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Thank you RW for asking about and Kim for answering this, it was interesting and informative.

Quote:

most otome games don't actually feature a “villainess” character!

Looking at a fair few otome game playthroughs, none of them have the type of love rival villainess character as found in the otome villainess webnovel genre.

The closest I can find is if they are plot-related villains that either drive the overall game plot or as antagonists of certain character routes (think Rika from Amnesia Memories), but otherwise actual otome games tend to keep the romantic stuff between the heroine and the bachelor of whatever story route the player is presently on.

I did always find this trope weird since I never encountered any villainesses in the otome games I played, but I always assumed that I wasn't playing the right ones. The LNs always seem to be based in Europe like fantasy worlds and I haven't played any like that.

It feels kind of disappointing that media parodying otome games seem to either have no clue what they're like or have an active contempt for them (I think back to the world of otome games is tough for mobs)

Last edited by Shay Guy on Fri Dec 09, 2022 12:53 pm; edited 1 time in total

I've actually done some investigation of my own in the past, though not being able to read much Japanese, I was limited to taking notes from Narou searches and the odd Python script for scraping.

One thing I found that our Answerfrog didn't mention: There's at least one story with a lot of the villainess isekai DNA that predates not only Hamefura, but Kenkyo, Kenjitsu as well. Yandere-kei Otomege no Sekai ni Tensei Shite Shimatta Youdesu (It Seems Like I Got Reincarnated Into the World of a Yandere Otome Game) started six weeks before Kenkyo, Kenjitsu, and while it was never nearly as popular as either of those stories, it at least had enough of an audience to get a LN version and a manga adaptation. It reads a lot like a more serious version of Hamefura, to the point that you can almost imagine Hamefura as a mashup of it and Kenkyo, Kenjitsu.

Another thing is that the growth in the villainess tag's popularity slightly predates Hamefura. I searched in three-month spans, and the period from April 1 to July 1 of 2014 had more than triple the number of results as January 1 to April 1. It doubled again for the July 1-October 1 span (Hamefura started July 6). It's become a lot more popular over the years since then, but I think the trend might've peaked last year? Haven't made a comprehensive graph.

(One more note: Kenkyo, Kenjitsu was super popular, but for some reason it never got published professionally. I'd love to know if the author's ever given a reason why. If it had, it may well have gotten animated before Hamefura.)

EDIT: Also, this probably fits in with the whole thing about Narou being a rehabilitated fanfic site. I wouldn't be surprised if there were stories there back in the day about the protagonist being reincarnated as an ojou-sama character from an actual shoujo manga. It's the sort of thing that's common enough in English fanfic.

MagicPolly wrote:

The LNs always seem to be based in Europe like fantasy worlds

Not always. Modern Villainess: It’s Not Easy Building a Corporate Empire Before the Crash (Gendai Shakai de Otome Game no Akuyaku Reijou wo suru no wa Chotto Taihen) sends the reincarnated villainess from 2008 back to 1990, and she has to work hard to change her ill fate by the time the Great Recession of 2008 strikes again.
Light novel volumes 1 to 3 are out by Seven Seas Airship, and there's also an ongoing manga adaptation.

Does the answer (there pretty much exists no original) apply from the heroine angle too? Like, are there any games or stories where the protagonist is a commoner girl who enters a (magic?) school where there are a lot of nobles? And she befriends the blonde school council president, who's also the crown prince? And his entourage consists of, like, the glasses-wearing son of the country's prime minister, and the son of a knight-ish family, and the bookish type? And there are events like the protagonist having to go to a ball but having no dress because she's a commoner? And maybe she has hidden within the power to save the kingdom from an evil force?

Almost kind of related: what's the source of the fantasy trope of an adventurers guild which has a bulletin board with quests and where modern-style receptionists greet adventurers who are ranked from F to S? Or, why not, the isekai trope where the king summons the protagonist as a hero to fight the demons (or demon lord)? I guess the "oh hero, save our kingdom" thing is from like early Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest or something (haven't played), but not the summoning.

The sense I get from all of these is that the "originals" only exist in our collective psyche/imagination. It's an interesting phenomenon.

^I think it's definitely a case of playing with people's memories.
Like there might genuinely be a few examples of the adventurers guild in older Mmorpgs but at this point LNs are just copying how other light novels handle the trope.
Same with the king, hero and demon lord trope: most fantasy tropes in light novels draw inspiration from the first few dragon quest and final fantasy games. "The four heroes of light" might be why we sometimes see four characters get isekaid at once.

Sceleris wrote:

Like, are there any games or stories where the protagonist is a commoner girl who enters a (magic?) school where there are a lot of nobles?

The more mundane version I know is a staple of shoujo manga, from Hana Yori Dango to Ouran High School Host Club.

Sceleris wrote:

Almost kind of related: what's the source of the fantasy trope of an adventurers guild which has a bulletin board with quests and where modern-style receptionists greet adventurers who are ranked from F to S?

This I'm almost sure comes from RPGs, like the whole Maou-vs.-Hero thing (which definitely has roots in Dragon Quest). Lately I've been playing Trails in the Sky, which came out in 2004, and the Bracer Guild works uncannily like this. It was like seeing a bunch of manga that feature a "tree that guarantees a happily ever after if you confess under it" and joke about how cliche it is (e.g., Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun), then running into Tokimeki Memorial.

Sceleris wrote:

Or, why not, the isekai trope where the king summons the protagonist as a hero to fight the demons (or demon lord)? I guess the "oh hero, save our kingdom" thing is from like early Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest or something (haven't played), but not the summoning.

There might be some of this in RPGs, too? It's not quite a summoning, but I know Soul Blazer had the protagonist be sent by God to defeat its Maou figure.

If nothing else, "fantasy-world noble summons Japanese person" certainly would've been floating around the collective Narou consciousness with how common Familiar of Zero fic was there. But I imagine there's more direct predecessors. Three Hearts and Three Lions didn't have a monarch summoning Holger, but it was clear that he'd been brought to the fantasy world for purposes of heroism. I imagine neither Yuji Horii nor most of his imitators ever read it, but given the chain of influence from it to D&D to Wizardry to Dragon Quest, it wouldn't be surprising to see that strain resurface now and then.

And of course, in a Hero-vs.-Maou console RPG, the player is a real-world person taking the role of the fantasyland Hero. There's a natural conceptual proximity.

Sceleris wrote:

The sense I get from all of these is that the "originals" only exist in our collective psyche/imagination. It's an interesting phenomenon.

It's kind of a stand-alone complex sort of thing. And when you have a bunch of writers with no gatekeepers who prioritize familiarity over distinctiveness, and all the other incentives and feedback loops on an amateur fiction site, I guess that need for "familiarity" ends up drawing from multiple sources that all converge until it becomes distinct from any one of them. And the rapid cycle of reading and writing means you quickly get copies of copies of copies.

The thing that gets me is that so many of these protagonists just immediately go "ah, right, it's that kind of setting". Because you want your readers to identify with them, and your readers are probably people who spend too much time reading webnovels.

I know this is an attempt to trace the artistic origins of the Villainess fantasy, but I wonder how much of this is just people who wrote doujin about the "bad girl" suddenly given license to indulge for pay thanks to the evolving branches of the isekai boom?

Said more cynically, is this also Sword Art Online's fault?

Sceleris wrote:

Almost kind of related: what's the source of the fantasy trope of an adventurers guild which has a bulletin board with quests and where modern-style receptionists greet adventurers who are ranked from F to S?

I'm not familiar with the Monster Hunter games, but there is something very similar in the God Eater and Toukiden series, where you play as a member of a monster hunting organization that hands out quests and rewards at a reception desk. Phantasy Star Zero and Phantasy Star Portable also have a similar setup, if I remember right, so it's probably a fairly common system in games designed around discrete quests. To stretch the point, the traditional Armored Core mercenary organizations function along the same lines. Ranks are kinda optional.

Shay Guy wrote:

If nothing else, "fantasy-world noble summons Japanese person" certainly would've been floating around the collective Narou consciousness with how common Familiar of Zero fic was there. But I imagine there's more direct predecessors. Three Hearts and Three Lions didn't have a monarch summoning Holger, but it was clear that he'd been brought to the fantasy world for purposes of heroism. I imagine neither Yuji Horii nor most of his imitators ever read it, but given the chain of influence from it to D&D to Wizardry to Dragon Quest, it wouldn't be surprising to see that strain resurface now and then.

I may be off base here since it's been years since I've read these manga, but I seem to recall Fushigi Yugi having both an intentional and accidental summoning in order to serve some kind of religious role. Same thing for Magic Knight Rayearth, come to think of it. And Red River, while more of an accidental isekai (I think she literally falls into a puddle of water???) definitely had at least one scheming love rival the heroine had to fend off, which feels like the closest analogue to the "villainess" trope to me; I think the ojou-sama skews a little different, personally. But I don't know how many historical shojo-type manga made it over into English--I feel like we got a lot more school-oriented or magical stuff in the early 00s. Maybe more of those tropes exist in manga that focus on court intrigue? I certainly see more shades of modern villainess stories in my Rose of Versailles volumes than anything else.

Not to mention all the 'subversive' isekai/fantasy stories like, "I gave up being the hero to do ___ instead" that aren't really subversions anymore because they've long since become just as common, if not more so, than stories that play those tropes straight.

"In other words, the most likely explanation for the current “villainess” trend is that it's an amalgamation of old shōjo manga tropes and popular web novel trends. That's probably why the setup instantly feels familiar despite not referencing anything specific."

So basically a Liminal Spaces-type thing, except for anime?

I always viewed these stories as a variation around the premise of the fairy tale Cinderella, the concept of which (if Wikipedia is to be believed) is much older and more widespread than we might think.
Cinderella herself fits the "commoner suddenly introduced to the world of nobles and steals the male lead's heart" trope, and her stepsisters/stepmother are the villainesses - though admittedly they might not exactly do much in the story, depending on the adaptation.

pip25 wrote:

I always viewed these stories as a variation around the premise of the fairy tale Cinderella, the concept of which (if Wikipedia is to be believed) is much older and more widespread than we might think.
Cinderella herself fits the "commoner suddenly introduced to the world of nobles and steals the male lead's heart" trope, and her stepsisters/stepmother are the villainesses - though admittedly they might not exactly do much in the story, depending on the adaptation.

There is actually an original manga that's a reimagining of the classic Cinderella story AND a subversion, My Stepmother and Stepsisters Aren't Wicked (Ibitte Konai Gibo to Gishi), where the stepmother and stepsisters are kind to the fmc, entirely contrary to fmc's expectations. It's not an isekai though.
Seven Seas will release the first volume in May 2023, and in Japan there's 3 volumes out.

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