Reviews

I like villainess stories. I think that the premise inherently allows for a deeper exploration of characters than most shounen/seinen stories do. That being said this villainess manga, which are not nearly as common as villainess manhwa mind you, trades in this unique aspect of the premise in favour of subversion. Here the original villainess comes back to her body after the saint like transmigrator is betrayed. From here on the villainess wants to do right by the transmigrator and take revenge. This manga aims to combine the villainess setting with the ever popular kingdom building isekai subgenre. And while it is moderately successful at doing this I do think that some of the aspects of the story are a bit lacking.

The main character, aka the original villainess called Remilia, is a pretty likeable protagonist exactly because she isn't overly generous or kind. She does good things mostly because she wants to set the stage for, and keep up the reputation of the transmigrator, Emi. While she appears like the typical dense saint like character to others, she herself is very much aware of what is going on and is pulling the strings behind the scenes. Sadly our antagonist, the original saintess Pina, doesn't have nearly as much of an interesting dynamic. She is cartoonishly evil in an irredeemably annoying way. It is clear that she is written like this so that the reader dislikes her and wants to root for the protagonist, but the end result is just that her character lacks depth. Because of the nature of her character Pina's goons, aka the original love interests, don't get any chances to shine either. This lack of depth for the antagonists has really sucked out most of the joy of this series. There is no reason to be interested in the politics or stakes because it will all work out for the protagonist anyhow. And any revenge taken against the cardboard cut outs we call antagonists in this story will just feel empty and boring at the end of the day.

The main bulk of the story so far is focused on the village that Remilia sets up and the way they gain power thorugh trade and political warfare. It is executed competently though I must admit that I am personally not the biggest fan of the genre itself. The art of the manga is generally quite good. It is a monthly series so there is a quality to the chapters that is definitely better than most weekly series. Sometimes there are truly breath taking panels with unique enemy design or very creative background choices. Sadly action is not really a main focus of this story, yet atleast, and as such these highlights don't seem to be making a comeback.

Overall I would say this manga is pretty solid. I personally expected a much more impressive story though, considering the 8.26 rating it currently has on this site. In my opinion while it has its highlights the current product is little more than a very competently made isekai manga, which I suppose only goes so far in being able to differentiate itself from the others in the genre.