Review Manhwa: Kill the Villainess

Kill the Villainess's KakoWebtoon cover.

In 2021, I found Kakaopage, and through it, Kill the Villainess. It's a webnovel by Your April which was adapted into webtoon by Haegi. A beautiful story with tragedy lining up every page and hope blooming at the end of its journey.

The trigger warning? S*icidal characters—a lot of them, and many are women.

Though, if I compare it to other webtoons with similar protagonists, namely Broken Ring: This Marriage Will Fail Anyway or Crimson Lady, Kill the Villainess, in fact, actually has a pretty mild tragic plotline.

You Vs. the Plot

We have a young lady suddenly transported into a world of fiction. She enters a villainess’s body, one destined to die.

The catch?

She can only die after following the original plot of the story.

No matter how many times she jumps from the balcony, drinks lethal potion, or st*bs herself with knife, she will only wake up the next day, healthy as ever.

Why? Simply because it's not yet her time to die.

But more than that, it’s a story about how living without a choice can't be considered as living at all.

Eris, crying on her bed.

Being Yourself and Living on Earth

What's the use of speaking a dialogue already dictated by someone else? Of having the highest authority when you can't even protect your own family? Of being adored by a whole country when what they see in you is just an illusion others expect you to become?

Isn't the point of being human, to live on this Earth, is to face yourself head on and ask, “What kind of person do you want to be? What kind of people you want to surround yourself with? And what kind of life do you want to lead before you die?”

What Eris Really Wants

And Eris, the main character in Kill the Villainess, doesn't want much. No nobility, no prince charming, and no palace full of luxurious jewelry.

She, like many of us on this Earth, just desires a little warm house, filled with people she loves, and an ordinary life she creates step by step, brick by brick, using her own hands—a simple life she can cry and laugh about, an unadorned life she won't regret, and a humble life of her own.

It doesn't have to be big. You don't have to dream of being a billionaire or ruling the world. After all, that's just a goal, not a life.

Eris and Anahkin, her chosen knight and main love interest.

Living Simply and Peacefully

A life is you waking up in the morning and living hour by hour of your day purposefully whether it's working, studying, or simply taking care of yourself and your beloved.

It's choosing peace not because you're afraid of conflict, but because you know better than dealing with unnecessary arguments.

It's choosing happiness over accomplishment, not because you lack ambition but because you know there is more to life than just a stranger's approval.

And don’t we all, at the core of it, want that kind of life just as much as she does?