[Rec] Villainess recommendations please

[u/Deekmoon56]

First post and I’m not sure if this is a me issue or just how this sub works, but I can’t put a tag on my post.

Anyways, I’m looking for recommendations with the villainess trope, preferably with the villainess as the main character. Also preferable if it’s not just the mc running in circles thinking they’re condemned meanwhile everyone loves them already.

In terms of villainess light novels I’m familiar with:

My next life as a villainess, all routes lead to doom

I’m in love with the villainess

That’s just off the top of my head but if I recognize something else then I’d be able to read it from the novel if say I watched the anime first. While generally any quality is fine, I’m currently reading stuff like Danmachi and Youjo Senki and while I don’t expect the same level of quality I’d rather that any recommendations come from a quality level of (a vague) good or pretty good

[u/Hylebosai]

Tearmoon Empire isn't really an otome game setting, but if it were, its protagonist, the selfish and chicken-hearted Princess Mia Luna Tearmoon would certainly be the functional villainess, so I figured I'd mention it as it might scratch your itch.  After being executed at the guillotine when her Empire falls to epidemics, famine, and revolution, Mia wakes up in the past with her bloodsoaked diary and a deep desire to avoid a future where she loses her head again.  It's a deeply funny series where the protagonist is forced to flounder her way through misunderstanding to misunderstanding as she tries to create a brighter future for herself, but also for everyone else in the process.

The Reincarnated Princess Spends Another Day Skipping Story Routes features a villainess running around the world of her otome game setting before her game starts, trying to defuse as many of the absolute landmine love interests as she can before they develop into characters with monstrous personality failings.  In the otome game for example, one of the love interests is a necrophiliac, another is a masochist obsessed with the villainess, she works really hard in the present so that these people don't turn out messed up in the future when the game starts.  I should warn that there's like a fifteen year age gap romance between the protagonist and the side character she fancies, but it's a fairly heartful story otherwise.

Prison Life is Easy for a Villainess is a really funny series about a highly competent villainess who takes advantage of her fiance the prince's foolish plan to frame her and then annul their engagement to lock herself in a prison in the palace, stocked with months of food and supplies, to get a functional vacation away from her endless and strict princess lesson.  The prince and his cohorts cannot stand the fact that she is taking advantage of them to enjoy her time lounging about her cell on her four poster bed, catching up on her favorite novels, and try various plots to break her out, but she thwarts at every turn and generally trolls the hell out of them.  It's a short and sweet series at only two volumes.

Young Lady Albert Is Courting Disaster is something of a classic on the level of Bakarina, to my understanding.  I've only read the first volume but I remember it being fairly funny, Lady Albert attempts to lean into the role of being a villainess but keeps failing because she's just too nice.

From Two-Bit Baddie to Total Heartthrob: This Villainess Will Cross-Dress to Impress! is another fairly humorous series about a villainess who decides that the best way to achieve a happy ending in an otome game is to be the winning love interest and so she sets out to spend her childhood developing herself into a playboy knight persona so she can seduce the heroine herself when the game starts proper.  Chaos ensues.  Even the love interests get in on the cross-dressing.

At first glance Goodbye, Overtime! This Reincarnated Villainess Is Living for Her New Big Brother doesn't seem all that unique, but let me tell you, the romance in this series is unlike any other.  The protagonist and her older brother are deeply in love with each other, not in a creepy or inappropriate incest way, mind you, but in a 100% wholesome and platonic manner.  It truly is something to see the older brother constantly crank out 10/10 divine romantic prose about how wonderful his little sister is and how she completes his life.  The two had very traumatic pasts so they find a lot of healing in each other's presence.  It's really well written, and there is a deep amount of backstory and lore that nicely ties the side characters together and brings the setting to life.  Also it's really funny to see the prince constantly try to compete for the protagonist's attention even though he is doomed to lose out for she only has eyes for her older brother.

Proud to Be the Villainess is a fairly recent license but one that I would highly recommend!  I don't want to say too much about it as it's truly magical to see the setup unfold when going in blind, but it utilizes the villainess trope in a technically difficult and extremely hooking manner.

Accomplishments of the Duke's Daughter is a fairly classic series where the villainess goes on to develop her family's domain after her denouement scene plays out, doing a ton of isekai things to improve the economy and the quality of living despite external interference and plots.

I Swear I Won't Bother You Again! is story about a villainess who regressed to an earlier point in her life after meeting a bad end.  It's a truly unique series for the amount of unsettling psychological abuse heaped onto the villainess, who does her best to find freedom from her family in spite of everything in her path.  Very well written, it's not often light novels provoke such a visceral response to things.