So yeah, I stumbled upon this title while I was actually on the look for isekai BLs. As much as I'm intrigued, my alarm is also RINGING like the FBI is about to barge in. Many of you probably knows the drill. Blahblah grooming, blahblah pseudoincestuous vibes, blahblah mental age, blahblah problematic. But no. [The Duke's Beloved Third Son Aims to Escape as a Villain!?] or Akuyaku no Goreisoku no Dounika shitai Nichijou is chaste, very chaste, even more chaste than some of the childcare OIs I do read. While the magazine it's published on does publish BLs, the majority of their stories are Josei. So far (51manga chapters in, which is like 120+ webtoon chapters), the only reason for the soft BL / shonen-ai label is because the MC is a boy, and about 95% of the people who adored and cared him are also men / boys.

And even then, the story takes one hell of a good care to strip the adoration from anything suggesting romance from either sides. There are no weird jealousy or possessiveness from the father and the brothers. Romantic attraction was never shown, discussed or even considered by any of the characters beyond one 'girls have cooties' incident. Sweet moments between characters are never portrayed in anything nearing romantic.

Lastly, the reason all these characters adored Franz, the MC, has nothing to do with how 'mature' he is and everything to do with how much of a sweet child he genuinely is.

In fact, the story takes this one step further by making Franz childish as HECK. While he does follow the usual premise of knowing he's in a game and remembering his previous identity as a high school student, he behaves exactly like the 6 years old he actually is. His previous life are rarely discussed, explored much less referenced, meanwhile there are quite a few moments where he actually struggles to understand adult words and concepts. So the narrative seems to position the reincarnation as 'a child that remembers something he shouldn't understand' instead of 'an adult that hijacks the body of a child'.

Now I might just be...not that well-read, but I have never seen a childcare story that does this; dragging the original mind down into childishness and immaturity instead of doing the opposite.

It's a refreshing move, and by the time I caught up with it, I feel nothing problematic about the story at all. This is just a slice of life story.

Now, as a story, this is...generic. The main conceit of the story really is just "MC lives his peaceful days, does something cute, and builds bonds with the people around him". The initial plot is a bit all over the place, but as the story goes, the narrative does attempt to add a bit of structure and escalation. There's a bit about curses that makes people cranky. There's a bit about supporting Franz's bishonen brothers. There's the usual bits about heroes and original plots and stopping death flags. None of it carries much weight, but everything goes steady and leisurely paced.

Characters are also...generic, with a few of them being nothing but mere vessels that offer different ways to adore the MC. But at the same time, this is the kind of story where the bonds between the characters are better fleshed out than the characters themselves. I might not remember which character is who, but I remember how they treated Franz and each other. The relationships felt natural and wholesome.

And then our MC... again, unlike many childcare protagonists, the narrative has made it clear that Franz's sweetness and adorable helpfulness IS his genuine self. This makes him a veritable himbo, and that can be slightly hit or miss. When it's a miss, there are absolutely times when I'm feeling irked, even annoyed by his immature, emptybrained antics.

But when it hits, it hits. It's ADORABLE. It's full of FLUFFY ROSY CHEEKS and INNOCENT SMILE and HUGE EYES and FRIENDLY HELPFULNESS.

Gah. My heart.

One little thing I do have to mention is that the available scanlation is... not the best in both appearance and translation quality. But it's definitely serviceable and I can still understand the story well.

So, with all that, do enjoy the cute silliness of Franz as he tries to do his best, and try to resist his cheeky smile and chubby cheeks.