Tiararose, the fiancee of her kingdom's crown prince, suddenly realizes that the world she's living in is actually the setting of her favorite otome game from her previous life!

But she's not the heroine...she's the villainess!?

By the time she remembers, it's already the day before the graduation party where she's destined to face “annulment of engagement” and “banishment from the kingdom”, just like in the game's scenario.

Everything seems to be following the original plot...until the handsome crown prince of a neighboring kingdom suddenly proposes to her!?

A love story where the supposed villainess is adored by an ultra-perfect foreign prince!!

The Villainess Is Adored by the Prince of the Neighbor Kingdom has story and art by Hoshina, based on a work by Punichan. English translation and lettering done by lapin, Inc. Published by Kadokawa (December 12, 2025).

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

You may recall that I reviewed the visual novel based on this manga (itself based on the original light novels) a while ago, and that at the time it was the only official way to experience anything of the story in English. Happily for us all – because while the art was exquisite, the translation was lacking – we're now getting the manga as one of Kadokawa's chapter-by-chapter releases. Debuting exclusively on BookWalker ahead of other platforms, I would wholeheartedly suggest starting here rather than with the game. Not only is it a better translation, it's cheaper, too!

The story itself is basically what it says on the tin: Tiararose is the purported villainess of an otome game, which she knows because she used to play the game before dying. She knows she's doomed to lose her fiancé Prince Hartneitz to the game's heroine, and while she's not okay with that per se, she also recognizes that the idealized version of Hartneitz she knew from the game isn't the same as the person before her. And how could he be? Tiararose's greatest strength is that she knows that real life is different from an otome game, and no matter how much she's aware of, plots rarely progress like the do in fiction when you're actively living them. While this is becoming more common in villainess fiction, it's still new enough that it feels refreshing when it happens. And while heroine Akari (also reincarnated, which Tiararose figures out because the heroine in the game doesn't have a name and “Akari” is just way too Japanese) may be leading Hartneitz along the primrose path, literally everyone else in the story recognizes that the accusations against Tiararose are thinner than tissue paper.

Enter Prince Aquasteid, the eponymous neighboring prince. The torch he's been carrying for Tiararose isn't something she's expecting (though she's thrilled, since he's a great guy), and, more interestingly, possibly something more ordained by the game than she thinks. In the original story, Tiararose was exiled by Hartneitz, and by marrying Aquasteid she ends up out of the country. While that would seem to counterbalance what I just said about games versus real life, it does hint an interesting possibility that Tiararose hasn't even considered, especially since Aquasteid was a route in the sequel game that came out after her death.

But really, this doesn't need to be that deep to be enjoyable. It's a fun, fluffy story with very nice character designs and spellings that make names look more like names (the game went with Heartknights and Aquasteed). If you enjoy villainess isekai, this should be right up your alley.

Erica Friedman
Rating:

The reborn as a villain/ess isekai genre is so fascinatingly overplayed at this point that it has become a testament to human creativity as writers are still finding new ways to spin it. The Villainess Is Adored by the Prince of the Neighbor Kingdom a young woman with knowledge of her current life as Lady Tiaraose is a character in a game, is not entirely thrilled to be the villainess and is hoping to set herself up in exile with a quiet life.

A heroine with the very Japanese name Akari seems dead set on taking away everything Tiaraose has. After the Prince annuls their engagement, Lady Tiararose is almost instantly proposed to (as the title says) by the Prince Aquasteid Marineforest of the neighboring kingdom. “Heroine” Akari's shockingly crude attempts to separate the two draw suspicion upon herself. As the volume ends, Tiararose and Prince Aquasteid are going on a date and Prince Hartneitz is questioning his relationship with Akari…and so is the king.

I wouldn't go so far as to call this series wholly original; we're getting a lot of series right now in which the villainess is the good one, after all. Here we're getting a slightly different spin to all the same elements and as far as it went, it was enjoyable. I'm not sure I'd go out of my way to read a lot more of it. Not because it was bad, but the romance is the plot and I just don't care who Tiararose marries.

That said, I also felt (hoped) by the end of volume 1 that maybe, just maybe, Prince Aquasteid was planning something nefarious, which might make Volume 2 more than a fake feudal version of a Regency romance. And clearly there is a whole story between Tiarose and Akari that has to be dealt with, which I hope gives Tiararose some oomph. This “good” villainess is a bit too passive for my taste otherwise.