Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte

In a word, "Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte!" is Cute. The manga takes the loosest, most basic outline of a villainess story and fills it in with its own unique colors, and it's *great*. 'Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte' is delightfully good fun that doesn't take itself super seriously, which is good because it's an OtomeIsekai story without any actual Isekai, so too much seriousness would have been to its detriment. The premise is a unique and fun twist on a very saturated genre, and it is absolutely worth a read. Characters: 9/10 OI lives and dies on its characters, andso many of them struggle with an incredibly unlikeable ML or a boring supporting cast. Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte has neither. Everyone in the story, from the FL and ML to the Heroine to the ML's father and the heroine's mother and all of the traditional 'capture targets', are an absolute delightful riot. Each one of them is unique and interesting in their own way, and there's not a single character that makes the reader go 'oh god, not *you* again'. It's genuinely hard to choose a favorite character because the entire cast is delightfully strong. The inter-personal relationships mean that everyone feels like part of a living, breathing world, rather than like a role played by a bundle of character tropes or a prop used to propel the story and FL along. A special credit should be given to Endo and Kobayashi, the Not-Isekai characters of the story. They are still in the real world during the course of the story, and we get to see little scenes of their lives in a way that most other isekai books just can't do. At least one of them, Endo, has a surprisingly fleshed out story and motivation (Kobayashi's is not given in the same way, but as Endo and his internal conflicts seem to be the "PoV Character" focus for the IRL sections of the story, this is not super shocking), and the two make for a genuinely interesting 'isekai'ed character', as it were. As a more personal observation, the story made me care about not one, not two, but THREE het relationships, and it's usually shockingly difficult to make me *really* care about even one. Story: 8.5/10 It's just fun. The story is fluffy and cute in a way that a lot of manga just can't quite pull off. The most enjoyable aspect by far is Lieselotte herself (as it should be), and her reactions when her brain abruptly short-circuits after any number of fantastic moments, flipping her switch from TsunTsun to blushing stuttery mess while her fiancé, the prince, looks on, completely unable to get over how stinkin' cute this girl is. It happens constantly, but never in a way that feels overwrought or tired, sort of like a comedian who knows how to build upon a joke to get hours of unique content, as opposed to one who just tells the same joke over and over again but reworded slightly. As the story approaches its eventual conclusion, the fluffy but not terribly impactful story becomes more serious without losing that cute charm that makes it so good. It evolves to tell a story around the themes of love, self-esteem, and growing up. By the time the manga is entering its last book, two parallel but non-overlapping storylines (the one in the story and the one in the real world) begin to rapidly converge together, and *both of them* feel interesting and carry the gravitas needed to make the reader CARE about both of them. Which makes the Major Flaw (covered below) all the more annoying, but more on that in a bit. Also, without context or spoilers, I appreciate how applicable the phrase "Hurt People Hurt People" is. Unique Element/Niche: 7/10 Because the story uses a 'characters in the story can hear the voices of the Gods (AKA two high school students playing the game and commentating over it as they do so)' framework rather than a straightforward isekai, Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte gets to use its unique premise to allow for action in both the 'real' and 'isekai' world simultaneously. This element feels somewhat underutilized, but that feeling is probably magnified to an unfair degree by the unfortunate way that the manga ended. Art: 9/10 It's clean. It's good. Everyone is distinctive enough that it's clear who each character is on screen (as opposed to all the manga that have a supporting cast made up of 3-5 interchangeable tall handsome blonde guys that look incredibly alike). The art is nothing to be blown away by, but it is used in some fun ways to get across certain character aspects or moments of emotion that are, again, cute and funny. Also, the artist has a clear affinity for drawing facepalms, as there are multiple spectacularly drawn ones through the manga's runtime, and something about Finne's facial expressions in particular are spectacular. There's very little not to love about the art style, which is pretty basic but in the best possible way. One tiny nitpick in that there's an inherent difficulty in the way the story is laid out that the mangaka was never quite able to solve. 99% of the time, neither Endo nor Kobayashi are on screen when theyr'e talking, and as such they have a unique style of dialogue box to represent them in particular. The story doesn't do a great job of making it clear *which* of these two are the ones talking during most of the conversations, however. For a bunch of scenes, the characters' unique voices are enough to get most of it, but in a bunch you really only have if the dialogue in question is 'play-by-play' (Endo) or 'color commentary' (Kobayashi) to go off, and the translation sort of blurs the line between those two things a lot of the time. The Flaw (because every story has at least one): ~/10 There is exactly one major flaw, and that's that the manga was cancelled before it could be finished. (Interestingly, it was cancelled because of misconduct by the *editorial* side of the publication instead of the author or artist, which is actually pretty rare). It has fallen distressingly *just* short of the finish line, as the story seemed like it was set to wrap up in one, MAYBE two, more books, but given the poor health of the illustrator, it's unlikely that the series will ever be finished. The fact that this happens EXTREMELY late into the story means that it's potentially not as painful, as most of the story *did* make it to publish before the contract was cancelled... but on the other hand, the cancellation happened right in the middle of the climax of the first of the two major plot threads, and the second (which took place largely in the real world and is probably why that aspect of the story feels somewhat underutilized) was entirely untouched. Side note: This is apparently not true of the Anime, which has the full story in its 12 episode release. The end of the manga occurs in the climax of episode 11, to give perspective on how close the manga came to being finished. Overall Score: 9/10 It's just fun. It's good. It doesn't take itself too seriously. It's flaws are minor (right up until the end) and it's upsides are numerous and delightful. "Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte!" is worth a recommendation, it's worth a read, it's worth your time, and its worth your attention. Go read it. Seriously.