​It’s a Little Hard to be a Villainess of an Otome Game in Modern Society (LN)

Description

Links are NOT allowed. Format your description nicely so people can easily read them. Please use proper spacing and paragraphs.

I was reincarnated as a villainous daughter in an otome game based on the modern world.

But because it’s a modern world, the slow life of a villainess has many hardships, and modern Japanese history, modern economic history, and the global economy attack the main character when she tries to manage domestic affairs.

Hang in there, villainess! Don’t lose, villainess!

This is a story about the struggles of Keikain Runa, a villainous daughter who throws herself into history falsification and money wars, leaving the main character and the capture targets behind in order to live a proper slow life, with the backdrop of a lost World War, the collapse of an economic bubble, and a looming financial crisis.

Associated Names
One entry per line
Gendai shakai de otome gēmu no akuyaku reijō o suru no wa chotto taihen
Modern Villainess: It’s Not Easy Building a Corporate Empire Before the Crash
現代社会で乙女ゲームの悪役令嬢をするのはちょっと大変
Related Series
​It’s a Little Hard to be a Villainess of an Otome Game in Modern Society (WN) (Web Novel)
Recommendations
Trash of the Count’s Family (2)
I’m the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire! (1)
Magical★Explorer (1)
The World of Otome Games is Tough For Mobs (1)
Past Life Returner (1)
The Great Nation Remodeling of Reincarnated Princess ~Let’s Build an Unrivaled Country~ (1)
Recommendation Lists
  1. My Cherished Memories
  2. JP FMC Novels
  3. Building Empires
  4. Mecha,Space,Sci-fi,fantasy webnovels
  5. Favorite

Latest Release

Date Group Release
08/02/21 Yado Inn v1c3 part12
05/08/21 Yado Inn v1c3 part11
05/08/21 Yado Inn v1c3 part10
05/03/21 Yado Inn v1c3 part9
05/03/21 Yado Inn v1c3 part8
04/24/21 Yado Inn v1c3 part7
04/21/21 Yado Inn v1c3 part6
04/17/21 Yado Inn v1c3 part4-5
04/14/21 Yado Inn v1c3 part3
04/10/21 Yado Inn v1c3 part1-2
04/07/21 Yado Inn v1c2 part9
04/03/21 Yado Inn v1c2 part8
03/31/21 Yado Inn v1c2 part7
03/27/21 Yado Inn v1c2 part6
03/24/21 Yado Inn v1c2 part5
Go to Page...
Go to Page...
Write a Review
12 Reviews sorted by


flowingcloud
flowingcloud rated it
March 8, 2021
Status: --
Translator here.

Tired of s*upid otome game villainess novels? Finally, we find an author that actually isn't braindead. Welcome to ​It’s a Little Hard to be a Villainess of an Otome Game in Modern Society (Modern Villainess), a novel that actually does second chance novels correctly.

The novel follows the main character who reincarnates into the villainess of an otome game, Keikain Runa. Her parents have passed away and she is currently suffering from the backlashes of the early 90s Japanese bubble economy. The companies that she inherited from her father are... more>> in shambles and she uses her modern-day knowledge to solve her problems.

What sets this novel apart from other otome game villainess or second chance fulfillment novels?

The author either has done his research or is very well-versed in economics, especially the happenings of the Japanese economy. The situations and solutions are very well thought out, plus very realistic. Additionally, the character development of the novel is very nice. As you keep reading, you find out that the main character

Spoiler

actually resents being born in her time period (Japanese 90s). She hates the fact that no matter how hard you work during the recession, many are set in stone to fail.

[collapse]

Also, thank god the main character does not fall for the otome game's male lead, nor is she uncomprehendingly scared of the otome game's female lead. I am f**king tired of those s*upid plots and this is, thankfully, a good chance of pace.

The main character is not a robot and actually carries a backstory of her own. Thus, her actions might seem "unusual" for wish-fulfillment novel readers, because they are fueled by human emotions.

Overall, if you want to see the main character build their economic empire while developing as a person, this novel is definitely for you. <<less
90 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Ichigoeater
Ichigoeater
March 21, 2021
Status: c2 part4
It's a bit soon to rank it, but just the lack of a romance tag already makes me hopeful. Those sorts of stories are rare enough with male protagonists, let alone female ones, and it's impossible to find if we're talking villainess stories. It seems like the author does know what they're talking about when it comes to the financial world, but I know very little about it, so I may be getting fooled. Either way, I think this will be a satisfying story. And NO ML REQUIRED!
30 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Nelanlan
Nelanlan rated it
May 9, 2021
Status: v1c3 part7
I read pretty far into the raws. I got up to around ~200 chapters in before I stopped and I may pick it up again sometime. This story is a really good at certain things, but it may not be entirely what you expect from the beginning chapters. In some ways, the author himself (assuming its a man but not sure) has different visions of the story as he writes it.

What draws me into the story is my attraction to the character of Keikan Runa (or what I thought... more>> might become Keikain Runa's character) as well as the incredible nostalgia-like sensation as the author goes over real history, his fake story history, and culture/subculture developments. Runa starts her story in the early to mid 90s and over the 200 chapters I read the story advances less than 10 years. Every chapter is full of references. This makes many chapters a blast to the past. This novel can be fairly slow paced, not quite slice of life. The author also isnt shy about seeing something that seems cool and just throwing it in because "this is an otome game so why not?". Example,
Spoiler

Runa establishing a floating city in Tokyo Bay or there being an underground city in Sakhalin full of Black lagoon-like killer maids

[collapse]
. The world is incredibly interesting and the author does a great job of pulling you in.

What caused me to drop the story is when I had to face the reality that Runa isn't the protagonist I thought she would be. I went into this hoping for something like Koko for Jormugand. An intelligent and villainously charismastic character. From what I have read, Runa has the soul of a rather normal girl with some cheat specs from her villain body and a willingness and drive to seize moments of opportunity using her knowledge of the future. She loves her home country of Japan but isnt annoyingly nationalistic about it. She is complex and the author sets up some interesting developments but I still found myself disappointed.

For me, my disappointment in what I wanted Runa to be, and the general slow development of the story lead me to drop the novel. However, I still read 200 chapters before I reached that point. I certainly recommend giving this story a try if the synopsis catches your eye. <<less
14 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Key21
Key21 rated it
August 3, 2021
Status: c290
I can say with proud, This is one of beautifully written pieces. The story was written in conjunction with modified real history that had happen in the world. The characters was well written, done in a way that you can feel their emotions and personality.

This might not be a story for everyone, since the story is piled with theory on economy and politic beyond scope of normal. You will be presented by 20% of story, 50% history and 30% theory when you reading this for couple of chapters. This makes... more>> it appear "heavy" for some people.

The MC while seen as genius, she is basically just happen to know the future. Her action also tied with her body ages mentality. This might turn down some of you but as wise person said, human are far from perfect and this also applies to MC.

All I can say is for you to try reading this. Give it some times as the story progress quite slow but at least I can assure you that you wont hate this even if you don't like it. Also, the translation is nicely done. <<less
10 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
stolemyowncar
stolemyowncar rated it
October 10, 2022
Status: v2c1
I read v1 of the LN, and I guess I'm going to essentially do the "hot take" review for this series, considering how positively it is currently rated. This novel is basically as hard for me to rate as it was to read, and I'm still floating between 3/5 and 4/5 for my rating. 3/5 is my personal enjoyment, 4/5 is what I think this novel is in terms of trying something that we don't usually see in the LN field at all. Everyone else here does a good job... more>> describing what the novel is, so I'll focus on what my problems with it are.

Edit: Changed "economics" to "business"... I don't think there's actually a terrible lot of real "economics" in this, I would say it would go more into business knowledge, which is related but not quite the same.

As background I'll start out by saying that I'm an engineering degree graduate, with just cursory enough interest in business, politics, and history. I only had maybe 0-2 courses in each of those as part of college, and that was quite a while ago. Normally this would not be an issue... but it is with this novel.

Why?

    • Because I would say 75% of the content of this is advanced level politics, history, and business details. (Well let's say it's at least college class level, I'm not sure if it's "advanced"... ie at least "I hope you have a minor in this as part of your degree" sort of level).
    • The author provides some basic definitions at the end, but they're not very complete if you want to actually try to understand this.
        • For instance, zaibatsu. Do you know what zaibatsu means? Nope? Me neither, initially. According to Kindle it's used 57 times throughout the book (v1 anyway). How many times is it actually defined? Zero. I got to the end of the first chapter and was looking through the definitions list thinking "well it has to be here somewhere right?" It's not. I had to Google it. Granted this might be more of a localization issue.
        • Which leads me to my main point. If you don't have an inclination towards those fields that I mentioned above, you're essentially given small scraps of moldy bread to try to keep you afloat. I hope you enjoy having few tabs open to Investopedia/wikipedia/etc, if you try to actually digest all of the developments happening in this. Frankly I'm surprised he doesn't go into stock shorting, different types of assets, etc as a part of this at this point.
    • The above point and subpoints is just addressing the business portion of it. The author also delves into some slightly heavier politics. Government structure, responsibility, election flows, etc.
        • ... This is even less defined. Further exacerbated by the fact that I'm not a Japanese citizen. I don't really take Japanese Politics and history on it as part of any of my coursework, college or otherwise. This would be fine if maybe the localization included some background and/or maybe an appendix but yeah there's very little. Japanese politics as I understand it is very nuanced; there are a lot of details which the author presents as if they're self evident that instead just ended up as a word pasta that I had to read 2-3 times.
    • History is essentially a ditto to the above.
All of this combined basically in my mind cements this as a great book to pick up for two types of readers:

    1. Read mostly for the overarching developments while skipping all of the in depth mumbo jumbo.
        1. Although there isn't much left here as far as that goes... I'll get to that in my next paragraph after this list.
    1. People with an active interest/talent/etc in one or more of these fields, who more or less can read it without concerning themselves on needing to look up the details too much, hence can also focus on the story while appreciating all of the details.
Unfortunately I'm neither of those two. I'll willingly and freely admit that I may just be too daft to appreciate this work. Who knows? Either way, I found myself reading this almost as if I was slogging through a textbook. That is, it felt very... dry... to read. There were so many times where I was distracted by not truly understanding all of the specifics that I was instead distracted from the overarching plot. Because most of this book was more of the details rather than the overarching plot. I think the overarching plot's developments could basically be summarized in 1 chapter, and you would lose nothing but those economic details within that process. That is, none of the plot would be lost.

At the end of the day I think I could appreciate this book more if I gave it 2-3 reads, and looked up every detail. I don't really have that kind of time, and I don't think I should have to invest that sort of time into this. The author could have augmented this work in the following ways:

    • A timeline (complete with actual dates) after every chapter (that grows with every chapter), to at least show you the key events that are occurring. This would help lay all of the complex events out better and isn't really that hard to implement.
    • Maybe a map showing the current state of companies and their relationships/merge status/etc (this isn't really asking for much, some shoujo light novels have complex maps showing their current relationship states).
    • More definitions
    • An appendix, maybe with references (after all if you're making a pseudo textbook regarding a fictional character's life, might as well).
Overall, I found this to be quite the oddity. There have been many times that I thought it would be nice if a work had more detail here or there, and provided more depth about business/economics or politics. This work took all of that and flipped the table over onto the other spectrum, and showed me that I in fact didn't want it THAT much.

I appreciate the author's commitment to actual textbook-level business/economics validity (at least supposedly; I can't really fact check it as I'm not an expert in any of those fields; for all I know they were going off the deep end on all of this), but I didn't expect to come out of it realizing that I didn't really want that sort of thing in an LN, at least not when it's not spoonfed to me. I'll continue reading this, but it's going to be a bit sporadic, because again 3/5 is what I would rate how much I enjoyed v1. 4/5 is my opinion on its significance to the genre because it shows that complex, almost textbook-like works can actually be marketed on the Light Novel platform. For that, I think it almost deserves a 5/5 because of its cultural significance. TL:DR I guess I don't like it because I'm too dumb lol tehe bonk. <<less
6 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
PPsyrius
PPsyrius rated it
September 19, 2021
Status: c569
Interesting setting that's actually well-researched and ties up things together quite well - with good character progression all around too.

I wish I've found this gem earlier, and ended up binge reading this up several days in a row now.
5 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
craftlaw
craftlaw rated it
September 10, 2022
Status: on going
Finally find good author, very long time I find story good about economy or business and found this title. So I excited about story modern society and oligarchy, do you know Chaebols conglomerate version korea this smillar like Zaibatsu but in japan. This world building is not have magic but like the earth in generally, the author used the perspective of "what will happen if Japan does not participate in ww2" and the fate of Zebetsu who was not dissolved in Japan however still suffered the fate of the Great... more>> Economic Depression of the 90s known as the Japanese Lost Decade.

Short story Keikain Runa born form old family like one of Zaibatsu but conflict family legacy kill all the existing families, so Runa to be heir keikan family and leader corporat however threatened bankrupt with future memories managed recovery company, then she company expand and become true oligarchy in japan.

I really recommended to read "Little Hard to be a Villainess of an Otome Game in Modern Society", this novel worth it to get 5 stars and novel under rated so u can read in WN like syosetsu however u read with kanji "lol", if u are excited u can still use google translate. One more thing I'm sorry because English is not my first language and I'm still learning to use it. <<less
2 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Chizzei
Chizzei rated it
September 15, 2022
Status: v2
Set in Alternate Modern day world. Where, the Novel world follow similiar path of our own but with several diffrence, ... more>>
Spoiler

such as one of it was Japan Split into 2 like West-East Germany.

[collapse]

Our MC background was heavily influenced by worn down Japan, which was just being beaten down by Economic-Banking Crisis - the whole infamous "Lost Decade" which IRL Japan still aint recover even today. She was smart and the depth of Research done in this piece, make you also think that she actualy understand how Economic works, and how to exploit it with Her knowledge of Future. The Novel is bit slow paced but the world building put into it with refference from the 90s was Fun.

Runa being not afraid of using perks of being Villainess, Shapping Her kingdom, Rampaging the political and economic world, From Busking at street to
Spoiler

Funding George W Bush Presidental Campaign - lol

[collapse]
, reading Runa enjoying Her time while walking confidently to her Pre-determined Ruin has been a blast, and Im end up craving for more <<less
1 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
elliepot
elliepot rated it
July 26, 2022
Status: v1c9
I was pleasantly surprised reading this novel, I was prepared to be introduced to a typical isekai novel with an OP MC that just excels in everything she does and has no problem resolving every problem she encounters while catching the hearts of every character. I was incredibly wrong, this is a novel about the economy and politics of Japan set in an era when the worldwide depression was culminating. In other words, an economic collapse. Although I say Japan, it also explains the causal effects of the economic situation... more>> of other countries on the economy of Japan.

The MC in essence uses the skills and knowledge from her past life to stabilize her position in the conglomerate world but it comes with risks. She's not invincible, she is very much vulnerable like an ordinary human. She doesn't care about any of the supposed love interests, she only sees the benefits of being acquainted with them because of their family background. Connections that will further her cause.

Spoiler

Every action she does is calculated with the purpose of preventing a financial crisis and ensuring that the Japanese economy won't plummet since it would also lead to her downfall. By gaining more assets and intelligence, investing in politicians and companies, creating funds, negotiating with big names, making connections, and taking advantage of the economic state of other countries. She intends to win against the declining economy of Japan in that era and become the winner.

[collapse]

So if you're looking for romance, this is most definitely not for you but if you're interested in politics, economy, and business then this will surely be a novel worth reading. As someone who has a weak foundation in these subjects, I was genuinely intrigued and invested in the story. It's always fun to learn about things, you don't know much of. <<less
1 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
rcpsycho
rcpsycho rated it
February 28, 2022
Status: v1c3 part12
It's hard for me to put in words how much more interesting this modern villainess reincarnation is compared to all the fantasy ones.

I don't mind it as much if there's magic involved, but after reading this it really feels like all these novels that focus almost entirely on relationships of some superficial characters are lacking substance.

This MC doesn't just reincarnate as a rich family's daughter but actually makes use of her knowledge of the past to make huge investments and financial moves. In particular I'd like to take this opportunity... more>> to point out that the translation is done very well and there's a good explanation of some of the terms used at the end of the chapter.

I really hope that it continues like this. I'd consider looking up the novel and using MTL to read it, but I'm worried that all the proper translations, terms, and explanations for the more complicated financial subjects would be lost. <<less
1 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Solar Eclipse
Solar Eclipse rated it
December 31, 2022
Status: --
Now this is a good series where the author is not brainded and actually have proper world building and deep character history.

The author also did his/her research and not just randomly throwing things that does not make any sense.

So it's recommended for anyone who's looking for a new series to read.
0 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Sheltyer
Sheltyer rated it
September 14, 2022
Status: --
i really like this otome game story,
unlike the female main characters in other otome games who always cover up their abilities just for her own convenience to live a peaceful life, which captures everyone's heart.

while for this one not at all, this female main character is really firm and sharp, and shows all her abilities without any preamble, and also uses people as her pawns.
0 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Leave a Review (Guidelines)
You must be logged in to rate and post a review. Register an account to get started.