Halt's Great Big Otome List (and on other weeaboo subjects)

At the request of @Dryops and @sonder

Keep in mind this list is heavily towards the otome-isekai trope popularized by Bakarina, so if that genre isn't your type, most of this won't be useful for you.

Otome-isekai explained

Spoiler

Basically, an Otome is a romance game aimed at women where you have routes that allow you to get certain male characters to fall in love with you. Otome-Isekai is where a modern day woman is transported into a game (or novel) setting like this, usually in the shoes of the antagonist.

Recommended:

1) The Villainess Lives Twice - I've posted in the Review Board why I liked this one.

2) I want to be you, just for a day - If you liked Villainess Lives Twice, you're love this one. It's a neat subversion of the genre, where the villainess and female lead switch bodies Freaky Friday style, only for the villainess to find out the idyllic life of the female lead hides something far more sinister. The two female leads are well fleshed out, and the villainess is actually a strong, smart woman who doesn't need a man. (Please step on me, Psyche)

3) All men must die - Basically more a series of short stories about 20-40 chapters long each. In each scenario, an "agent" is inserted into a story where a woman has been cheated on, usually in your typical otome game setups where a female lead steals the MC. Of course, the chinese manhua focuses retribution mainly on the cheating male (and occasionally the female).

The agent does have some occasional deus ex machinas in the form of "cheats" that come up occasionally, which i think is the biggest weakness of this story.

On the other hand, she is genuinely competent and the revenge plans are fairly well put together. Cathartic read.

Also at some point a hawt vampire gril in heels shows up. What more is there to say, @Selethe?

4) Spy x Family - This is NOT an Otome Manga, but I recommend it anyway having read it recently. Spy x Family follows a spy set in Germany during the cold war (before the Wall fell), who adopts a girl as part of his mission to infiltrate a school. Little does he know this orphan girl is a psychic. To help his cover story, he gets fake married to a woman who turns out to be an assassin.

It's a humorous and heart warming story of a family keeping secrets from each other, and the young girl Anya being in know and totally adorable throughout.

Almost Recommended

1) Eminence in the Shadow - Again, not an Otome recommendation. This one is a satire / parody of the isekai genre, where the protagonist calls himself shadow and does what edgy teenagers do. Throughout it all, he's aware that it's all a joke and is just running through a checklist of "cool" things he wants to do, but little does he know the BS he's spewing is actually real. Got more than a few laughs from me

2) I am the prince's consort candidate however I believe I can surpass it - The impoverished female lead is chosen to be a Crown Prince Consort Candidate. She joins, not because she wants to marry him, but because doing so might get her a spot as a court lady with a significant salary to support her family. She's surrounded by quite a cast of characters that are surprisingly in depth. Short, but sweet.

3) A Stepmother's Märchen - Set in fantasy Germany, the stepmother of four kids dies and is peggy-sued back to when her husband has just died and she's faced with the unenviable task of raising the kids (who hate her) again. She decides to do things differently this time after seeing her old methods got her nothing but scorn. Family fic.

4) Beware of the Villainess - Otome-Isekai, where she rightly recognizes all the male "choices" are scumbags and does her best to protect the female "protagonist". Toptier facial expressions and a humorous take on the genre.

5) Fiancee's Observation log of the Self-Proclaimed Villainess - If you liked Bakarina, this is similar in tone. It's written from the perspective not of the isekai character, but the crown prince she's engaged to who finds her predictions and declaration of becoming a villainess quirky.

Readable Trash Tier

1) The Duchess' 50 Tea Recipes - Girl gets put into the body of a duchess who is bullied by her maids. Through the power of tea drinking, she somehow improves her life there. It's very bog standard and repetitive, but is surprisingly endearing (at the beginning). No real tension to it though, and the antagonists are a joke. Fix it trash popcorn.

2) Sincerely: I Became a Duke's Maid - Otome-Isekai into a maid of the antagonist in a romance novel. Except our MC decides she will try to give the antagonist a happy ending. The beginning part is its strongest as we see the closed off and neglected antagonist come to care for the self insert, before it time skips and quickly becomes another generic lvoe story.

3) The Wolf Lord's Lady - Peggy sue fic of a corrupt noble family who get French-Terror'd. The daughter does suicide by mob, much to the dismay of her lover (also the guy who started the revolution). She is reborn in the next generate and seeks penance.

4) The World of Otome Gamers is Tough for Mobs - A guy gets reincarnated into an Otome game where women are the dominant sex instead of men. Harem shenanigans ensues. This one is more interesting because of the setting than the characters.

5) The Abandoned Empress - I don't know why I kept reading this for so long, since i hated it (you hear my @VereorNox !!!). Empress gets set aside by the Emperor, suffers abuse, dies and is peggy-sued and hopes to avoid ever being married to the guy. She instead decides to become a knight.

6) A Capable Maid - Female lead is a cinnomon bun, but also a mary sue who can pick up any skill she needs as its needed with expert proficiency due to her "wish".

Actual Trash Tier
1) To be a power in the shadow - This is just a Light Novel of Eminence in the Shadow, but is very rough and hard to read. Stick to the manga, far more accessible.

2) Demon Lord Remarried - Demon lord marries the mother of the heroine. Mostly just gags and some parenting moments. No real tension. Very slice of life

3) Who made me a princess - Isekai into the daughter of the Emperor. Too slice of life without being endearing, and takes far too long to setup anything. There are supposed to be more tension further down, but I honestly couldn't bother to finish it.

4) Empress of Another world - Interesting premise where the Emperor is an Ugly Bastard who takes the female lead is a consort. Proceeds to get murdered by the Crown Prince. After like five interesting chapters, proceeds to become a generic boring otome romance.

5) Survive as the Hero's wife - Another interesting premise where female is inserted into the crown prince's current wife, who is actually spying for the stepmother empress and to isolate him politically. The first ten chapters has the female lead being a badass, taking matters into her own hands, and politicking.... before losing the plot and become a generic boring romance. This actually had so much potential I'm mad that the author ruined it.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

6) The villains savior - Boring trash. Do not touch

Reading in Progress / Judgment Withheld

1) The Holy Grail of Eris - Has some decent politicking, with the ghost of a murdered villainess able to possess a shy girl

2) Ebony - Something about changing the law and feminist right in manga form?

3) Princess Bibliophile

4) Best Selling Empress

5) Ascendance of a Bookworm - I loved the anime. It was tech uplift done right.

6) Shokoku no Altair

7) Spirit Circle

8) Bokura No Kiseki

9) Lady Baby

10) Crimson Karma

11) My Daughter Grew up to be S Rank

So yeah, this was how I wasted most of my weekend and weekday nights.

 

Halt's Great Big Otome List (and on other weeaboo subjects) Part 2

Recommended:
1) Ebony - This has an admittedly very slow start, but once it gets going, it's really interesting. It's less of a normal shoujo and more of a "climbing out of a deep depression pit". The MC is given the tools to become a strong, self-possessed woman in a deeply misogynistic society.

Almost Recommended:
1) Best Selling Empress - Reincarnated as the disgraced former empress and now consort in Imperial China, the MC wields her humility like a knife to getting back into the good graces of the Emperor. Also, she writes cultivation fanfic to earn the big $$$

2) Death is the only ending for the villainess - Otome Ressurrection in hard mode. The MC at the start has limited dialogue options with a family that hates her, and one wrong move could see her dead. Thus, she must carefully navigate her options to make sure she doesn't die!

3) The Villainess Slow Prison Life Began with her engagement - Toptier Meme fic. Basically, the villainess gets thrown into prison, and through her big brain plays, lives a life of luxury (such as having food delivered, having a bed to sleep on, locking the prison cell from inside so they can't confiscate her things). She proceeds to meme the fuck out of the tilting prince. Very short, and worth reading for the lulz. Sadly died too fast at 3 chapters, but what's there is fun

Readable Trash Tier

1) I'm a villianess daughter, so I'm going to keep the last boss - MC reincarnates and immediately goes about seducing the demon emperor / enemy of the guy who just dumped her. More humorous than serious.

2) I swear I won't bother you again - Standard Otome, but with some sweet sibling bonding.

3) Lady Baby - Only so many variations of smug baby face and uwus before it gets boring

4) Reincarnated into an Otome Game as a Villainess With Only Destruction Flags... In a Dire Situation!? - Supposedly hard mode, but plays out pretty easily and doesn't end up with much tension

5)

Actual Trash Tier

1) Princess bibliophile - MC likes books. MC gets engaged to get library. MC expects to get dumped. That's as far as I got before i got bored.

2) Villainous Princess - Has some interesting art choices, but is bog standard otome with nothing to make it stand out.

3) May I ask for One Final Thing - Girl starts off chapter 1 by beating the ever living shit out of people who false accused her of (otome) "crimes". Unfortunately, beyond the MC being prone to violence, there's jsut not a whole lot there.

 

I am back with another Otome reccomendation:

"The reason why raeliana ended up in the dukes mansion"

I have to admit, something about female protags taking charge of shit from the get go endears them to me. We open with MC girl immediately trying to break up with her fiance who she knows is going to try and kill her.

Later on, it devolves into standard otome, but there's some mysteries sprinkled into the story that are curious enough, and we're starting to unravel answers to those things.

Massive Spoilers

Spoiler

Basically, the original "Raeliana" delved into Black magic to switch bodies with the MC of this novel world, whom the isekai protagonist was supposed to insert into. Instead she got Rae's body, and now original Raeliana (now called Beatrice) is super salty that she got cucked twice omegalul

Almost recommended tier.

 

I read this and honestly

Spoiler

Fuck that world. Let it all burn :roocry:

It's a touching story.

 

So let's talk about Transmigrator meets Reincarnator (TMR for short).

This is a chinese webnovel that has a readable transalation, about 700ish chapter of 500-1k words each.

The premise is somewhat unique in that both members of the romantic duo have a gimmick. The girl is an isekai and the guy is reborn from his previous horrible end where the girl's character brutally betaryed him and led to hsi death.

As you might expect, this causes some severe tensions. For the first...250 chapters I want to say? It's mostly the girl trying to survive as she just wants to live a lazy gluttonous life. However, people around her don't make it easy as she her husband is obviously a 5/5 husbando and other bitches be jealous, husbando gets PTSD murder vibes against her...

Ahem.

So yeah first 250 chapters is like political maneuvering of sorts? It's more in the style of Chinese stories (obviously) with a lot of standing on courtesy, but even as someone not terribly familiar with the tropes, the novel does explain it all (somewhat heavy handedly). Most of the plots are stupid pranks, but some of the word play and false modesty going on is genuinely good that I might appropriate them for my stories.

At some point there's a whole romance arc too which IMHO is the weakest aprt of this story as the author does some really convoluted shit to keep the misunderstandings going.

It also takes a while for the male lead to go from being a dumbass to someone I could actually respect as a charactaer. Mostly because he deosn't achieve anything in the early aprt of the story (I guess because it's more about the girl than himself?).

The story has an ending too, which is nice.

Why you shouldn't read it:
-To be frnak, it has a very very insulting view on ancient cultures. It's similar in vein to SI tech uplifts where the barbaric stupid ancestors simply don't know any better.... Only thankfully, here's it's more limited to cuisine (as in they all suck at cooking that MC girl looks like someone from Shokugeki no Soma). The cooking does end up becoming plot relevant, if a somewhat convenient way of letting her ascend, but it creates interesting enough drama that I can't hate it that much

-Action scenes are total garbage lmao. They keep it very short and summarized though, so props to the author for knowing their limitations I guess?

-It's still at the end of the day a readable translation, but a translation at that. The prose isn't going to be amazing.

3/5.

 

Justice of a Villianous Woman

This is your standard Otome isekai, except the plotting is actually top tier. This is one of the few isekais I can think of which reverses the trend - usually they start off strong then become worse as the story progresses. This one starts off pretty Meh, and then by chapter 10 it starts becoming good. This increase in quality follows an upward trend until maybe chapter 60-70, before tapering out. All in all, I don't regret reading it just because of the somewhat clever intrigue.

Recommended if you liked Your Throne (AKA I want to be you just for a day), The Villainess Lives Twice (VLT), or Reversing the Hour Glass.

Best translation I've found is by the sawateam. You have to join their discord to get access to their site, but it's a fairly painless process (as a bonus, they also have the most recent updates for VLT).

 

Halt's Great Big Otome Reccomendations: Part 3 - The Villainess Strikes Back

(Now with Webnovels and Chinese Trash. Let the reader beware.)

"New" Finds

Recommended:

1) SSS Class Suicide Hunter - Just hands down one of the best LitRPGs out there at the moment. If you're not reading this, your life is qualitatively worse off. Get to it.

2) I will change the genre - This is a really interesting take on the classic otome. First off, the FL gets thrown in as the mother of the sister's son (who is of course the long long duke's son, you know the drill folks). But her impressions of how the book's MC should be based on the book are completely wrong and (not really a spoiler) it seems like the MC is a reincarnator leading to the changes. From there it devolves into the classic otome stuff of modern woman surviving in otome land with romance, dresses, and heels, but this initial tension is enough to carry the story.

3) Reformation of the Deadbeat noble - OH BOI. It's about a guy who is possessed by the spirit of a swordsman and becomes this really touching and sweet coming of age story. Even like the "villainous" characters get their own arcs and developments and it's just a joy watching them grow up and become maturer over time. Must read.

4) Villainess wants to turn a new leaf - Chinese Webnovel about a "Green Tea Princess" (Chinese slang for a woman who looks innoncent and pure but is actually a schemer... basically a competent villainess) reincarnating into generic Imperial China as a young princess. Using some great acting skills, she works her way into befriending her half brother and sisters, uplifting her disgraced family and just generally being adorable. Half the time you know she's just acting but then you forget halfway through the scene until the author reminds you. It's a really great addition to the genre and very easy to read.

5) Greetings, Ninth Uncle - Oh boy. The prose on this can get longwinded, but it's actually one of the best protagonist pairs I've seen to date. ML and FL are both exceedingly competent, and FL has some delicious contraditions to her of wanting to be loved by her parents, but also loving the power and prestige that comes with being a first born daughter of a noble household. She's genuinely alone for the most part of the story, having to avoid unfavorable marriages that her parents and society try to push on her in a world where women don't have it so good. A must read.

6) Cinderella Wasn't me - Do you like villainess? Then Click here for more. FL is out for revenge vs the man who broker her heart and shacked up with some whore.

7) The Way to Protect the Female Lead's Older Brother - Villainess born into a psychopathic family saves the FL's older brother (who is imprisoned) and has to play a deception game. Really pretty art and keeps you on your toes considering everyone around her is a murdering lunatic. Also, bloodterflies (that is, canniabilistic flesh eating, bloodsucking butterflies).

8) Kill the Villainess - The art is really fucking pretty and the dresses are gorgeous. Plot isn't too boring either, though it's not that standout as stories go. Open the first chapter and give it a try.

9) Why Would a Villainess have Virtues - Assasin FL gets framed by her royal boss. She's out for revenge. Simple, sweet, and kickass.

10) I Am a Hero - Superhero Manhwa that's pretty good actually.

Almost Recommended:

1) I shall live as a prince - MC is the younger brother of an Emperor. Tries to keep his brother from going down the path of a genocdial maniac while living a life of luxury. Also has a waifu. Decent time waster.

2) Kill the Hero - Your classic gamer reincarnator who is betrayed at the end of his life by the "heroes" and goes on a one man crusade to kick ass and chew gum. And he's all out of gum. Pretty decent as revenge stories go, and if you have to read something from this genre, might as well be this.

3) The Villainess is a Marionette

4) Two Faced Princess - Girl tries to survive the regent emperor from taking over the court.

5) Generations Queen Ling - Decently pretty art. ML and FL are both scheming vs each other as much as they are against the agents at court. Pretty good but not top tier.

6) Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir - I really wanted to like this one. It's about the FL reincarnating as the unfavored consort of some noble and watching her navigate Chinese household harem politics. Author isn't afraid to pull punches either, but after 200 or chapters it becomes noticeably worse. Or maybe I just got oversaturated (haah yeah right). But the first 200 ch are solid.

7) It's Better to be the Empress Dowager - Tang ShiShi (the FL) is a fucking moron. However, she's a lovable moron. Gimmick is she gets a book that tells her plot (instead of reincarnation) but the book only updates in real time, so while it gives her limited precog powers from reading, she often misinterprets stuff and gets thrown off course in her attempts to supplant the original FL. However, there were some genuinely touching moments here between the FL and the ML (who she wasn't initially pursuing, she was going after the adopted son). Towards the later half when they get together things work out a bit too easily for her but up until her pregnancy it was an interesting enough trip.

8) The Cannon Fodder and Villain's Happy Ending - Chinese FL does FL things with face slapping. Love interest helps out from time to time. Decent face slapping fic.

9) Rebirth of an ill fated consort - Look i can only repeat the CN harem politics tropes so many times so jsut trust me when I say it's readable among the sea of trash out there.

Meh:
1) Avoid the Protagonist - Generic and Forgettable Modern China Reincarnation love story. Time waster at best.
2) The Female Supporting Character Just Wants to live a Good Life - Two "mature" individuals falling in love. Guy starts out as an unfeeling robot, girl is a mary sue. Somehow works out. Idk it's pure fluff.

Still Reading / No Thoughts
1) Isn't Being a wicked woman much better
2) Aire
3) Eight Treasures Trousseau - CN harem politics
4) To be a virtuous wife - Same as above apparently.

Updates on Old Crap:

1) The Villainess Lives Twice - Continues to be a fucking banger. Now more romance centric unfortunately, but it is what it is.

2) Your Throne (aka I want to be you just for a day) - While VLT has become more romance centric, Your Throne has gone the exact opposite way and has become more a story of sisterhood. Really great female characters here. Nothing more to add. Art continues to be fucking amazing.

3) All men must die - Xianxia arc was pog. (Ch 107-121)

4) Spy X Family - Now with an anime for you lazy fucks who can't be bothered to read a couple of lines and stare at the pictures.

5) Justice for a Villainous Woman - The first few arcs were, admittedly, still some of the best in the genre. Unfortunately, towards the later arcs where the main FL antagonist is taken down, the story kind of nose dives and becomes far less interesting.

6) Best Selling Empress - While the first arc continues to be pretty okay, this story nosedives after the Empress regains her position and defeats her rivals at court. Basically after her trial, stop reading.

7) Ebony - This has an admittedly very slow start, but once it gets going, it's really interesting. It's less of a normal shoujo and more of a "climbing out of a deep depression pit". The MC is given the tools to become a strong, self-possessed woman in a deeply misogynistic society.

8) Death is the only ending for the villainess - Still good.