Female target audience be damned, the art for this story has a way for appealing to both sides of the aisle. The clothing looks so polished and the story actually follows some of the more subtle details of maintaining a reputation as a head, such as buying clothes for the servants and tedious noble conversations. No ones too dumb or creating goddamn harems (crown prince is an exception to both, of course).
Villainess novels have been trending towards lower quality saturation like isekai adventure novels did in the past. While maybe not on the same level, bakarina might have had a similar effect to SAO (hot take, I know, some people out there love bakarina).
All the more reason to treasure gems like The Viridescent Crown and The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary. Stories that remind us why we enjoyed their respective genre. Hell, maybe I'm just a sucker for stories with good art and no harems. I came here seeking refuge from the mind-numbing shit that is isekai harem novels (arifureta traumatized me), and refuge is what I've found.
That dress on Ran in chapter 41, I feel like I'm healing looking at a piece of fine art...