With the new year, I feel the need to make some kind of year-in-review list. So even though I've largely stopped reading comics (the desire to read ebbs and flows every six month), here are the otoisekai that stuck out to me the most in 2024
Crimson Lady/Resetting Lady
What can I even say about the GOAT? As we crawl towards a conclusion, the despair only grows. Death is the only answer, death must be avoided at all costs.
The Villainess Who is No Better than an Extra Cross-dresses to Be a Love Interest
I never talked about this one, namely because I'm not sure how to describe it without focusing on its wokeness. But it is woke. It's bizarrely, strangely woke, as well as genuinely enjoyable, but I keep getting fixated on all the genre-unusual progressiveness, like
BELIEVABLE female crossdressing in a shojo manga
her older brother is fat, a good person, and nobody ever comments on his weight (this point is the most shocking to me honestly)
Older brother is loudly supportive of his gnc sister and male cousin
Unclear if MC is gay, transmasc, or just doing this out of survival, but it says something that becoming a love interest was her *first* response
Boy the MC bewitched in girl form as a child is thrown off by her handsome appearance as an adult, yet awkwardly asks if she wants help breaking her engagement with a man
I forgot, originally he was the stock "sexist love interest who dials it back for his one true love" type, but this one shatters the mold not by making her the one girl he isn't mean to, but instead having him step back from his feelings and step UP as a genuine, actual, fr ally and continuing their friendship. Insane upgrade.
And it all feels pretty organic! They'll hint at complicated feelings from the people around her without grandstanding or molding medieval-y types into 21st century values
Like I can't emphasize enough how weird it is to see a child drawn like this and they're not evil
Behind Her Highness's Smile
I never talked about this one for the opposite reasons of the above. Um. Extremely horny ethicsplay* thriller about a mentally-challenged princess forced to marry a duke (who, in turn, was forced to marry a mentally-challenged princess). What if you were the abused sexy sensual prisoner princess forcibly married to a smoldering tall dark-haired duke AND you had brain damage.
Let me say that I enjoy this story sincerely and that her issues are not played lightly, but it is absolutely going for eroticism. Like oh nooo, you're not mentally competent enough to consent 😉😉 the duke could do whatever he wants and you're too dumb and doll-like to do anything about it😉😉😉 also your maids roofied you😉did I mention your sick bastard brother-king made you like this? And that he takes immense pleasure in that fact?🤫
But I know what you're thinking. Because I was thinking it. For chapters and chapters. "Surely this is a ruse. They didn't actually write a mentally handicapped female lead, not when it's already so horny. This is just to add to the fucked up atmosphere that feeds into everything because there's no fucking way anyone would keep to this premise. Wow she's really committing to the bit lol, not giving an inch. If I were gullible, I would believe they're actually going to fuck. Wait. Was that guy supposed to represent the writer talking to the reader? Hey?"
Did they? Read to find out :)
*I've always hated describing stories as problematic (positive). Ethicsplay, like the story is fucked up. They know it's fucked up, YOU know it's fucked up, and that's why you're here reading it.
A Splendid Revenge Story of a Super-Dreadnought Cheat Villainess
I don't have a lot to say about this one other than it's a refreshing revenge-centric OI. It's not treading new ground, but it executes the genre's tropes well. The villains are exaggerated caricatures of hubris, brazen leeches who've forgotten whose blood they've been surviving on, each with their own distinctive brand of arrogance introduced at a measured pace to keep the true hero's OPness from getting boring, all with a unique stylistic flair.
Princess revenge stories are frequently derailed by dull romance or the desire to reinvent capitalism, so the fact that Super-Dreadnought commits itself to smiting Lunaria's enemies without straying from the path makes it a high recommend.
Turning the Mad Dog into a Genteel Lord
I realized I don't have enough screenshots to prove my controversial opinion (that this is less puppy dog bf fantasy and more crypto-age reggressor/caretaker right up until they knew it would mess with the overall light and goofy tone), and I can't say those kinds of things without proof. so. I'll save that for another day.
Anyway. Plot: Priestess Diarin, who is so hot I have more screenshots of her than any of the men, has to tame an abused beast-like 6'8 shredded ex-child soldier into a noble. She's the only one who can change him, she's the only one he can be vulnerable with. Middling plot, heavy slapstick/reaction face-based humor, but everyone is sexy and there are mild to moderate sadist-on-the-art-team impies, so. Recommend.
On an unrelated note can tappytoons please stop picking up manwha with good art? Their translation choices make me unreasonably mad.
If they draw shoes like this, please let Lezhin handle it? I can't take the comma stutters and obvious tone neutering.
This won't mean anything to anyone here but The Villainess Turns the Hourglass unironically improved my life if only for that part where Aria picks through various economic textbooks but realizes even the 101 textbooks are too difficult for her to grasp, so she sucks up her pride and tries Economics for Dumb Morons Five Years Younger than You. And it works.
I can't believe I've been slamming my head in a wall my whole life refusing to look at the kid's nonfiction section. All those thick python and robotics books with no pictures I wasted money on...I should have swallowed my embarrassment and learned to code at *my* level. Who cares how, as long as you get there
it was in Villainess Turns the Hourglass! i chose it from your recommendation list because it had the most eye emojis and i like it a lot
I'm so glad to hear that! I don't think I've ever talked about The a Villainess Turns the Hourglass despite it being one of my favorites, but I liked it so much, I trudged through machine translation of the novels. If I had a daughter, I would name her Aria, yes I would be That Guy
Underrated is the maid slappage tiers - you have Jesse (who I did not appreciate until I had dozens of otoisekais under my belt, I can't believe I thought she was taking too long to accept Aria had changed) losing her tongue, serving as a permanent reminder that Aria might have been railroaded onto the park of malevolence but that doesn't negate her choosing violence
Annie (who I looooove, I love unabashedly greedy girls, shameless characters who can't comprehend why they even should be ashamed) getting mentally slapped around a little but prospers in the end - I headcanon her stupid husband dies and she gets the real harlequin Duke romance she dreamed of #teamannie
you have Berry who. Hahahaha. You know. She got it even worse in the novel. Love love loved Aria's acknowledgment that honestly, Berry was no worse than the rest of the maids inciting her. She could have forgiven Berry, just like she forgave Annie. Could have!
And of course, you have the ending. I liked the addition, even if I felt it could have been sharper - I like dragged out humiliation over insta-kills.
Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed it! Fantastic art, killer fashion, commits to the vengeance bit for most of the story, and Aria starts a villain and ends with some villainous traits intact. Fun for the whole family
As much as I love your recommends I also want to know your anti recommends and why. You mentioned before lady wants to rest and your hatred to villainess lives twice I’m curious about others and Reasons
Wtf did i mention Lady Wants to Rest on here? I know I said I don't recommend it in the tags off the maid slap post, but I don't remember going in on it. In case I didn't, my dumb habit of high hopes for what is largely a genre about being a pretty princess rescued by a handsome, stoic knight/prince/duke and my habit of finding kernels of edgy potential mean I'm disappointed frequently, and that happened hard with The Lady Wants to Rest.
The premise is that this person has been reincarnating for over a thousand years for some inexplicable reason and they are just. Tired. They don't remember who they were in the beginning, but they've seen all there is to see, done everything there is to do, experienced every caste. They've been a tyrant, a slave, a teacher, a prostitute, a soldier, a man, a woman, everything except someone who can relax for five seconds.
I don't think it's fair to ding a story for not giving me what I wanted - a rightfully jaded inhuman who just wants to die, but has to settle for speedrunning human interaction - but it is fair to ding it for being boring. I don't understand how this setup lead to the most generic, paint by numbers, princess spam I've seen this year. You can't even blame it on being a shitty adaptation - the novel it's based on is a disappointment for the exact same reasons.
We've got OP mary sue powers protect the story from things like tension. We've got the myladymyladylaaaaady sidekick-cheerleader- less attractive best friend-maid. We've got various skillsets the author thinks is cultured/refined but clearly doesn't know a whole lot about used to show how cool the MC is. She's the number 1 poker player and the number 1 harp player and the number 1 teacher and none of this means anything, none of this has impact, you're just watching a character be better than everyone in one scene into the next.
When i said I wanted this to be about speedrunning human interactions, I meant I wanted this girl's brain to work like || Interpersonal Conflict Speedrun Any% (WR) ||
Like maid slap thing - 9 times out of 10, such scenes are about standing up for yourself, recognizing your worth, putting bullies in their place.
But her variant of this staple scene is detached, impersonal. "There's 20 ways to handle this. Given the known variables, inflicting fear offers the quickest resolution. On the off chance I need her later, I can ape a manipulative kindness."
THAT'S what I wanted the whole story to be. Over a thousand years, I'm sure you learn what gets people to do what you want. Over a thousand years, blatant disrespect would feel like an Oblivion npc guard. The level of human alienation immortality would warrant could have been sooo fun and sooo interesting. I wanted a sociopath, not a bored Mary Sue.
I feel like it’s safe to say it here. I hate seduce the villains dad so damn much. So much! Like the villainess is the type that every other story deconstructs yet this story plays it up shamelessly and people dare to put its uwu protag with villainess protags it drives me up the wall
I thought I was gonna be with you (in that I didn't like Seduce the Villain's Dad right away because the protagonist is kind of... I've been called mom/mommy by someone I didn't know that well and I didn't like it) but I'm actually not sure what you mean?
I remember her as unabashedly manipulative, only looking out for her own personal gain. I like when villainess characters remain that way and I'm always a little disappointed when they get entirely redeemed or retconned as misunderstood.
IMO the deconstructed villainess typically explain the usually condemned behavior like how like it or not, this IS an aristocratic society so your true love commoner wife will inherently cause political factions or the obvious "I don't know how to explain to you that seeing my fiance openly flirt with other women and publicly rebuking me, all while the whole school sneers and gossips about it makes me feel like the world's biggest clown" is a very normal thing for a teenager to be mad about. One of my favorite examples of this was the one shot The Villainess Laughs Innocently, from a greater anthology of otome isekai stories
In this story, Elodia's not that type? I don't want to say Elodia is "just" a villainess, but she has motives and desires that aren't romance related. I like these kind of girls, I love when girls are greedy, ambitious, calculating, manipulative, etc. There's little too misunderstand; she's just a girlboss who wants to stay winning
(in which the main character learns not to fall for a pretty face alone)
So if what you're saying is you hate it because you would rather read about Elodia, okay sure she's pretty cool. If you're saying people ship the main character with the villainess, I don't personally have a problem with that. Elodia's the only character in the story who's cold, cruel, AND sexy, so no matter what, she's getting shipped with the pink marshmallow character.
But regardless, it's absolutely fine for you to hate her for whatever reasons, I'm not a cop. Whichever one you think is a bitch, go on and hate that bitch.
I posted a long ass rant about the garbage pretend-smart, fakeout revenge comic The Villainess Lives Twice in a few places, but nothing demonstrates it's badness more than these back-to-back panels, drawn with zero awareness or irony
'this wont mean anything to anyone here..' it means something to me (otome isekai anon)! I really liked that part, especially now ive read other OI where the main lead picks up the hardest books and becomes an instant expert. honestly villainess turns the hourglass is inspiring overall in how to carefully reinvent yourself..
Yay shameless brain buddies💕
It's hard to appreciate the slowish pace of Aria's transformation until you've sat through 20 bad girls instantly forgiven, instantly brilliant, and a hair past instantly finished with their vengeance plot once a man gets involved. She earns her place at the top
