The Spring 2022 Manga Guide

Cross-Dressing Villainess Cecilia Sylvie

What's It About? 

Cecilia has been reincarnated as the villainess of a dating sim who is fated to die no matter the route. If she becomes a Shrine Maiden candidate (only girls are chosen), she'll absolutely wind up dead. No question about it. To avoid this fate, Cecilia decides to cross-dress as a man…She will do whatever it takes to achieve a peaceful and carefree life, but if her guise ever slips, it's game over!

Cross-Dressing Villainess Cecilia Sylvie is based on the light novel by Hiroro Akizakura and Dangmill. The manga is drawn by Shino Akiyama with English translation by Julie Goniwich. Yen Press has released its first volume both digitally and physically for $6.99 and $13.00 respectively.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Christopher Farris

Rating:

I still don't have a ton of personal experience following the emergent "Otome-Game Villainess Isekai" ("Villainessekai"?) genre. So it was at first hard for me to square the circle of the similarities I was seeing between Cross-Dressing Villainess here and everyone's favorite forbear of the setup, My Life Next as a Villainess. Did one really seem to crib so much from the other, or was this mostly a case of a guy who's only ever seen Villainess Life reading his second villainess isekai story and getting a lot of Villainess Life vibes from this? But at the end of the day it doesn't really matter that much: all stories are derivative to some degree, and that goes extra for isekai-setup genre riffs. And moving past that, Cross-Dressing Villainess's central, titular gimmick could be entertaining for anyone who might appreciate a cute girl dressing as a cute guy and getting into requisite romantic shenanigans.

There's plenty just in the story's setup that could carry that entertainment value. Honestly, even more than the cross-dressing gimmick, the interesting bit that sets this story apart is the point that Cecilia actually brought someone (her adopted brother Gil) into the fold regarding her isekai'd situation and scheme to hide her gender as a means of avoiding her plot-mandated murdertimes. That's distinctive, and along with other elements helps to confirm that Cecilia has just a smidge more awareness than the likes of Katarina. Plus Cecilia and/or 'Cecil' is just fun to watch, with her 'ideal man'-erisms rooted in her exhaustive internalization of otome-game tropes, or her adorable haplessness when she still bumbles into less-than-ideal situations in spite of her efforts.

Cecilia's entertainment value might be something of a microcosm for Cross-Dressing Villainess itself, in that I wanted to appreciate it much more than I actually did. A lot of the shortcomings, I think, come from how laboriously the setup is communicated in manga form. The story, mostly told through Cecilia's dialogue, is constantly backtracking to explain plot points and mechanics from the 'original' otome game the world is based on, establishing initial contrivances that turn out to be further contrivances for this plot itself. At times it very nearly comes off like they might be more interested in that base storyline than the one that's been isekai'd on top of it.

Hand-in-hand with that expository issue is the odd order in which this manga presents certain information. Even with so much of the book already dedicated to Cecilia explaining the plot, she still has to wheel around at odd points for stuff that feels like it should have come up earlier (for example, we're over thirty pages in before they suddenly go "Oh right, also there are RPG-style stats and levels in this game too"). On a more dramatic level, you've got the likes of Cecilia's relationship with Oscar, which frustratingly hinges on suppositions about their connection in the 'original' game, but it isn't until multiple chapters in before it's clarified how much they haven't actually seen each other in this version of events. Compounding that is the fact that this plot is trying to do the Villainess Life thing of Cecilia's change in personality having rerouted her relationship with her fiance causing him to actually like her, except they've barely interacted in this iteration, so it's not clear how that shift actually happened apart from plot obligation. Despite the walls of text nominally communicating the layers of story to us, this book is rife with odd disconnects like that, backtracked elements we're just waiting for the plot to remember to get to.

Things do seem to settle in and gel a bit better in the latter part of the book, which to its credit feels plentiful in content just for a first volume. The art can devolve into abstract cutesy reaction shots a little too much for my tastes, but otherwise, the characters are attractive and fun to watch in their antics. And I hope you like fonts, because the lettering in this translation has a lot of them. There's a lot of potential here in the setup and some of the other details that emerge, but I just wonder if this is the strongest way to experience it. It's one of those adaptations that gets me curious about the source material, but less sure of how much I want to continue with this specific version.

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Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Although it covers the first half of the first light novel, reading the manga version of Cross-Dressing Villainess Cecilia Sylvie feels kind of rushed. I'm not sure if that would be the case for those of you who haven't read the source material, because it really isn't moving any faster than any other story undergoing a similar transition. The fact that the manga relies so heavily on text rather than image to move the plot along is very likely at the root of this – most of the art is reaction shots of Cecil(ia) as she bumbles her way through the events of the game she's been reborn into. Like many a reincarnated villainess before her, Cecilia is determined not to trigger any of the horrific bad ends that exist for her in the original game, and as we all know, that means that the male love interests will all fall for her. That's definitely holding true so far, with her adopted brother Gilbert and the crown prince Oscar both already clearly harboring romantic feelings. (It's kind of impressive in Oscar's case, as he hasn't seen her since they were five due to her avoiding him and all) Just as naturally this means that Cecilia has fully deployed her incredible emotional density, although given that she's trying not to die, I think we can probably forgive her for not thinking about romance.

Although it is limited in scope, the art does a good job with the goofy chibis and exasperated faces and body language. Poor Gilbert constantly looks at the end of his sanity tether, while Cecilia's otome game-inspired idea of what it means to be “manly” is good for any number of reaction shots. That's one of the best running gags, in fact, because all of the actual guys can't figure out how she can spout such corny lines without dying, nor why, when asked, she replies that she's trying to act like the ideal man. It's a fun acknowledgement of the disconnect between fictional perfect guys and human ones and probably the best otome game commentary in the whole book. It's also nice that we find out more about the life Cecilia previously led as Hiyono, because it comes with a level of detail that we don't often get in this type of isekai. Having Hiyono be as important to what's going on as Cecilia is a good touch, and it fuels a twist from the novel we should be getting in volume two of the manga. While I'd still suggest novel over manga, this is entertaining and doesn't feel like every other villainess isekai story, so if you're in the mood for goofy fun, this is a good bet.

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Jean-Karlo Lemus

Rating:

Hiyori Kanzaki, a huge otome-game-fan, dies in an accident and finds herself reincarnated as Cecilia Sylvie, the villainess from the otome game Holy Maiden of Vleugel Academy 3. Aware that death awaits her no matter which route the story goes through, Cecilia uses all of her wit and cunning—and the help of her adopted brother Gilbert—to disguise herself as a boy. Under the name Cecil Admina, Cecilia plans to fly under the radar as a background character and avoid any drama. Unfortunately, Cecilia's best efforts only put her further under the gaze of other characters, and the prince/otome love interest Oscar Abel Prosper finds himself increasingly intrigued by this handsome young Cecil fellow...

Cross-Dressing Villainess Cecilia Sylvie might raise some eyebrows with its title, but it's a delightfully fun time. Cecilia herself is a darling protagonist, and even in her “proper” storyline she comes off as more a sympathetic victim of circumstances than a full-on villainess. While the story explores familiar territory for otome games like the kabedon scenario, flag events, and the rabbit hole that is boy's love, the story never feels pandering or derivative. The many circumstances Cecilia gets herself into are entertaining, and the underlying mystery is engaging—especially since there are things about Holy Maiden of Vleugel even Cecilia doesn't know. This is definitely a manga that can go to a lot of fun places.