I have already read, enjoyed and reviewed this volume twice previously. The first time in Japanese and the second time in digital format, because I did not want to wait for the print edition. Now, at last, I have the print edition in English, from Seven Seas of I’m In Love With The Villainess, Volume 5.
Why did I read it again? Because as much as I love digital books for their convenience and accessibility, I find that I actually do read print differently. My eyes tire at a faster rate when I read text on paper than words on a screen, so a print book is a chance for me to slow down, take time with the words, the emotions, the feel of the story, rather than rushing through it for the content of the story.
In this final volume of the Demon Queen arc, we learn the Truth of The World. So many of the fragments we have been told suddenly make sense. What was at first a grand, epic, high-fantasy tale, has become something far more complex…and far more interesting because of it.
When I read this book this first time, I reviewed it thusly, “What if you had the chance to remake the entire world in order to save the person you love…and learned that the world was never what it seemed?”
And when I read this series the second time, I said, “Stories in which communities come together to build a better tomorrow. The fact that the leaders of this particular community are queer women is delicious icing on this sweet and satisfying narrative cake.”
In between these two things is a fascinatingly complex series of connections that use everything we have learned in the first 4 volumes, but almost without exception, use them in ways we could not have expected. Things that seemed like they might have become a whole side quest on their own are resolved almost offhandedly, but only to allow space for something far more interesting and relevant. In the end, this is a series about how people form relationships and how complicated it is to make space in the world for those relationships to thrive.
Ratings:
Art – 9 hanagata presents characters as cute and moe, but the art is visibly improved from the first volume
Story – 9
Characters – 10
Service – Very little, for perfectly good reasons
Yuri – 10
Queer – 10
Overall – 10
The worst thing about this series is that it ends. It had nerve making us care so much about fictitious characters and situations. Luckily for the ILTV fandom our enthusiasm has made the series more popular now than ever. If you’d like to lend a hand, drop into the voting for the “Next Light Novel Award” which will begin at 13:00 JT on November 16th and give your vote to inori-sensei’s work – the LNs could use a little love in Japan.
