One of my favorite shows of the fall 2023 season was the animated adaptation of INORI's light novel series, the latest in a string of isekai anime revolving around the concept of video game "villainess" characters redeeming themselves. Anime-wise, this began with 2020's hilarious My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, which kickstarted a minor boom in derivative shows.

I'm in Love with the Villainess stands head and shoulders above its subgenre competitors, partly due to its heavy exploration of capital-T Themes. My Next Life as a Villainess is pure screwball comedy, a delightful inversion of well-worn otome tropes. In that story, the female protagonist unwittingly collects a devoted harem of characters of both sexes, though any yuri content is mostly present to add humor. I'm in Love with the Villainess, however, is unabashedly queer and deeply interrogates its premise of centering a lesbian romance within a far-from-progressive pseudo-historical setting.

Although I'm in Love with the Villainess is very funny in places (this seems to be amped up somewhat in the anime adaptation), its humor serves its characters. Rae is an initially offputting lead — her obsession with fellow magical high school student Claire seems creepy and almost stalker-like. She constantly leers, makes off-color, sexually-tinged jokes, and invades Claire's personal space—Rae's reaction to Claire's bullying of her borders on the overtly masochistic. If Rae had been a male character, I can't imagine readers warming to her toxicity. Likewise, as expected of an antagonist, Claire is mean, standoffish, verbally abusive, and spoiled. Thankfully, Rae and Claire are multi-layered characters who bloom into flawed yet empathetic heroines as the narrative progresses.

The anime covers the entirety of the first novel (chapters 1–3) plus chapter 4, the first segment of the second novel. Novel one is mostly scene-setting, establishing the sometimes-stormy relationship between the besotted Rae and the oft-bemused Claire. Conflicts, characters, and concepts introduced here become extremely important in the dramatic conclusion of novel two. If there's a flaw at all, it's that the fantasy setting and magic mechanics are painfully generic — though these are but backdrops to the themes I'm in Love with the Villainess wants to explore.

The first English-language print run was rightly decried for editing out essential paragraphs detailing Rae's motivations for acting the way she does. I'm happy to report that this audiobook adaptation reinstates the missing segments in line with later printings. Rae's internalization of modern Japanese cultural attitudes towards homosexuality is a huge contributor to her at-times self-defeating performative flamboyance, and it's difficult to fully understand her character without this essential background.

Narrator Courtney Shaw nails Rae's many-faceted personality — from her libidinous jokes about Claire's body to her deadly-serious scheming to her anguished heartbreak towards volume two's conclusion, Shaw imbues Rae with both mischief and pathos. Shaw's take is slightly more restrained than anime dub voice actress Hannah Alyea's more unhinged lesbian gremlin joker. (I love them both, by the way.) Other character voices exemplify Shaw's impressive range — from the imperious Claire to the timid Lily, the confident Prince Rod to the sneering Salas; Shaw keeps every character's voice distinct. Her urgent narration helps drive the plot forward, and I'd offer this audiobook version as the best way to enjoy I'm in Love with the Villainess.

It's a shame that the anime ends only halfway through the main arc, as it's in its second half (chapters 5 to 8) where the story jets off like a rocket, with many unexpected twists and turns, callbacks to and reinterpretations of previous events. INORI uses the Revolution plotline to discuss how the inequality between rich and poor sows division, resentment, and societal instability. Although the nobility is selfish and pampered, INORI argues that upbringing and culture alone do not total a person's worth or morality. Some nobles, once educated about the nature of inequality, are good (such as Claire), and not all of the people rebelling against the corrupt state have the purest motivations. One villain, in particular, is a little pantomime in their boo-hiss simplicity, but that's a small price to pay for central characters as complex and endearing as Rae and Claire turn out to be.

By the end, we're cheering on Rae's attempts to save her beloved Claire, desperate for their hard-won happiness. INORI's use of Rae's knowledge of modern sexual politics to decry discrimination against homosexual relationships can sometimes come across as a little didactic and preachy, but the positive message is one of tolerance, of encouraging (and allowing) people to be their true selves. The queer content expands to not only cover the central same-sex lesbian relationship but also considers bisexuality, other sexualities, and (fantasy-tinged) gender dysphoria. It's unusual to see frank discussions of such concepts in Japanese popular fiction — normally, these stories are much more coy, but I'm in Love with the Villainess straight out goes there. I perhaps can't directly identify with Rae and Claire's struggles, but I still adore this exciting story and its wonderful characters. Its frankness is its strength.

Although volume two is the end of this particular story, the light novel series continues for three more volumes, comprising a mix of earlier-set short stories and a second sequel arc. Hopefully, we'll get an audio adaptation of these soon!