin the prince’s engagement. In order to achieve this goal, Bertia does one outrageous thing after another and brings chaos and confusion into his life. A unique “love” story with a twist!!

Thinky Thoughts

Not to be dramatic, but I would absolutely die for Bertia.

The main character of “An Observation Log of My Fiancée Who Calls Herself a Villainess”, Tia is the sweetest and most airheaded villainess that I could ever ask for.

Absolutely earnest in her goals to have the story play out alongside the original game that she knows, Tia goes to extreme lengths to try and force the plot post-transmigration to fit her memories of the original game. However, that earnestness changes the plot from day one when she boldly bounds up to Cecil, her future fiancé and the male lead of the game she had been playing in her previous life, and announces that she is a villainess.

It’s that cheery attempt at villainy that catches the eye of the chilly crown prince Cecil. While the series doesn’t attempt to diagnosis Cecil with anything (thank god), he has a noted detachment when it comes to people and things. Honestly, if he wasn’t the crown prince, he probably would’ve Peaced Out ages ago because even that doesn’t seem to have been interesting to him before meeting Bertia. But when he sees Bertia’s round face and brilliant smile coupled with this bold announcement that she’s a villain out to do bad things… for the first time, he feels… interest, not apathy.

Bertia is literally everything. She winds up with heroine armor – because she is the heroine now, not the game’s original main character – and the love of a cast that adores her because she’s weird as shit. Unlike most of the different transmigrator series, while Bertia has some memories of her past life… it’s mostly just the game. She’s not a 5 year old with memories of being a 25 year old.  Her emotional and mental capacities match her physical self… So again, she is weird as shit even when you account for how weird children usually are. The reputation that Bertia has in her family is as this adorable oddball who works out – like actively invents and lifts weights as a tadpole to get strong – and tries to sway her family to the side of evil is just… a lot for her family. To the point where, Cecil doesn’t even see Bertia for a long time after their first few meetings because her father says she’s ill with a case of “stupidity”.

(Is it nice? No. But… god did that remind me of my dad.)

The story starts when Cecil and Bertia are young and takes us to the point of the original otome game’s plot at the academy. It’s clear that Bertia has changed the story in several different ways – not just from her bubbly personality and inability to actually be a bad guy, but by telling Cecil things that make him act to see what she will do next or to protect her. So even before we get to the heroine – another transmigrator – the world of the original otome game has been been influenced for the better.

All transmigrators change the story they’ve been dropped into, even when they don’t mean to. Their existence outside of the norm threatens the universe from day one. However, little Bertia changes the world in an active way by announcing her goals and the needs of the plot to everyone who will listen (comparable to one of the unexpected antagonists of The Antagonist’s Pet whose desire to keep the plot perfect… mutates it beyond all repair).

A lot of times, when you read these series and look up the responses from other fans, a recurring complaint is that the female lead is “dumb” for basically having reasonable reactions to being dumped in a strange new world. Here, Bertia is… allergic to common sense and regularly actually does things that make you go “okay babygirl what are you doing” as her sense of justice drives her in ways that don’t ever meet with her common sense. She is adorable and sweet and so terrible at being a villainess – in fact, she often gets harmed by evil characters despite Cecil’s best attempts – that this is really just a “villainess” manga in terms of the original character – who was just a bully… didn’t even level up to attempted murder, I feel.

Anyway, I love this series. If you want to root for a goofy female lead and her icy yandere prince… get on top of it. I got the first three books from Amazon and then went to the app to read the rest. It’s just such a fun series and I really, truly, adore Bertia with every fiber of my being.

(Also… there’s a sequel series with the same characters that’s set in… a country from a completely unrelated novel.  Exciting!)