Mob Douzen no Akuyaku Reijou wa Dansou Shite Kouryaku Taishou no Za o Nerau - Vol. 1 Ch. 1

[zokoi19]

I swear I read this before

you actually might have. This is adaption of a novel (translation can be found on NovelUpdates).

Lmao, so both GL and BL bait. Ok got it

Spoiler from the novel if anyone wants:

Spoiler

"The author made a bunch of side stories depicting various romantic ends and an entire something 10 chapter extra story with yuri ending." - The Hamster

So basically, it's a story where you can choose your preferred ending. It's definitely BL bait though.

I doubt that the serialized version will follow the novel though, since that's too convenient, and yuri ending, in a mainstream series? I'd love to see that happen though I doubt it.

 

[Vono]

you actually might have. This is adaption of a novel (translation can be found on NovelUpdates).


Spoiler from the novel if anyone wants:

Spoiler

"The author made a bunch of side stories depicting various romantic ends and an entire something 10 chapter extra story with yuri ending." - The Hamster

So basically, it's a story where you can choose your preferred ending. It's definitely BL bait though.

I doubt that the serialized version will follow the novel though, since that's too convenient, and yuri ending, in a mainstream series? I'd love to see that happen though I doubt it.

I remember another series having a similar plot but I guess I'm confused

 

[zokoi19]

I remember another series having a similar plot but I guess I'm confused

there's tons of villainess series with the same premise, so I don't doubt you at all lol! Just pointing out that this is an adaption of a novel, which you or anyone else could have read and forgot about.

 

[Opek.]

Somehow I didn't expect this to get translation from a TL group, but thank you nonetheless! I recently discovered the novel and fell in love with it so I want to see how it play out in manga form

Can't wait for when the heroine enters the story, will this have a GL tag by then?

 

[berryoragami]

Thanks for the chapter!
Excited to read more of this

 

[sequintial]

You. You understand.

With a past life that's mostly a blank slate, all we have at the moment to go off is speculation, and her actions directly afterwards. And like, there are a lot of ex-villainess manga out there that travel down the other routes of like, divorce, running away etc, and she just goes RIGHT into Welp, guess I gotta be a man now.

Entirely out of context, a panel like This:

Can absolutely be read as: Wow, it's so unfair that I'm treated like this just because I'm a girl. Even I could be like this if [I was a boy.... Egg crack moment, maybe..... Maybe I CAN be a boy!]

Especially when there's a considerable effort to present masculine, crossdress, even when the main cast is nowhere to be seen! Like she says, She's doing it to seduce the main character In Ten Years.
Like there's absolutely no reason for the main character to be doing this so early So Who is she doing this for if not herself?

Like, examining the other ML's shown off, there's also the game cover and various other previews, but especially looking at this shot, Only one of these fuckers has something even approaching long hair.

And even then!!! She also had the option of pretending to be a guy with long hair!! Yknow, supposedly like the other MLs??? She also didn't need to muscle train, or practice sword fighting, to the extent where she's not only stronger than her brother, but also her instructors??? Girl's goin all out to be a guy!!

That said, this line, ough. That panel absolutely lends itself to being read as trans. Given how it wasn't highlighted or a full scene, it's doubtful that the story's gonna go into it much past subtext, but there's 1000% enough textual evidence for a solid fic right there.

Also, with how the brother's supporting, also asking the father, i think he knows. Even if it turns out that she isn't explicitly transgender, I think regardless I will be moving forward with the idea that the brother thinks she is, and is just 10,000% supportive about it. That said, it's also interesting how the father's explicitly given his permission too

There's also the part where she focuses on being able to change herself but not others... But then on the very same page is also like, I can make it so that the heroine will change who she falls in love with! Which draws her motivations into question...
Until you remember that as part of her training she's reading romance novels and explicitly learning HOW TO SEDUCE GIRLS, HEROINE x VILLAINESS CONFIRMED BABY LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOO
Can't wait for the inevitable dance scene where she leads, y'know, because she's learning that half of things

Also this line made me laugh

lmaoooo the maid just "Please don't call it that"

Thank you for pointing out the time frame, too! If Elizabeth's only goal was to seduce the heroine, there really wouldn't be a need to dedicate herself to living 100% as a man immediately. I definitely doubt that this manga will dedicate time to explaining Elizabeth's view of her own gender, but the background details really keeps making it clear that she is choosing her best life. There's no coerced cross-dressing in this- just Elizabeth laser-focused on living her ideal life and wooing her dream woman.

This second chapter I think continues to add more to the trans reading. We don't see Elizabeth's brother say this to her, but we see her remember her brother saying "A knight is someone every boy admires." when she is trying to consider how to comfort Christopher.

And earlier, we see her decide to pursue being knightly after hearing her sword instructor list the knight's code of conduct.

So one reading is that her brother said that to her before she spoke with her instructor, leading to her listening to his ode to knighthood with that gender role expectation in mind, and choosing to admire and pursue knighthood as a boy does. Another reading, if her brother said that to her after she had that conversation with the instructor, is that she chose it without thinking too much about her reasoning, (she really doesn't spend a lot of time justifying her choices to herself) and that she is being encouraged by her brother who sees her as his transgender sibling.
I think either is interesting, and aligns well with a transgender reading of the overall work- she's either intentionally pursuing manhood and masculinity for the joy of it, or she's simply not put off by living her life as a man, regardless of how others see her.
Either story is interesting, and refreshing when the preferred cisgender interpretation of transgender narratives is one that focuses on misery and self-flagellation. A story about someone choosing to live their best life and their best gender is very welcome in my heart! I'm very much looking forward to seeing where this manga goes next, and what details we get about Elizabeth as it does.

 

[halcer]

her concluding that she settled the bully situation peacefully took me out

 

[looc64]

lmao did YOU read what was said?

Their past life was BLAND. An absolute Nothing burger. Akin to Rice Gruel.
It's not that their past life was so bad that they can't remember it, it's that they were UNFULFILLED.

I remember the novel translating the word "unlucky" as "plain" or "bland." To me the words "unlucky" and, "unfulfilled" both seem too strong. They can't remember their past life because it was SUPER BORING. They even say that their strongest negative emotions was hating the income tax.

Speaking of word choice another difference I noticed is that the novel described MC's dad and brother as "popular" rather than "respectable." Neither seems like a perfect fit, the novel goes into it more but basically their acceptance of MC wasn't purely because MC's family, they're both super accepting and trustworthy and agreeable in general such that a lot of people genuinely like them.

 

[looc64]

One thing to note about the knight thing is that MC is basically trying to mold herself into a capture target from scratch and part of that is coming up with an appealing archetype.

Y'know how an otome game or a reverse harem manga might have little descriptors that tell you what each character's deal is?

"Lonely assassin"

"Arrogant prince"

"Tsundere childhood friend"

"Glasses"

MC wants some sort of type that doesn't overlap with any of the existing capture targets and realized that "knight" is a solid concept to start with that matches with who she is as a person.

One thing I appreciate about this story is that MC does actually come off as fairly genre savvy. She still has that classic MC denseness but otherwise her shoujo logic is pretty sound.

 

[emily1811]

While it's still very "manga's logic" for the FML's reason to crossdress, I love that she is actually handsome and have a large frame, instead of those mangas where "crossdressing" literally means still being drawn extremely like a girl compared to all male characters lol