I think it's a power fantasy specific to women. A villainess character is powerful in the social sphere both personally and in status. She's also freed from certain societal expectations associated with "proper" women because she is assumed to be "Bad". Although in a lot of Villainess stories the characters end up being nice characters anyways, but they still have the excuse to be more forward and brash then female characters might usually be in Japanese works.

Nice. The alternate PoV was a fun read.
I hope to see Yuki become a kick ass mage after meeting up with Haruka and co

By and large I've enjoyed the Jessica Bannister series, but there's been two things that have been nagging a bit more recently. The first is a slight, incoherency, in when Jessica gets snippy. I don't mean inconsistency, she's been fairly consistent in when she gets snippy, but the way her attitude can shift to a brusque impatience often feels dissonant with a lot of her other internal thought patterns. I might simply not have as good a grasp of her character as I think I do, but at least a part of it feels like the author rushing a bit in certain parts.

The second, somewhat bigger issue, is some of the endings feel less like a solution to the crisis du jour was properly setup/foreshadowed/built towards. Case in point is this latest one, where Nadine just seems to, give up. It's extremely ambivalent as to what role exactly Jessica played, or how her prior interactions with Monique and her family helped resolve things. Maybe her presence in and of itself helped, but that impression was not a very strong one.

@rkkn I liked the web novel Death March, no matter how choppy it is. Can't bring myself to read the LN because of the changes.

BTW same goes for Slime, the author has dedicated entire LN volumes to what are (rightfully imo) minor, useless and irritating characters.

Volume 19 (Premium Edition): A Bonus Short Story & Textless Color Illustrations The Wolf Girl's Dream

Volume 3 (Premium Edition): A Bonus Short Story Ripples and Waves

@pcj said in Culinary Chronicles of the Court Flower Vol. 5 Discussion:

@alfaerin said in Culinary Chronicles of the Court Flower Vol. 5 Discussion:

Shohi and his camp may prefer to push Rimi as the empress instead.

That would be an interesting way to solve it. Let her be empress regnant and both of them can be her consorts. Dunno how well that would fly in their society though.

I mean that's the solution I've been thinking since around volume 2
However, it would probably mean she would go down in history as an evil woman who ensnared men and took over the Empire

@weasalopes I only got one out of three too. My doom radar was off, though I only picked the minor to minor moderate option. Still, though he only saw Dahlia as a vision, his mother was mentioned. Of course that doesn't really equate the "brother or other relative" option.

Either way the poll was fun.

Those were some great bonus stories 😁

Volumes 8 (Premium Edition): Exclusive Translator's Column

Volume 1 (Premium Edition): Bonus High-Resolution color inserts

Volume 6 (Premium Edition): Textless Cover Images

Yup probably going to take a long time for license to happen. I've looked at release schedule all the way to may and nothing shows up. I really hate waits like this.

On another note. I can't wait for Butterfly's sister to meet. It's going to be fun to see the contrast in everything.

Volume 1 (Premium Edition): Bonus notes from the translator

Volume 12 (Premium Edition): 2 Bonus Short Stories The Ruler's Petty Woes Pushing Past the Drowsiness

Hello,

For all those wondering about V13 of this series, for a general overview of how new volume starts are handled at J-Novel Club, please refer to the link in my post signature (below).

Thank you

The Applause of Marielle Clarac (Premium Edition): 2 Bonus Short Stories Marielle Simeon

The flash forward was clumsy, but I didn't hate the idea. A few moments of the new era were even interesting or poignant, like re-connecting with the surviving companions and reading about the church of Kaoru.

The big problem for me was that most of the rest of the new era was just more of the same with almost no new twists.

FUNA seems to have run out of new things to say with Kaoru, even with her new companions.

Oh well, at least Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear is still good.

@uui23 said in Der Werwolf Vol. 13 Discussion!:

@legitpancake so this series is still in negotiations limbo? Any prospects on how it will go or are we just stuck waiting?

I like this series and would like to see it continues but just waiting without any release date for awhile can kill interest

JNC is unlikely to discuss negotiations still in progress, It moved to Square Enix which slowed down the process but hopefully Square will be kind to readers and not move it to a new English publisher.

I was so looking forward to more volumes. This is almost a story who could be written based on my life ... from having tons of friends who were girls in HS (happens naturally in a school with girls to boys ratio 5 to 1), to learning over the years later that more than a few of the hottest ones would say yes if I'd only had asked (at the time, in my country a girl practically never confessed directly), and then the part with the female non-romantic best friend.

I had a best friend like that in college where we met over and shared the passion for indie theater and live performance (there were no online games at the time). I now realize that seeing us from aside we could only appear to be dating but in truth we never sought romantic relationship or crossed the line otherwise. We both dated normally other people but still remained close friends for years until I married the girl that has been my wife now for decades. We still keep occasionally in touch to chat about our life and children. While there was never drama or conflict like in this story, the situations and feelings in it are completely believable and relatable.

Now thinking about it, the author references so many trademarks and copyrighted names that it is likely there was a cease and desist letter or two that they decided are not worth fighting.

@kurosov I know but the problem is the overuse of this justification, I get that the "girl that is deliberately going after a engaged man and a guy that is betraying his fiancee to pursue a girl that he start to talk just 2 weeks ago" are problaby not good people. But this trope was so subverted in the last few years, that this is almost an expectation going in to the first chapter of a villainess story.