The Villainess’s Guide to (Not) Falling in Love Volume 3 Review
Reincarnated villainess Luciana is in a predicament: having woken up in the body of her favourite video game’s antagonist, she thought she just had to avoid bringing any attention to herself so that the protagonist and her chosen love interest would not disgrace her and strip her of her wealth. Instead, Luciana is not only drawing the attention of all the handsome men in the game but they discover she has been enchanted, with a mysterious seal found within her eye. As her brother Saphir tries to help get to the bottom of it, Luciana finds herself deeper into the game and world than she ever intended to be.
Like Volume 2 of this light novel to manga adaptation, Volume 3 is heavy on dialogue and exposition, with little-to-no action to keep up the interest. However I did not find it as much of a slog to get through as I did Volume 2 for several reasons. One is the change of locations: the second book felt like it only took place in two locations with the same cast of characters, but this time we move from the school, to the gardens, to Luciana’s home briefly before going to a fancy banquet. Secondly there’s a few more characters and different dynamics at play. At the start of this book, we’re introduced to a new love interest, Joshua, the eldest brother of the Wisteria family. He wasn’t a love interest highlighted in the page-spread we got in the first volume, but in his bio it’s stated he was an unlockable love interest within the game. He’s introduced as a long-haired, cultured and mature male love interest, but not long after, we see a more comedic side to him when he interacts with Saphir, who loves to wind Joshua up as they have shared history. I enjoyed their dynamic, not just because of the heavily implied yaoi undertones of their relationship (‘I know you love me but you’ve got to control yourself, commander’ and ‘I will always be waiting for you with a bottle of the finest wine’ are actual dialogue lines between the two) but also because the world feels more lived-in when you have characters with natural chemistry and past history that doesn’t centre on the protagonist. Also this book shows all three brothers of the Wisteria family. We met Louis in Volume 2, but then Aubin, the middle child, comes into play too, and all three brothers are all designed and act differently from each other, which again adds interesting conversations and dynamics with our villainess too. Lucas, the broody love interest from the first book, also makes minor appearances too, to keep him in the story but not overshadow the introductions of the other characters or make it clear which handsome man the story plans to make ‘end game’ for this tale.
Another reason I ended up reading this quickly was the continued trickle of new information. The enchantment on Luciana becomes more complicated as the series goes on, to the point that ‘something’ possesses her briefly while she sleeps, hinting at a real villain in the midst of all the glitz and glam of this story. The fact that the seal also happens to have ties to another family, who have no idea how it got there, also adds intrigue. And there’s the biographies we get of the new characters in-between chapters too, not just who the characters are but what role they played in the original game. The fact that Aubin was apparently a guide in the tutorial stages of the game, and Joshua was unlockable after completing the game first with Louis’s route, helps paint a picture of a full game with rules and levels that clearly the original author thought about. If you love lore and tidbits like that, then this series will keep you going for that reason.
But in the midst of all this, I couldn’t help but feel we’re drifting away from the series’ original pitch: a woman who has woken up in the body of a villainess, who’s trying to avoid a tragic death and not have any of the men fall in love with her. Aside from one line where Luciana internally admits that this luxury she’s experiencing now can’t last forever, there’s been little else to tie back to the main conflict. I’m hoping that the enchantment on her is related to her being in the game, but so far she hasn’t even hypothesised it. Another point to raise is her brother Saphir. I’ve noted his constant presence in my previous reviews and how that may or may not affect readers, as ‘incest’ is a sensitive topic in fiction. He is heavily featured in this book; he’s the most enjoyable when he’s flirting/bantering with Joshua, but there are plenty of scenes of him doting on his sister, there’s a bonus manga chapter centred on their relationship, and the additional side story from the light novel author is around Saphir too, inspired by the art on the title page of this book. But right now, I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt; it’s heavily hinted that he is more powerful (magic-wise) than he seems, with a secret he’s ready to reveal that ends this book on a cliffhanger, and the volume concludes with ‘Everything is about to change’ as a teaser for Volume 4 so we’ll see what his role turns out to be in this story. It probably doesn’t help that, aside from Lucas, there are few hints that the other males are even interested in Luciana in a romantic way, so the affections from her brother are doubly noticeable.
Art continues to be very good overall; all the men look gorgeous from head to toe, and the banquet looks very glamorous, selling the fantasy of living in luxury quite nicely. Meredith Singer continues to translate too, and I appreciate their attention to details in the between-chapters biographies and the jokes between the characters too. Volume 4 is not due out until July 2025.
So far, this villainess is doing well not falling in love with the handsome men she’s surrounded by, and therefore the dialogue-heavy story is starting to show some cracks, but I’m hoping it’ll pick up in the next volume with some big reveals.
Read a free preview of this volume here.
Our review copy from Square Enix Manga was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).
