She'll get her happy ending, one way or another.
Aileen Lauren D'Autriche is publicly dumped and shamed by her fiance, Prince Cedric. The shock awakens her memories of a previous life where she played an otome game whose plot she is now living out as the villainess. Now, with knowledge of how the next two months are going to play out, Ailene tries to avert her doom by proposing marriage to the final boss of the game.
I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss is a light novel written by Sarasa Nagase and illustrated by Mai Murasaki. It is also adopted into a manga by Anko Yuzu. Both versions have been licensed into the English language by Yen Press.
An anime started on September 24, 2022. It can be seen on Crunchyroll.
Contains examples of the following tropes:
- Beauty Contest: In the Mische Academy arc, there's a contest where the female students compete for the title of White Lily Princess.
- Betty and Veronica: In-game, Lilia was meant to be the sweet, commoner Betty to Aileen's arrogant, high-class Veronica, with Cedric as the Archie who leaves Aileen for Lilia.
- Break His Heart to Save Him: In the original game Keith does this to Claude not realizing he's being manipulated so that Claude would be vulnerable to the Holy Sword. Ailene is able to remember the events of Claude's route in time and stop Keith before this ends up getting him killed.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: All the named men of the cast look attractive, as you might expect from a world which is the basis for an otome game back on Earth.
- Dramatic Irony: During a student council meeting, the members discuss Aileen and how they believe her to be a foul-tempered woman. None of them are aware that Ailey, who is in the room with them, is actually a crossdressing Aileen, while she mentally swears to make them regret their words later.
- Esoteric Happy Ending: Discussed in-universe. Aileen ends up being irritated after she recalls that the ending of Claude's route, which involved Claude sealing the demons away to avoid being in conflict with being together with the Maiden of the Holy Sword. Considering that the heroine essentially contributed to Claude's transformation by telling him about Keith's betrayal without accounting for how he would react to it and then making him give up all of the demons for her, Aileen decides she hates that ending, accounting for the Claude she's grown to know who wants to have a world where demons and humans can coexist.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Cedric's attempts to punish Aileen for Lilia's "kidnapping" only result in her gaining the upper hand and making him look like he was overreacting.
- Legalized Evil: Humans trafficking demons is not a violation of the non-aggression treaty - something which shocks Lilia, Cedric and Marcus to learn.Aileen: But selling demons isn't a crime by any definition, you know. What is forbidden is harming demons. Trafficking demons is not. People have merely decided not to do it because it would anger Master Claude. It's a matter of ethics. In the first place, even if Master Keith had been illicitly selling demons, exactly what crime would humans arrest him for?
- Mage Species: The only humans known to use magic are the Levi tribe, causing their people to be rejected and persecuted like demons.
- Motive Misidentification: During an incident where a demon accidentally wanders onto the Academy grounds, members of the heroine's harem assume Ailene was planning to set a demon on the heroine. Ailene was actually there to save the demon so that Prince Claude would owe her a favor, but she chooses to be a Silent Scapegoat to keep the situation from getting out of hand.
- Oh, Crap!: Aileen's reaction whenever she regains some new memories of how the original game played out - generally about five minutes, or five hours, after she's made a decision which she now remembers is a step closer on the path to the next doom flag.
- Basically everyone's reaction in Episode 3 when a terrified servant interrupts Cedric's arrest of Aileen to announce that the demon king has just arrived, followed by Claude literally breaking through the stained glass ceiling to enter the ballroom.
- Outfit-Rip Sex Check: Walt confirms that "Ailey" is a girl in disguise by ripping her jacket open.
- Person of Mass Destruction: As the demon king, Claude is treated as such. Aileen and Keith both note on separate occasions the consequences if Claude didn't choose to restrain himself and his powers:Aileen: Personally, I hope those who wronged me get devoured by demons. However, if you wished for that, it would actually happen. How heavy that responsibility must be, and how conflicted you must feel - and yet here you are, resisting that very temptation. I respect your strength.
- Poor Communication Kills: Claude's route from the game involves Keith, his closest attendant betraying him by being involved in monster trafficking, claiming he did so for money, leading to Claude killing him in response and falling into despair to become the true King of Monsters. Ailene theorizes, accounting to the reality she's now living in, that the original game Keith's actions were ultimately done for Claude's sake, both to protect him from an attempt on his life as a human and his immense guilt for being forced to traffic monsters to keep the land the monsters live in, unaware that Lilia has already awakened to the Holy Sword and thus could ultimately cause Claude's death.
- "Reborn as Villainess" Story: After having her engagement to the second prince annulled, the villainess daughter of the prime minister, Aileen scrambles to find a way to maintain her social position and avoid death at the hands of the secret capture target and first prince, Claude the Demon King. Her solution? Propose to him. Unfortunately, the heroine is trying to keep things going on the script, and the prince who spurned her proves dangerously stupid and unstable.
- Relationship Reset Button: In the third arc, Aileen has to resolve the plot of the first game's fan disc where Claude loses his powers and memories. Despite this, Aileen refuses to give up on Claude and doesn't wait to try rebuilding their romance from zero. Unfortunately, Lilia tries to ruin it for her by raising the flags of Claude's route, as she only failed before because of his love for Aileen.
- School Festival: One of the main events of the second game, corresponding to the second arc, is the festival of Mische Academy.
- Shadow Walker: Claude gives Aileen the ability to have demons reside in her shadow.
- Soap Opera Disease: Aileen died young from some unnamed disease in her past life. The nature of the disease was never elaborated upon, but what is certain is that she played video games non-stop to take her mind off of it. The universe Aileen currently is in is implied to be one of those games she played during that period.
- Stay in the Kitchen: The Mirchetta region is noted to have heavy misogyny that persists to present day. Isaac remarks that despite the fact the original Maiden of the Holy Sword originated from said region, she was still expected to uphold the duties of a woman.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: In order to secretly help Claude investigate a series of demon attacks, Aileen disguises herself as a boy in order to enter a nearby school.
- Urban Segregation: Alucato, the capital city of the Ellmeyer Empire, is laid out like a fan with the royal palace at its focus point and is divided into five layers, listed below in the order of how close they are to the palace.
- The first layer is a residential district where nobility lives.
- The second layer holds government offices, banks, and other public facilities, include the Holy Knights' training ground and the Academy.
- The third layer is the commercial district. The Varie Newspaper has its offices here.
- The fourth layer is a residential district for the common people. It has been mentioned to include schools for commoners.
- The fifth layer holds everything else, including the slums where the very poorest live, and the red-light district. Public safety is bad, and requests for government services and repairs from this area tend to receive the slowest response. Residents are generally living paycheck to paycheck, and have trouble finding steady jobs.
- Finally, behind the royal palace is a forest, which fits together with the fan-shaped capital to create a circle. While there are walls and gates between the layers themselves, there is no real barrier between the ends of each layer and the forest, only some signs warning of the border and sometimes a wall or palisade that nominally bars the way. This means it is possible to enter and exit the forest from the end of each layer.
- When Claude abdicated his right to the throne at age ten and pledged a mutual nonaggression treaty between demons and humans, in exchange he received ownership of the entire forest and the abandoned castle within it. This has since become demon territory, as demon refugees flocked towards their king and safety from humans.
- Wall Pin of Love: During the School Festival of the Mische Academy, a disguised Aileen finds herself trapped against a wall by Claude and thinks it's a waste as the scene would have looked hot if she wasn't wearing a duck costume at the time.
