For me, I love it because its where we get to learn everything from the villainess perspective and how they change their fate(?). Sometimes it's a role that they were forced to act and other times its because they were misunderstood.
In my case, it's because I wish I could reincarnate but I can't imagine myself as the heroine ever because... uh... the image of a heroine contrast too much with my own personality... and people do misunderstand me as a bad person sometimes... and most of the villainess are born filthy rich with non-violent parents... so... yeah, why not?
I like fantasy and a peek into the life of wealthy people (though most of it isn't realistic) I also like the genre for the clothes the dresses are pretty cute and I wanna draw them too
I only like "The World of Otome Games Is Though For Mobs", but that's not really an otome novel . And I like it because of the comedy in it (and how I identify myself with Leon ).
well, otome games always carried behind fantasy based plot lines. Merely for hooking up guys in whatever act you do. That's why, when it became a "reality" every thing will go wrong. Because the protagonist of the otome game is the player. The player plays, and the player will indiscriminately do whatever to gain love points/ favor of love interest. Villain in otome games is equal to those who hinder the player's hooking up love interest love. So when the game was converted to reality. So the villain doesn't really mean the villain in terms of reality. So it's really good to read, esp when everyone is sane and only the "player" thought it was a game. Esp, when the villain face slapped everyone. It was really refreshing. but i only read good otome novel. Because sometimes it's really dumb...
To me it's just... Fun? I dunno, the idea of reincarnating as someone inside a story that you read is interesting enough as is. Then you add the fact that the MC became a villainess who would usually reach doom and has to avert doom, and you get an interesting plot hook as is. From that point on, the author can do a more serious novel where things end up taking a complicated turn and that the goals of the MC aren't as simply obtained as she hoped to... Or maybe the author can make a comedic novel where everything goes crazy and the villainess suddenly gets a reverse harem~ Either way, I think the premise itself has a fair bit of potential by default, so I tend to like reading stories with said premise~ It also helps if you like slice of life and/or shoujo, since Otome Game novels usually feel very similar to those two genres.
Ai-chan doesn't enjoy them anymore. Often it goes through the same premise as "OMG! I got reincarnated as the villainess and I don't want to get executed! I need to be a nice girl, yes! For my own sake, I will avoid the execution route!" or "I'm the villainess, but I'm a good girl. It turns out it's the protagonist who is evil and charmed everyone into executing me! It comes to the point that Ai-chan hates the very word 'villainess' in the title and would not read any story titled with 'villainess' except for those Ai-chan already read and enjoyed. It's 'villain'! 'Villain' is gender neutral. There is no need to copy Japanese language. Akuyaku reijou doesn't need to be translated into 'villainess'. Do English speakers actually ever refer to a female villain as 'villainess'? Localize it! There are so many options, such as villain, evil lady, bitch or whatever is commonly said in your language. Ai-chan speaks Japanese, Malay and Mandarin and is not a native English speaker, but even to Ai-chan this is super bad. Localize it.
I dunno, villainess sounds correct to me. Just coz villain is gender neutral does not mean villainess is not a word.
I'll preface by saying I don't like most villainess novels, but there are two things I like about the idea: First, that it's two stories in one. You get the story of the otome game, and then you get the story of the villainess. You might even get the story of the past life of the villainess or stories of alternate game routes. Second, everybody loves an underdog. However, the villainess is only the underdog in the readers' eyes, while her enemy is treated as the underdog in the story, so there's a lot that can be done with the genre. However, that's just potential. It's a little too complicated for most writers, especially webnovelists, to write two related stories at the same time. Or should I say, the genre suffers from its own popularity? Most of the web novel authors feel like amateur cooks who try to add a secret ingredient to a standard recipe to stand out, but they get so excited over the change that they neglect the basics of cooking and the meal ends up being a mess.
When they are done well, or at least in a way that is entertaining. Problem is (like everything) a lot are not, since the setup normally makes 0 sense as in most cases either the scandal should shut down the prince/fiance courting another girl (or at least render the conviciton event impossible) or it relies on something that they should have safeguards against like mind control. There are stories where these are not major factors, but in to many they are. Though ones that treat the world as a real world, and ignore a games tendency to rail roading the desired outcome can be amusing. (basically where the plot holes were only in the game, and everyone faces real consequences). Kind of why I hate "Reijou wa Mattari wo Goshomou" there is just to much stupid in that setup, since the Mc did nothing villainous, was just the victim of a B&#$% with inferiority complex deliberately misinterpreting things and spreading slander, and there is enough politics and IIRC evidence backing her innocence and status that is it not funny. But she is still "punished" when while the 2 who caused the MC's sufferings had had little more then a slap on the wrist. To many unresolved issues that should have been handled in less then a day.
"Villainess" is correct. It's a less popular term now than it used to be but it's still absolutely proper English, and it's not not out of place in a title. The term that ends up using super ugly is "saintess" (which hasn't been used in a million years). The main problem with these books is that the writers have no idea why they work and what they're about. Realistically, the original villainess has power over other people because of the influence that her social status affords her. She's supposed to be the alpha wolf of the pack and most of the other characters should be her hangers-on. The protagonist has to go through a large number of trials and tribulations in order to overcome her because she starts off in such a strong position. So what do most of these Villainess novels do? They strip out all of the social aspects of the story! Doing so drastically reduces the consequences of a wide range of actions and it just drains the life out of these stories. I get why writers do this but it doesn't keep it from being super dumb to do. To date, the only Villainess novel to do it properly is "Kenkyo Kenjitsu"; and it's a shame because these books can be very entertaining. One notable thing about this book is that it's based off of old school shoujo manga rather than otome games, and this may explain why it's so much better than all other ones in the genre.
True, villainess exist as a word. But do you actually ever hear people saying that in real life? You can argue that these stories were based on medieval era. And they did use the term villainess in the 16th century according to Merriam-Webster, but even back then, this was not in common use. Its usage jumped suddenly in 2009, about the time when these villainess novels started being translated. Also, while these stories were based in medieval era, the language used is modern. Some would argue that it's translated to be accurate to the Japanese language. However, Japanese and English are two completely different language. In English, you can easily tell a person's gender using the he/she pronouns. Japanese language does not use gender-specified pronouns all that much. There is no he/she in Japanese language, only 'that boy' or 'that girl', so to tell the gender, it's the nouns itself that requires a gender. But Japanese nouns do not have gender either, unlike French, so a gender is added to the nouns, such as 'akuyaku reijo' (villain daughter) or 'oujo' (princess) or 'joou' where 'jo' (female) is added to 'ou' (king) to become female king/queen. Due to the lack of gender pronouns, the Japanese nouns need to specify on the nouns itself what gender the person is because otherwise, it is automatically assumed that they are male. Even Japanese names are gender-neutral and require gender added to the name itself to make the gender clear. There is no such thing in English. In English, you can tell the gender of the person by the pronouns used. In short, Ai-chan is saying, "She is a villain." does not hurt the ears compared to "She is a villainess." But Ai-chan totally agree with @ToastedRossi 's opinion on 'saintess'. The word 'saintess' is a much bigger offender than 'villainess'. To the point that Ai-chan had an anxiety attack whenever someone said 'saintess' in front of Ai-chan.
I disagree with this one, Villainess sounds natural to me. It doesnt matter how jp handles gender in its sentence, only that villainess is valid and natural in english which it is. I agree with this one. Saintess does not sound natural at all to me. Like I wont cut the novel's imaginary grammar points if the tl uses it but I would prefer it being used sparingly. I agree, intertwined stories, multiple povs and such stuff is fun to read. Kumo is kinda fun due to it even if the human side is urr... painfully generic and anger inducing. Durarara and Baccano live and die on such things. A lot of older series like Owari no Chronicle had a ton of pov switch. Toaru has whole ass side stories with shared arcs to give different perspectives of the same event. Mushoku Tensei had a bit of it if I recall correctly. So even amongst web novelists it can be seen that such a thing has a history of being executed well. All that being said, I do not recall a villainess story using it, let alone well. (Mostly coz I havent read much of them) Most of them just end up being "new arc" -> "this thing happened in past/game/possible future" which is frankly alright-ish I guess.
The word "villainess" is completely normal, and it's used all the time. It's less popular now than it used to be but like "actress", nobody will find it unusual. In comparison, words like "saintess" and "doctoress" fell into disuse over a hundred years ago so it's very jarring to see them. Kenkyo, Kenjitsu o Motto ni Ikite Orimasu is worth checking out for this. The book is primarily told from the first person perspective, but the protagonist has a lot of blind spots and will sometimes (unintentionally) mislead the audience. To get the gist of what's actually going on, the other perspectives flesh out the world and the other characters. To be fair these other POVs are infrequent, but they're awesome when they show up.