Virtues of the Villainess (2019-2022) - :)

I think we’ve all had that friend who is unashamedly thirsty. Who will point out a hot person over and over again and somehow maintain the same level of lascivious admiration for their target’s form or voice or actions. I very much appreciated that friend in high school who brought me endless hours of entertainment from their creative thought patterns and inevitable hijinks as they tried to garner some of their target’s attention in increasingly bizarre ways. If you also had that friend, or perhaps were that friend then I think you’ll find a kindred soul in the heroine of this manhwa.

Ginger Torte is a little bit in love with love. She wants someone to love her, but somehow she’s always coming in second to her rival Larazie Atlanta. When she happens on a romance novel that seemingly predicts the future, with her cast as the villainess, Ginger seizes the opportunity to try to change her fate. Meanwhile, our sad male protagonist Izana is a newly minted king with emotional walls a mile high after years of isolation. However, armed with knowledge from this weirdly prescient romance novel, Ginger starts her bumbling campaign to win Izana’s heart before Larazie can capture his attention. If Ginger were more competent, this story wouldn’t be half so entertaining. Nearly all of her schemes fail, but she throws herself into them with such gusto that they don’t get old. For every silly failure, I was right there with Izana feeling oddly charmed.

The jokes that hit the best for me were the recurring ones: Ginger’s cooking, how she’s always the more physically forward one in her relationship with Izana, and her bullishness in the face of truly half cocked schemes. Ginger as a person seems like she would be delightful and entertaining to be around, and I doubly appreciate that the author told the story they wanted to tell and then didn’t try to drag things out. What diminished the story for me was the epilogue, which did in fact feel rushed and a bit half baked, but the sum of the whole was still a great light romance. I think more people could use a bit of Ginger Torte in their lives.