Villainess in Love · review
A good OI (Otome Isekai) manhwa that focuses almost entirely on mature romance of the two main characters. It won't distract you with useless plot points like economy/capitalism, high society ladies drama, misunderstandings, political games, toxic relationships etc.. Plot FMC wakes up as the villainess and successfully stays away from main cast (including OGFL) during her academy years to avoid her tragic fate of death. After growing up, she has a drunken one night stand with the duke (ML). Realizing how hot ML is, she decides to just go with the flow to continue enjoying the tasty snack (ML). Review The good things * No gender norms. Womenin this series have their own lives and identities. They have careers, participate in battles against monsters, rise up in ranks, have friendships, eat out with their friends, are as strong as men when it comes to magic, have pre-marital sex and one night stands etc.. You won't see women drag each other down out of jealousy (which is such a common trope in OI).
* Great pacing and short series. The love story of main leads is complete, with a happy ending <3. It will make consistent progress, and the relationship progress feels natural. I also love how quickly and cleanly they deal with the antagonist towards the end.
* Excellent main ship. FL is strong and stands on an equal footing with ML when it comes to driving their relationship. They are horny for each other and both of them keep expressing that with words and actions. Unlike other OI manhwa, the main leads in this series are not "pure"/"heroic" and indulge in selfishness at times.
* Plenty of comedy throughout the series. No over-exposition and no milking the past trauma for drama. cuts off all the extra "lore"/cruft and focuses only on the main love story. Good art (and plenty of fan service), but the faces do look a little plain and generic.
The bad things
* No point in making FL an other-world soul. She never uses the modern knowledge and rarely talks about her past life/family.
* Side ships (like OGFL) are completely ignored. A particular blonde male character is introduced as a potential love interest for OGFL and then, just disappears from the story after a while.
Overall
I would recommend it as a good OI manhwa for OI fans. It makes good use of tropes/cliches, to show you pieces of puzzle, so that you can infer the rest of the missing generic filler. This might make new OI readers feel a little lost, as they aren't yet aware of common cliches in this genre.