Cross-dressing Villainess Cecilia Sylvie 4 - Hiroro Akizakura

This is a curious thing. I picked the book up in my local library. I was interested to know how Cecilia Sylvie manages cross-dressing and why she is a villainess. I read it and am not surprised later to find the author described as the writer of “light novels”. The characters all talk in teen-speak – “Huh?” “Sheesh!” “Right?” – and busy themselves in this fantasy landscape as though they were hanging in their local mall. A review suggests that these novels (it’s currently a series of five) are generic, and really they’re there to feed a young Japanese readership with less demanding literary taste than mine. They are illustrated with manga conventions too so that, far from cross-dressing, everybody, male and female, looks similar in features and style. I like the style but a lot of it is far too much. I am, though, glad that I dipped into all this. It has introduced me to a lot of Japanese conventions, - the “otome games” which are heterosexual in content, “bisojo games” which involve pretty anime girls, “Yaoi” (No Climax No Point No Meaning) which seems to be boy-on-boy whereas “yuri” is girl-on-girl, “BL Fiction” which is “Boy’s Love” (but for women), and “dating sims” which are not simulations but stories – and it all becomes a big gender/sexuality soup where who likes reading about who wanting relationships with who is, as almost inevitably in Japanese culture, a subtle game of pastel play in a parallel universe of players. And I finally understood the basic literary convention which is that the lead character has been reincarnated into a manga game they once played as the “villainess” who is doomed to die in the game but who is desperate not to die so will, - well, it’s a pretext for gender=-swap, you understand? – yes, so will cross-dress. Something about transition there, but not a lot. And off we go into manga-style, pointy chins, snub noses, lank tresses and big eyes – with the odd magic dagger and zombie thrown in. If you’re into gaming this will entertain you. For me it was a timely reminder that they world is full of different cultures and ways of portraying gender. Our hang-ups and fetishes are not after all universal.