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As of chapter 46, this is definitely a shoujo manga. If you read something of this genre and want to read more, go for it.
I could describe the characters and the history but it's irrelevant, as I sincerely think that just knowing it's a shoujo manga it's enough to describe it (for the good and the bad). This also goes for the art, specially character designs.

I dropped this, in particular, because the mangaka does that thing of introducing a new character out of nowhere that it's gonna be highly relevant to the plot (didn't read further so can't say 100% but it has all the ... telltale signs).
And I really dislike when the mangaka doesn't even want to show the whole process of this new character integrating with the main cast, so they are just a "childhood friend that was in a foreign country but is as close as ever" or something similar.
Be aware though, that this is also highly common on shoujo manga.

So, again, if you like shoujo manga go for it!
PS: I know 'shoujo" it's the demographic, but considering how many tropes are recycled thorough works I might as well call it a genre.

Character inconsistency is one of the biggest and most common flaws present int he light novels that I end up reading (unlucky? bad taste? who knows), and this one is no exception.

It usually goes like this: at some points at the beginning of the novel the main character self evaluates themself and their claim (that can usually be summed up to an adjective like "smart") is further reinforced by the author, be it in describing a particular action they are taking at the moment, or the narrator's voice actually approving of that claim.
Maybe putting in simpler terms, some characterization is made about the main character ... and that is written in a way that you should accept as the truth.

No problem with that in particular. The problem comes when at multiple times later this characterization proves false, in what seems unintentional.
You see, a really easy way to write a lot is using the main character's thoughts as the main writing (idk, let's say making this +70% of the whole writing), the problem being that it's also really easy to mess that up, mainly in consistency. I say easy btw because thanks to empathy and ourselves we have ample material to take as resource for this naturally, while actually describing places, the world, the state of affairs, would need a bigger planning and the research of way more sources to make things cohesive.

People are chaotic by nature, at least in our thoughts and with a major example of this being intrusive thoughts. Right, so a little inconsistency is welcomed, but what happens in this novel is the character openly betraying every expectation put on them by a reliable source. Remember the characterization? Well, when you keep listening to their thoughts the "smart" (which I used as an example but it's actually used to characterize the MC here) is there sometimes, and sometimes is not only absent but it's shows as opposite in situations similar in nature, so I can't even think about it being a different kind of intelligence needed at the moment or that they were in a wildly different mental state. Really important: the exact same thing could be said about their actions.

The character is not a character, as they are what the author needs them to be at the moment, and also taking into consideration the horrible pokemon syndrome (as I like to call it) they exhibit, that happens when an author gives the MC two or three "characteristics" that defines them and make them repeat that at every single situation that they can (hope you like the word "commoner").
The "characteristics" part being important because wanting to be a "commoner" does not describe the character (it's not a characteristic), is just an objective that has its roots very poorly explained (hope you like irresponsible portraits of trauma, just put there to gather sympathy).

I admit I took this novel to dump my disgust for this kind of trope(?), but I do think this happened because there were some genuine ok/good moments here (that's why I read 95% of the 1st book), so I thought that maybe it was worth it to give this novel more of my time, even if this review is definitely not making a case for reading it.
As an extra, and something more exclusive to this novel itself, I do not like the art of this novel at all. It's the bad kind of simple (minus is just minus here).

Making this quick for those thinking about reading this manga: do you like shounen manga?
If the answer is "Yes" go ahead and have fun!

This manga is really derivative without some really unique thing about it, but since this is a problem of shounen mangas in general this should not prevent you from reading it. Heck, I don't like this genre but since I like the setting this has been a really good "turn of your brain and enjoy" kinda thing for me.

Just explaining two things that may seem contradictory to some people on this review: 1) I do not think "derivative" is inherently bad, though ... I do prefer there to be at least a small twist; 2) I use the full scale of rating so '5' is genuinely 'ok' for me.

4 chapters may seem rather early to do a review so let's call this by its proper name: a venting session.

My gripe with this book is 'character consistency', a most common thing when you deal with comedies that rely on the absurd.
Marielle is initially portrayed as someone that lives in her own world but also as someone quite intelligent. I do know that there are different kinds of intelligence, and that her emotional one is probably really flawed, but what she does is akin to an adult regressing to a 3 years old.

There is a thing that happens at the beginning of chapter 4 that ... makes absolutely no freaking sense for someone obviously as smart as Marielle, and her being emotionally shook does not cut it as a justification because of how chapter 4 unfolds... unless this is supposed to be an absurdist comedy.
The problem being that up until this point (one third of the book) this did not seem to be the case. It was actually as realistic as it could be without constraining the world and characters too much, so it's quite surprising (unpleasantly) when this happens.

This is further worsened by the fact that there is a lot of Marielle's thought in every single moment, which tires the read and makes the dialogue moments an absolute slog to go through (1 back and forth of conversation and 3 paragraphs of thoughts). The thoughts in chapter 4 are even worse because they keep repeating things that we already read previously as Marielle's thoughts and because they make the character seem like an absolute buffoon (repeatedly).

So, if you do not care about the whole misunderstanding trope or character consistency you will actually find something quite entertaining here (I was having a blast the first 3 chapters). If you do, maybe read either way? I mean, you cand finish up to chapter 4 in less than 2 hours and we know you've spent already way more than that time in the whatever brain dead social media that is popular at the moment, so go make your own judgement. Unfortunately (and I mean it) I'm stopping my reading here.

Just a psa: the theme "villainess" is wildly mismatched here. (It's also in the title, so, yeah...)

Actually, from a "theme" standpoint is kinda correct but the main problem is that these novels do not have a main characteristic of what is widely seem in most other novels with this theme: main character's agency.
One of the staple tropes of the "villainess" genre is that the protagonist usually is the one moving the plot forward. Sure, things happen that are initially outside their control but they "elegantly" deal with the situation as they keep plunging forward.

The MC here does not have agency, she is mainly a vanilla ... shoujo MC trope. She does not do the things herself, instead she is always being protected.
Obviously there are instances that she actually does something but the abundant majority is the "princess in distress" trope, and that is most definitely not what I expect from a "villainess" novel.

I do have one compliment to this novel though: the artist stroked a beautiful balance between the "teenagers that don't look like teenagers" anime/manga commonality and "these kids actually look like kids". It's refreshing seeing a manga art style not over sexualizing the characters and making them look more like kids trying to be adults than adults passing as kids.

Usually I don't like writing so early about an anime unless I have something that I think it is important to say at the moment, and so is the case of "Maou 2099" (only 3 episodes in).
This is not a review, I haven't watched everything after all, but just some things that I thought that may sway some of the people here to watch (or don't, if you don't like what I liked):

- The MC is really refreshing for this kind of story. Usually the demon king archetype in a isekai story was associated with comedies in the past 10 years. This is good every ... now and then but it does bother me that a supposedly near God existence does not, y'know, play the part. The biggest example would be Hataraku Maou-sama, where Maou is only cool in really specific moments and even then the comedy is still the main focus.
Even though there is still some comedy to be seen here (which I quite like it), the demon king of this anime is actually an intelligent guy. Does he have some moments he acts like a fool? Yes. But he is also open minded, self-aware of his strength, hard worker, values his subordinates and properly recognize their efforts.
You can believe that he was actually a king and not only because he's strong.

- The cyberpunk setting is pretty good from an aesthetics point of view. Although the world itself was not fully explored and justified as a cyberpunk story the visuals help break the monotony of the anime trend (like how anime are overwhelmingly set in middle age fantasy).
Although there is something involving mega corporations I don't think we are gonna get much more "cyberpunk" than that, as in general this could've been set in 2024 without many problems (the biggest technology aspect that was explored was internet, and you're reading this now because we have that).
So, just be warned that if you expect the story to be exploring cyberpunk themes you're not gonna get this here (at least 3 episodes in), but the cyberpunk visuals are there and they are competent.

- I will always remember this phrase although I don't know where I heard: "when JC Staff makes an anime a dice is cast". That is to make us painfully aware that this studio have some really high highs and some really low lows. I'm glad to report that storyboard, animation, key frames, voice acting and soundtrack are "perfectly ok". This is no ufotable animation, but there's nothing atrocious with it (the characters have somewhat less complex faces every now and then that really reminds of a White Fox anime. Not bad, just thought it was curious).

- The story is surprisingly serious. I'm not saying to add a drama tag, just think its cool that in every episode we had a more serious moment. I specially thought it was interesting when Veltol shares his thought on the internet on episode 3: there he says everything we already know (the pikachu on the neck meme) but when you notice that the person making this comments had contact with the internet for less than a month it was actually a little bit cool.

So yeah, here are some point that I liked it. I wanted to share because it's really easy to dismiss this anime because of the promotional material, synopsis, or general discourse. It's easy to also go expecting a lot of cyberpunk. But I think this anime has some good things going for it as mentioned before (specially the 1st one) that really makes it worth a watch. It has been quite a fun ride.

(Second review made after reading chapter 83)
This is trash.
Heavy spoilers ahead. I'm gonna give some line breaks so you don't end up accidentally reading just in case.







... As of chapter 83, when Taiki is at the cusp of declaring his feelings to Chinatsu at the end of a date, the mangaka INTRODUCES A NEW CHARACTER JUST TO INTERRUPT THE CONFESSION. Just when Taiki was gonna talk.
Just explaining a little bit further: until this moment in the manga, this is by far THE most pivotal moment of the series, when the two main leads would start their relationship (y'know, the thing the whole manga is about?). It doesn't really matter if they end up together later on or not, what matters is that this is undoubtedly the mangaka buying time for a new development. That by itself is bad, because it denotes that the mangaka has no freaking idea of what they are doing and that the manga has not been planned at all.
But what really gets to me is that by just throwing a new character out there to halt the progress of the manga implies that the mangaka did not even dignified themselves to try and find something previously mentioned on the manga and using that in this situation.
They were lazy. And if they are this lazy with their work I will also be lazy and not freaking read it.

You can check my first review down there on other aspects that I don't think are particularly good but chapter 83, unfortunately, confirms my theory on the first review: this is just lazy writing (and I really mean the 'unfortunately'. Specially because I'm not the type of person who keeps doing something that they don't like. So I read till chapter 83 because I was still, somewhat, enjoying the experience.).

(First review made after reading chapter 78 down below. Originally I gave a "Mixed feelings" and a score of 6)
Just about at the middle point of the current released chapters (at the moment of writing there are 170-ish chapters) I thought I had to sort out my feelings for this series prior to moving on, so here we are. Mild spoilers ahead thorough the whole review, but I will not quote the event, just gonna talk about the structure in general.

It's unfortunate that once again a mangaka does not have confidence in their writing, but that would be +80% of the romance writers of this media, and that is my main frustration with Blue Box.
We have Taiki, good normal protagonist (straight forward, honest, hard working, the normal package. Not saying that this is bad!). We have Hina, in love with Taiki and the focus of, sincerely, +60% of the manga, which does make you sympathize with her more, specially her being the absolute amazing girl that she is. We have Chinatsu, the good normal protagonist (hard working, seemly stoic, not sure about her feelings, sense of distance f up. Basically the cool beauty archetype).
Now here's the problem, the mangaka expects you to like and ship Chinatsu and Taiki. Chinatsu appears first, is the crush of Taiki, and destiny puts them together at every corner to deepen (or confuse) their feelings.
So how do you make a love triangle out of that? Chinatsu is the one Taiki likes, and he is a honest man that knows what he wants.
Here's how you maintain Chinatsu as the main lead: you don't.

The mangaka tried to compensate the overwhelming advantage that Chinatsu had by making Hina the center stage for most of the manga. She is the one well developed, she is the one with more natural day to day events happening with Taiki, she is the one the reader was made to root for. While Hina is having all the good stuff Chinatsu is having events with Taiki here and there to make us and Taiki never forget their ('supposedly', for the reader at least) feelings for Chinatsu. Most of these events, however, are supported by a myriad of coincidences that makes it seem like destiny wants both of them together.
Hina is fighting, Hina is step by step closing the distance, Hina is doing her absolute best to deal with the situation of having her most beloved person absolutely in love with another while not giving up her chances.
Chinatsu is doing nothing, she exists as a perfect and complete being that does not need any development, so she will always be first choice.

That doesn't fly.
The mangaka is so confident of the feelings Taiki has for Chinatsu that this end up being the only thing Chinatsu has going for. Meanwhile Hina is absolutely killing every chapter, being amazing.
We readers are not given reason to like Chinatsu more than a "she is romantically awkward". She is not the main character, Hina is.
If this was just an arc, then so be it, but this goes on for almost 80 chapters.
Now, remember the events I was talking about? The ones with Chinatsu? That is the only thing the reader has to cling to if they like Chinatsu. These lazily written damned things (I hate myself for calling the sweat and hard work of others "lazy" but the events that happen between Chinatsu and Taiki are straight out of a harem manga. Any of them). Hina and Taiki events are mostly day to day interactions besides one occurence. Chinatsu and Taiki events are the romance manga equivalent of a protagonist falling atop a girl in a harem manga: it may happen once in a lifetime in real life (probably not tbh), but never twice. And it just keeps happening here.

I am tired of the cowardice that some mangakas have in making their characters not ever ever ever pivot. Like it happens in real life, because feelings are not rational and definitely not things you can just keep blindly pursuing. They are mutable, specially when you are a teen.
And if your only way to make the main lead still be the main lead is keep making they " fall atop each other" and you think that's good enough I sincerely don't even have the patience to discuss with you.

Unless something changes drastically this is the best produced anime for television ever made. And it's not even close.
Direction, storyboard, script, voice acting, sound design, key frames, animation. You can usually pick two of these and say that they are exceptionally well done in one of the hottest animes each season and they are indeed great, no questions asked. But Makeine decided to do everything on that list to an absurdly high level. It's really hard talking more about it because it would be me gushing about it for 10 pages or containing myself and going for 1 paragraph and saying 'it's great", just how ... I'm doing it now soooo let's talk about the elephant in the room: the story.

The story of Makeine is the bad derivative type, really it could've been anything else and would hardly make a difference, but sometimes is kinda hard to remember that an anime is not a book. A story is indeed really important but it should not make or break an anime (considering that nothing ridiculously offensive is happening), specially when such anime, that has indeed such a weak story, compensates this by building their characters layer by layer using the wealth of production quality that is available to itself.
It really feels and shows how they 20+ minutes of the anime are concerned in fleshing out the characters, through all the tools available possibly but considering what's best for the moment. It sometimes can be the voice acting, in other times a slight movement of hands (not with a zoom of the hands, just they moving with the character in view), but really what is amazing is that the things are not happening only when they are happening.
Usually on animes you have pivotal moments where they focus one of the body parts and you can write pages about the feelings of the characters in that moment. Makeine is like that but through a bunch of times and having the characters still present as a whole.
It's hard to explain but the anime doesn't direct your view, it gives this job to the spectator and it bountifully rewards those paying attention. I don't know how many times I was watching and went back 5 seconds just to rewatch and get a bigger glimpse of a character's personality through some physical expression, and all this while maintaining it's anime roots (it doesn't feel like actors while having the same amount of care put into physical expression).

I will rewrite this eventually but what I want you to know is: what a fucking time to be alive and like anime.

Update: things did change drastically, since as of episode 5 they had to lower the ammount of those crazyly detailed animations, and by quite a bit.
So, we have two parts of this anime: the first part is exactly what I said prior to the update; the second part is exactly what I said prior to the update but with a more down to Earth production value.
Y'know whats funny though? I still had a blast whatching the other episodes. It feels like the first four where enough to connect me into a deeper level with the main characters and that carried through the rest of the series.
So, yeah, it was a darn fun ride.

Self-insert protagonist dates with the perfect girl.
I don't have a problem with literature as escapism, or self-insert for that matter, but it just bothers me so much that the main quality of the protagonist is just that they aren't a huge piece of shit (at least at the beginning).
I don't know, it just feels like the bar is too freaking low, y'know?
It ends up feeling more like the light novel is a public diary of the author delusions than something made to be consumed as self-insert, which I sincerely think is more due to the lack of experience as a writer than anything else.

Mangas are by nature formulaic and cyclical, even when there is actual development in terms of general plot or characters, and while this seems like it would be a help for mangakas since it can help them to find a form for their thoughts there is an overwhelming percentage of mangas that do a really poor job staying true to its intention while trying to not be blatantly formulaic.
It's easy to lose yourself trying to gain more popularity by doing the next big twist, a really cool fight, an overambitious arc, while losing sight of what you were trying to write in the first place. ... So many people have done a second couple on romance mangas to change perspective a bit, the big tournament arc on shounen that makes absolute no sense but they give their readers good battles, and also the sudden drop of a force for evil (be it in terms of blackmailing, sheer strength or something along these lines).

I really like "Takane no Hana wa Midaresaki" but I have no particular interest in BDSM, and it is a really good chunk of it, but I can't help but be amazed of how this manga just flows. This chapter is the usual thing? Good! It's well written, has good pace and the art is pretty nice. Oh, some things happened so we have to develop these characters feelings this chapter and maybe even a few more? Fine by me. The conflict does not need to be resolved in one chapter as the characters struggle to adjust to the new things in their relation. A little bit of side characters to break the monotony? It's fun getting to see they are just good people. They're fun to read through a chapter or another but they are not the focus of this story and never will be, so don't worry about them taking over the manga. The same emotional problems are being used as the theme for this chapter again? I like it. People do not get over things so damn fast as it is usually portrayed, they worry over an over again to a mortifying degree. And hey, I trust wholeheartedly that they will keep being developed, because that is how things have happened. Not through big emotional cries in the rain, or someone screaming at the top of their lungs, just they doing their usual thing, getting to know themselves better, and slowly but surely closing the gap.

I can always be disappointed at the end, because I can only infer what the mangaka wants to write, but sincerely, as I write this review, I've never read a manga so devoted to following it through with the vision of a mangaka while not being some overblown "let's save the universe" or "life sucks" thing. It is definitely an unusual relationship but also more human than any other. Fresh but not ground breaking. Paced more humanly, but not being boring.
I love this manga and it's probably the best thing I ever read. Do I recommend? No, because if you're not tired as I am of what manga is I don't know if you'll even want to keep reading, let alone like it.
Be my guest to come back and give it a try at a later time though, it will give you some hope for the future.