The world just isn’t fair and Elizabeth Burton knows that better than anyone. Reincarnated into an otome game as a two-bit villainess, she’s been doomed by the genre’s tropes to a life of misery. What’s a girl to do… but cross-dress her way into the main character’s heart and a guaranteed happy ending of course! After years of blood, sweat, and tears fashioning herself into the perfect heartthrob, all she has to do is wait for the fated first meeting with the main character… or so she thought! As it turns out, her manly charms have come back to bite her in the butt. The other love interests have started cross-dressing too, and they don’t want the main character’s heart—they want Elizabeth’s!

Iris has awoken as the villainess in the world of her favorite otome game. But not just ANY otome game—one with nothing but bittersweet "Happy-Bad" Endings! If the heroine hooks up with one of her problematic love interests, the rest of the world is doomed... but if she fails, it's the villainess who will pay with her life! Fortunately, Iris has time on her side. All she has to do is set things up so that the heroine won't go down those routes! Be it curing a fatal disease or re-parenting her possessive twin brother, she'll do whatever it takes to reject these Happy-Bad Endings!

Shotgun-wielding otome game villainess Astrid Sophie von Oldenburg is now in possession of a small arsenal of modern weapons powered by fantasy-world magic. But it’s still not enough to strike back against fate! Driven by her love for all things military related, she’s not about to stop recreating or firing her favorite guns anytime soon. However, her parents are less enthusiastic about their daughter’s newfound obsession with magic; can Astrid rise to the challenge of keeping them happy? And how will she fare when she comes face to beak with a griffin and the tiny fairy in its talons? Many trials await her, but she swears that through the power of bigger and better weapons, she’ll tear fate apart!

An LGBT+ manga exploring love and gender at a high school drama club. Taiga dreams of becoming an actor, so the first thing he does upon entering high school is join the drama club. There, he meets the beautiful, enigmatic Maria and immediately falls in love with her. Not long after, Taiga is told that she is actually a boy--but is that all there is to Maria’s story? The late PEYO debuted with this beautifully illustrated, single-volume tale exploring the nature of personal expression and the fluidity of the power of love.

From Milk Morinaga, the author of the New York Times bestselling manga Girl Friends! When the cherry blossoms bloom it means the start of another school year—and for the girls at Sakuraki High, it signals the birth of new dreams, fears, and relationships. In "Even If We're Not Friends," Nana and Hitomi have been dear friends since childhood, but when Nana gets into the exclusive Sakuraki High while Hitomi doesn't, their true feelings for each other emerge. In "The Summer Closest to Heaven," Natsuka is a ghost who resides at the school, still in love with one of the former students who is now the school nurse. In "A Kiss, Love, and a Prince," Narumi gets her first kiss from Tachiba in the school play, and is shocked at being kissed by a girl. Fourteen stories of blossoming romance between girls are interspersed throughout this heartfelt and adorably illustrated manga collection.

“It’s like I I’ve come to an alternate fantasy world...!!” Now that Mary’s feeling better, the family sets off on a business trip to the Royal Capital! After they arrive, Mary and Routa head out to explore the city when they run into a young girl known as the “Monster Maiden,” and she wants to add Routa to her collection! She invites the two to her house, where they find an assortment of ferocious beasts who don’t seem too keen on obeying their master...

Thanks to directors such as Kitano, Miike and Miyazaki, Japanese cinema has recently undergone something of a resurgence. This title profiles the work of these established film-makers, as well as looking at the creations of new, up-and-coming directors.

Shiori is an average Japanese office worker who was suddenly teleported to another world. Four years later, she’s managed to carve out a niche for herself—as a housekeeping mage. Alec is an A-class adventurer, just returned from a long-term assignment. When his friend Zack, the local Guild Master, tempts him into going on a manticore hunt by promising to bring in a mage with special skills, what Alec finds is the last thing he could have expected. On the outside, the two couldn’t be more different. Yet deep in their hearts, they each yearn for the same thing: a place to belong. In the face of old wounds, their dark pasts, and the everyday challenges any adventurer must overcome, will they find the courage to risk being hurt again?

Serephione Granzeus is your average three-year-old girl...or so she thinks, until she meets Lou, the super-fluffy Holy Guardian White Tiger. Memories of her past life as a Japanese businesswoman come flooding back to her, and she realizes she’s part of a fantasy book she read before, but as the villainess. Yet her past life isn’t all that she remembers; she can recall her life as the original Serephione, and her sadness, and her pain... After making a contract with Lou, she comes up with a plan to change the plot and avoid the villainess’s dark fate: become an adventurer and avoid everyone from the book! But the more she diverges from the plot, the more unpredictable the other characters become. How will she keep everyone from learning her secrets and spoiling her plans?

Here is the second official Ascendance of a Bookworm fanbook, intended to be read after finishing Part 4 Volume 1. This volume contains an abundance of supplementary content, including design sheets for a variety of new characters, an extensive family tree, and seven short stories not found in the light novels. Also included are behind-the-scenes reports on the recording of a Bookworm drama CD, and another reader Q&A with author Miya Kazuki.