I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss is a fun and adorable read for any lover of soft and sweet light novels. A wonderful classic magical tale.

Book Review
Title: I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss (Light Novel Vol. 1) by Sarasa Nagase
Genre: Light Novel, Translation
Rating: 4 Stars
I haven’t heard anything about this series before but it sounded like an interesting take on the isekai genre. We are introduced Lady Aileen as her betrothal to Cedric Jean Ellmeyer, the crown prince of Imperial Ellmeyer is being dissolved so he can be with Lilia. Aileen or the person in Aileen’s body remembers the plot of this particular game although she has always been Lilia and decides that she is going to change the outcome of the game where Aileen dies but she doesn’t know how until she decides to ally herself with Demon King, Cedric’s enemy. We learn that girl who is currently Aileen had been sickly in her human life and spent a lot of time playing the game, Regalia of Saints, Demons, and Maidens in which she know finds herself which should give her an advantage but her memories are still full of holes since she only just got them back. Her new aim is to seduce and marry, Cedric’s older half-brother, Claude Jean Ellmeyer, also known as the Demon King. Aileen is aware of the fact that in most endings of the game she dies and that is what she is trying to prevent and the only way to do that is to seduce Claude and prevents him from awakening as the Demon King which is going to be hard as Claude initially wants nothing to do with her and sends her away despite her protests but she knows given time and the right leverage she can break him down to where she needs him to survive.
Aileen has also realises that her memories might have returned too late as Cedric and Lilia are planning to announce their own engagement in two months’ time as Aileen has been summoned to the event. If she attends she will be made a laughing stock again unless she has a plan and if she doesn’t her father will disown her and kick her out so she doesn’t have much time to get the Demon King on her side. Aileen isn’t making much progress with the Demon King but when she offers to go and rescue a child Fenrir from humans as it has strayed beyond the barrier and successfully does it getting injured herself, the Demon King appears in person to thank her shocking everyone present including Lilia and Cedric. After this she does tell Claude her reasons for seeking his affections and it seems like she is finally getting through to him a little and I am excited to see where their romance and story goes. Aileen’s rank is in danger as Cedric has stolen her business idea so she turns to Claude and asks for permission to renovate the castle to provide jobs to the people that Cedric fired from the lower classes and possibly use some of his land in order to grow plants for a new business venture and Claude surprisingly agrees. Aileen also has a journalist friend, Jason looking into the theft of both Keith and Claude’s allowances and hopefully change public opinion on the Demon King and demons in general.
Aileen and Claude’s relationship is changing slowly as is Aileen’s views on the Demon King and demons in general which is surprisingly the higher ranking demons close to the King. Aileen’s plan for her new business are also going well but Lilia has created a scheme where she is trying to frame Aileen for her “kidnapping” when she has been behind it herself in order to win the affection of the Demon King but where Aileen got there first Claude won’t even listen to Lilia and basically kicks her out of the castle ruining her plans before they have even begun and the time has finally arrive for the soiree where Aileen is going to officially dissolve her engagement to Cedric and hand over control of her old business to him. At the soiree Aileen is able to recover some of her position and standing after the dissolution of her engagement to Cedric and Claude seems to be making their relationship more publicly known even if Aileen isn’t sure where they stand yet. However, more memories return from her time of playing the game and she realises that the thing that pushes Claude over the edge and makes him transform into the Demon King is being betrayed by his best friend, Keith who is also one of his attendants and Aileen has to stop Keith from betraying Claude in order to keep herself alive but she doesn’t know if Keith is already betraying him or if its to come in the future and she also doesn’t know why.
As we follow Aileen as she uncovers the plot and puts everything right even going as far as being able to restore Claude to his human form after he transform when he learns that she has been kidnapped by Cedric to be his second wife. Overall, I actually really enjoyed I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss and if it has a manga adaptation then I will definitely be checking that out as well because this story was wholesome, cute, funny and even made me tear up at one or two points. Highly recommended.

I’m a huge fan of Japanese light novels featuring villainess. I’ve had to resort to fan translations before but I’m glad official translations books are coming out!

I love Aileen and her character. Pretty much everyone is great except for the evil trio of idiots.