Actual Rating: 3.5 stars

Synopsis: Our protagonist, Reiko, is a girl from modern Japan who is haunted by an evil entity she cannot see. This entity hurts anyone who tries to hurt Reiko or who threatens its own existence (exorcists, priests, ect). This leads Reiko to lead an isolated life where she has only her best friend and her mother. However she dies in a sudden accident and reincarnates into the body of otome game protagonist, Rachel, without any of Rachel's memories, but with the evil entity still attached to her... more>> soul. In this otome game, miserable fates await all of the protagonist's love rivals, the fiancees of the capture target male leads. Uninterested in male leads who would willingly cheat on their fiancees and taking pity on the so-called villainesses, Rachel aspires to change their fates.

I'll get my praise for this story out of the way first. Despite the complaints you will see later, I still believe this is a solidly written story. The characters are cute and likeable enough, the world building is interesting enough, there's an emotional depth that can be genuinely heartwarming at times. If the story were shorter and more focused I likely would've rated this even higher.

Now, to contextualize some of my critique of this story, I'd like to share some of what the author said in the afterword about the development of this story. The story was originally meant to be half the length of what it ended up as (386 chapters) and was initially going to be a straightforward school life story of a girl "capturing" the villainesses of an otome game rather than the male leads. However the author felt this premise had nothing to distinguish it from other popular works and came up with the twist of the evil entity, drawing inspiration from certain other works.

The author felt pressured to keep up with a breakneck release schedule with no breaks and as a consequence plot points are raised that the author never had time to find a satisfactory conclusion to and certain other elements that the author had intended to include got left by the wayside.

Reading this afterword clarified a lot of the dissatisfaction I had while reading this story. I can't bring myself to wholly blame the author, but the story really does feel like two separate novels squashed somewhat clumsily together. The author clearly cares about the characters and world-building, and the relationships between the girls is very sweet and endearing. However I feel readers who are drawn in by the feel-good academy life elements might find themselves put off by the rather gory side of the entity plotline and the somewhat confusing soul-dualism world building elements that seem to contradict themselves at times.

Those like me who were drawn in by the evil entity plotline are likely to start getting a little antsy during the long stretches where that is put completely on the sidelines in favor of fantasy entrepreneurship, tea parties, 20 chapters of side character back stories, ect. They will likely be even more disappointed by the (lack of) conclusion regarding this important element of the story.

In the end, it all comes down to pacing and lack of focus. The author was basically trying to write two different stories at once and failed to make them completely cohesive. Plot points that should've been key moments get rushed and smoothed over very quickly, other plot points that are ultimately not consequential get drawn out for longer than they should have been. The villains feel pretty one-note. The ending is somehow overly brutal and overly rosy at the same time. I personally don't care for actual male lead and the age gap romance but it contributes so little to the story that I chose to focus on other criticisms instead.

All in all, should you read this? If you are mostly looking for a story about cute girls being cute with each other and healing each other's emotional wounds, and don't mind long stories with sudden mood shifts and occasional violence, this could be exactly the story for you. <<less