By the time we get to Volume 3 of the Villainess’ side of the story, is there even anything left to learn? Well, in I’m in Love with the Villainess: She’s so Cheeky for a Commoner, Volume 3, the answer is a resounding “Yes.”

This final volume of the series once again takes us through key points in the main story, from Claire’s perspective. Although we already know what Rae was planning – and why – watching Claire struggle against what she had to see as blunt force manipulation is both powerful and frustrating. In a sense, now we are able to understand Rae’s desperation fully. But, also, we are given much deeper insight into the person whois and who became Claire François.

We learn the full story of her youth, the loss of her mother and the ripples from that death that continue through and after the revolution. To fill the backstories with details we would not otherwise understand, we get the perspectives of Claire’s father, and mother, Pip and Loretta, Manaria, Lene, Misha and more.
The epilogue let’s us look both backwards…and forwards to see what becomes of some of our noble cast.

I have been a huge fan of this series from the first moment I read it, back in 2020. As a reverse-perspective, this spin-off series manages to provide a lot of insight and new information, a promise that reverse-perspectives often don’t live up to.

As I said, of my review of the JP volume (which wasn’t even a year ago…wow) if you enjoyed the main series, whether light novel, anime or manga, I highly recommend you read this iteration. It’s going to add a lot of new information to what has happened.  And may even move you to tears.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 10 Outstanding writing, yet again
Characters – 10 I cannot express to you how *good* the characters are here
Service – 3? 4? A bit, sometimes
Yuri/LGBTQ+ – Why yes, actually.

Overall – 10

I’m sorry to leave this series behind and hope there will be a published sequel one day.