I was reincarnated into the pages of my favorite romance novel. Not as the bright, beloved heroine, but as the cruel, grasping villainess, a mere stepping stone in the story. My only job is to dump the “Cold-Hearted Duke” so he can meet his true love. Fail, and war breaks out. I die. Nobody gets their happily ever after.

Easy, right?

Except playing a vindictive noblewoman when I'd been an ordinary woman in my past life is harder than it looks. Because if that's the case, why—at the end of it all—is the duke holding me close, murmuring into my ear, “Grace… I will never, ever let you go”?!

Breaking Up Was the Plan, the Duke Falling For the Villainess Was Not! has story by Kotoko and art by Ataka. English translation is done by Dawson Chen. Published by Cross Infinite World (December 31, 2026).

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

Are you tired of the villainess subgenre of isekai? If so, Breaking Up Was the Plan, the Duke Falling For the Villainess Was Not! probably isn't going to change your mind. But then again, it just might…Taking a page out of the Korean playbook for the genre (where being reincarnated into a novel is much more common than the Japanese otome game variant), Kotoko's story brings us the tale of an office worker thrown into her favorite book as the villainess. She's determined to fulfill her role as the horrible woman who deliberately breaks the male lead's heart, not because she's attached to the part, but because she's heavily invested in the happy ending of the novel and doesn't want to jeopardize it. But if part of what she loves about the book is the man himself, can she really bring herself to emotionally destroy him?

It's a good question, and one that feels more relevant than just adhering to the plot of a storybook turned real. Think of all the self-insert Mr. Darcy fanfiction out there – what if you suddenly found yourself face-to-face with your book boyfriend? Would you really be able to just hand him over to the in-world romantic lead? Even though Grace clearly believes that she needs to do that for the sake of a narrative that helped her through some dark days back in Japan, she also can't help but still be in love with him, maybe even more now that he's a real person right in front of her. It's the ultimate reader's dilemma, and unlike the dippier versions of the reincarnated villainess, Grace is very aware of her situation. She may also be in total denial that she could have Zane for herself, but she at least recognizes that here, he's a real person, not a character.

She also really can't help herself from changing other aspects of the plot. When she realizes that she has the chance to save Zane from the heartbreak of losing his sister Mariabelle, she steps up and does it. When she realizes how utterly insane the original Grace was, she tries to mitigate the damage she did. This new Grace is a good person, and one with a genuine interest in the people around her, and she's coming to recognize that just living Grace's life as written isn't going to work for her…because she's not Grace. Underneath the rosy hair, she's someone who struggled with never having enough food to eat and working her fingers to the bone. She can't just turn off a lifetime of experiences in service of a plot she didn't write.

As always, Cross Infinite World's translation is smooth and very readable, nicely complementing Kotoko's story with a light but not fluffy vocabulary. This may not break the villainess mold, but it does approach things in a different enough way that it feels like its own take on the genre. If you aren't fully sick of villainess isekai, this is worth giving a chance.

Lauren Orsini
Rating:

Question: how hard would it be for you to pretend to be evil? Breaking Up Was the Plan, the Duke Falling For the Villainess Was Not! made me realize that it'd be actually pretty tough! Even if you can nail the haughty laugh and disapproving glare, it'd be harder to train yourself out of a simple “no problem” when somebody bumps into you, which is likely muscle reflex at this point. In this reincarnation story, a woman doesn't simply wake up as the villainess of her favorite light novel and move forward. She tries to save the story she loves so much. Her concern for the meta adds an intriguing element to this standard isekai romance.

After a lifetime spent pinching pennies, a woman awakens as Grace, a truly depraved villainess. Unlike your average light novel where the villainess is simply unconventional or misunderstood, there is nothing redeeming about Grace, a noblewoman who abuses her servants for fun. But this new reincarnation of Grace realizes she can't be herself and also preserve the plot, which hinges on her cruelty. The result is a tortured middle ground, in which Grace attempts to alter the story to avoid elements she can't bear, like the murder of a side character, while also recruiting allies to spread rumors of her villainy far and wide. But when it comes to Duke Zane Winslet, who she without fail refers to as “M-my Lord Duke,” all her machinations fall out the window. In her past life, Zane—and the heroine of the story, Charlotte—were her OTP and her favorite characters of all time. It is absolutely crucial to Grace that she seduce the Duke, then dump him, in order to put his romance with Charlotte in motion—the fate of the world depends on it! Too bad for her: Zane is so smitten that everything Grace does to throw him off, including fake cheating on him, puzzlingly makes him fall even more in love with her. Grace has a conundrum: does she save the world or give into temptation and self-ship with her fav?

I liked the way this story dealt with the personality shift that comes from being reborn, and the domino effect that it causes. Even though I found Grace's innocence to be exhausting (like when Zane refers to a romantic rival as an “insect” and Grace says something like, “a bug? where?”) I related to her impossible conundrum. Unfortunately, this is just the first volume of Grace's story and there's no true resolution where she realizes, and this is just my prediction, that SHE can be the heroine that saves the world alongside Zane. It's a compelling, complicated take on the villainess story that reckons with what it really means to be a good person, and I wasn't expecting that level of depth to a fluffy isekai romance.