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!”

If the Heroine Wants My Fiancé, I'll Marry a Yandere Villain Instead! has story by Kobako Takara and art by Jun Natsuba. English translation is done by Emma Schumacker. Published by Cross Infinite World (December 31, 2026).

Lauren Orsini
Rating:

The most important thing to understand about this story is this: there is no yandere villain. If the Heroine Wants My Fiancé, I'll Marry a Yandere Villain Instead! is about a female protagonist discovering and rehabilitating her love interest before he has the chance to become a yandere villain. In my opinion there's a bit of false advertising at play with this title, especially for readers like me who thought they were getting a very freaky and unhealthy romance (complementary). Once I got past my disappointment however, I thought this was a surprisingly cute and fast-paced revenge story. It's just more run-of-the-mill than I was expecting.

Lady Cynthia has been engaged to the handsome slacker Eddie since childhood. But one day in her late teens, her memories from a past life come rushing back—you guessed it, she realized she's living in the world of a phone game she used to play. When the heroine publicly confronts her asking that she release Eddie from the engagement, Cynthia all too quickly agrees. She then sets her sights on the game's yandere villain character, recognizing a diamond in the rough when she sees one. Thanks to Cynthia's love and kindness, Lord Siraiya Brooke never devolves into a yandere villain, but instead a prize more desired than any of the game's romantic leads. At one point, after Siraiya overhears Cynthia murmur the word “yandere” and asks what it means, Cynthia says it “means somebody who experiences love very deeply.” By the end of the book, that was what I thought “yandere” meant, too. Also, I now assume “villain” and “villainess” are words that mean “smart people who have a good time.”

This book is indeed a good time. Through Cynthia's cleverness, helped generously by the stupidity of everyone else, she orchestrates rake after rake for her enemies to step on while she and Siraiya grow into a decidedly non-villainous, sappy puppy love. It's fun to watch Cynthia repeatedly triumph over everyone and lift Siraiya up with her, because this book has no shortage of idiots for her to trample on. Published by Cross Infinite World, this book has the kind of smooth writing that can only come from careful editing, plus formatting that makes it easy to read on a variety of screen sizes. I enjoyed reading about the variety of clever schemes Cynthia enacted to get her way while keeping her hands clean, but readers looking for a yandere villain story will need to find another book.

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

I hope you have a toothbrush handy, because this is one of the most sticky-sweet light novels I've read recently. Don't let the “yandere” bit in the title fool you – this is one hundred percent adorable fluff as Cynthia realizes she's been reborn in an otome game as the villainess and decides to just forget the whole plot and go for the villain instead. In the original game, Siraiya, after being abused for his entire life and then used by the heroine to get to the crown prince, does, in fact, go yandere, but with Cynthia as his love interest, things take a different turn. The word “yandere” may lose its meaning, but I do think the author knows what it means.

While Cynthia and Siraiya's love story is aggressively cheesy (in a good way), what this book's true strong suit is is the way it handles its isekai elements. As I said above, Cynthia is one of those normal Japanese women who find themselves reincarnated into an otome game they once played – and if Cynthia's the villainess-turned-good, then there has to be a heroine-turned-bad. That would be Elly, and what makes this book really work is that while Cynthia has a firm grasp on the fact that this isn't a game any longer and that everyone is a real person and not a character, Elly keeps trying to use lines from the game and to follow “routes.” She steadfastly refuses to understand that this is her life now, while Cynthia makes wry observations about how weird it is that there's Hollandaise sauce in world where Holland doesn't exist. They're not just foil figures in that one's the heroine and the other's the villainess, they're foils in their treatment of this new life. Cynthia succeeds because she's good at using the information she has in an organic way. Elly fails because she's stuck following a script.

All in all, I enjoyed this book. The romance plot is gooey, there's some mild danger, a clever plot involving bees, and a nicely self-aware quality to the plotting. It's not breaking any molds, but between the good translation and the fun plot, it's the perfect book to curl up with on a snowy day.