The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess Volume 5 Review
Volume 4 of The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess leant more into the fantasy side of the setting as it introduced elves and vampires. The end of the book also introduced us to the Knights of Schwartz, a group that exists to put the storyline of the world back in order. Will Iana ever get to enjoy a peaceful life with danger lurking around every corner?
At the end of Volume 4, Iana’s companion Yomi was hurt in a fight with Kagura – a Knight of Schwartz. So we begin this book with the group heading off to Ginoford’s family manor, where they hope to ask his ex-roommate Yatori to help with healing Yomi back to full health.
Unfortunately for Iana, in the original story she wrote Yatori as an evildoer who existed to seduce Konoha while Ginoford was trapped in an eternal slumber or if he wasn’t, Yatori planned to duel to the death over Konoha’s affections! Of course, Iana doesn’t want Ginoford to die in a duel with Yatori, especially being her sister’s fiancé, so she’ll have to be on her best behaviour to not attract Yatori’s attention during their stay at the manor.
Elsewhere servant Sol is beginning to worry about his inability to protect Iana and feeling guilty for suspecting she would ever plot to murder her sister Konoha. It could even be that Sol has found himself falling in love with Iana, which is good for her since he won’t be looking to kill her anytime soon but as far as the plotline of her original story goes, this is a significant diversion which the world may look to correct no matter what it takes.
On the whole, this volume is fairly focused on the new character Yatori and his relationship with Ginoford, so Sol’s storyline is only briefly touched on in a single chapter. As far as Yatori goes, he’s not too dissimilar in personality to the other love interests we’ve seen introduced for Iana, but he does seem easier for our heroine to reason with than Yomi was when he was first introduced back in Volume 2. It can be a little difficult to tell who’s who if Sol also happens to be in a given scene, given they have very similar hairstyles, but luckily the author has given them quite different outfits which usually helps unless the scenes are very close-up shots of their faces.
I appreciate that this time around the author held back on introducing any more fantasy elements like in Volume 4 and instead focused on taking a break from the overarching storyline. The Knights of Schwartz are clearly intended to be the main antagonists and I think taking this respite for the cast to recover and consider their next steps is what it needed to do most of all.
But one thing readers may not appreciate this time around is that Ginoford is starting to show he has romantic feelings for Iana as well, despite being engaged to her sister. To Iana’s credit, she does recognise this is probably the world trying to put itself back on track and does her best to reject his advances, but it’s certainly a development I could have done without and I think others may end up feeling the same. Hopefully, it won’t be resurfacing in Volume 6.
The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess Volume 5 comes to the West thanks to Yen Press and continues to be translated by Lisa Coffman while lettering has changed hands from DK to Rachel J. Pierce. Both the translation and lettering read well with no issues to note. Volume 6 of the series is scheduled for a release in October and, given the synopsis mentions ninjas, I think we’ll be in for an interesting read there!
Overall, Volume 5 of The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess takes a step back from all the madness as of late and gives our cast a chance to rest and regain their strength. While I’m not completely on board with some of the directions the story takes this time around, I’m still eager to see what’s next for Iana.
