After being reincarnated into the world of an otome game, would-be villainess Cynthia begins the search for a potential fiance. And who could be better than a yandere villain? After all, a man who can obsess over just one woman for his entire life would surely make an ideal husband, right?
Authors
Genre & Tropes
Info about this series (complete)
There are two volumes in English.
TL;DR
This is a light novel I would recommend to fans of sweet and innocent romance stories. The male lead is like an abused puppy, eventually proving to be a wonderful partner for the FL.
Official Synopsis
“You’re being tormented? In that case, let me be the one to adore you!!”
I reincarnated as Cynthia, a wicked noblewoman from a dating sim, and now the heroine is trying to steal my fiancé. If she wants him, I’m happy to cut ties and find someone new! Oh my, perhaps the yandere character named Siraiya (the third son of a duke), who’s known for being an evil nobleman himself, would be a better match? Yes, he’s exactly what I’m looking for!
“You’re the one I want to marry!”
Will the villainess’s love save the villainous nobleman? Find out in this reverse Cinderella tale!
My thoughts on this volume (Slight Spoilers!)
This series is from a new-to-me publisher, Cross Infinite World. They have many otome romance novels in their catalogue, but the majority are digital exclusives. They recently begun offering physical prints of a select few series, two of which I recently purchased. If the Heroine Wants My Fiancé, I’ll Marry a Yandere Villain Instead! was my very first introduction to the publisher.
About the story
One may think that a light novel titled If the Heroine Wants My Fiancé, I’ll Marry a Yandere Villain Instead!, would have a yandere villain for a male lead. After all, it’s literally in the title, right? That was exactly why I picked the book up—I enjoy yandere male leads, and I also enjoy villain male leads. So, a book with a male lead who’s both a yandere and a villain!? I was very excited.
Sadly, he ended up being neither of those things. This book should have been called If the Heroine Wants My Fiancé, I’ll Marry a Sad, Abused, Throw-Away Character Instead! I think the male lead, Siraiya, may be the most depressed, beaten down male lead that I’ve ever encountered. Rather that being thrilled by his existence, I spent the whole novel wanting to give the poor boy a hug.
It seems that in one specific route of the game, he does indeed become a yandere villain when specific conditions are met. Our female lead Cynthia knows this and sets out to give him love before he can turn into a yandere. And so, we never get to see the crazily obsessed side of him. Ever. There are even jokes made about the fact that he doesn’t turn into a yandere character—it felt as though the book was laughing at me for my preferences!
This isn’t to say the book is bad by any means—this is a sweet-as-candy romance story. Cynthia and Siraiya fall for each other in a very innocent way rather quickly, and the story follows as their relationship plays out. It’s a rather straightforward, simple story, but sometimes that’s exactly what I want to read! While there is drama, it always plays out within just a few pages and the stakes are never high enough that it feels stressful. There is also never any doubt about Cynthia and Siraiya’s love for each other—they really are cute.
Now, when I say they’re cute together, I mean they’re “look at that middle school couple too shy to hold hands” cute. There are a few lines of dialogue about how kissing is something special that people should only do after they get married, and that they’ll kiss a whole lot after they get married. So, while they are indeed cute, if you don’t enjoy this type of innocent romance (like me), you may not be able to enjoy it to the fullest.
Now I’m moving on to find myself a real yandere villain love story.
About the book itself
When I first opened the book, what caught my eye was not the character designs as is usually the case with light novels, but the overall quality. As this is published by a smaller company, I at first thought that they use different formatting than what I’m used to. This may well be the case, but I then began to suspect the reason for my unease may be because they use Amazon’s direct-to-print program for their physical volumes. I haven’t confirmed this yet, but as I can only find the physicals for sale on Amazon’s website, I am inclined to believe it.
It feels as though whoever formatted the book did their best to fit as many words as possible on each page. This lead to glaringly small margins, and very little space between paragraphs. This caused me to have to constantly stretch the book out to be able to read everything printed closer to the binding.
Lastly, I found what I believe to be a continuity error. As I often make mistakes when writing, and I understand that it’s easy to overlook a small error, as I was already unhappy with the quality of the book, I could help but be a little annoyed at the mistake. This book was not cheap, and it feels like there wasn’t all that much care put into it on the printing side.
Maddies Manga 
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