A lot of recent isekai manga and manhwa aimed at shojo fans deal with someone reincarnating as a villain, and Beware of villains is no exception. The difference here is that the newly reincarnated female protagonist can become a villain and end up alone, but the entire first episode features her dealing with both the consequences of her actions and the other characters who seem to want her to conform to the status quo.
Editor’s note: There will be spoilers Beware of villains comic first episode below.
Like many of his contemporaries, Beware of villains begins with a woman who died in our world, then finds herself reincarnated into a story with multiple endings. The main character, a young woman named Yuri, has four possible love interests. However, the villain Melissa, the daughter of a duke, was there to try and take her down. However, since Melissa knows that in the end she won’t have any consequences other than being alone and will still become rich, she’s okay with how things turn out and doesn’t get caught up in things. (To be honest, it reminds me a bit of My next life as a villain: All roads lead to destruction.)
What ultimately makes this series feel interesting is that, at least in the first episode, people don’t seem to want to understand and respect Melissa’s deviation from the script. She is engaged to Prince Ian. Her character really loves him in the story. However, he constantly cheats on her and in one story, he leaves her for Yury. In the first moments of Beware of villains, We ran into Melissa as she was writing one of her many letters to break off her engagement. She then walks in on him while he’s cheating on her, again, and tells him it’s over. But… it’s not accepted. He behaves unexpectedly.
We then see her interaction with one of the other love interests from the original story. Melissa’s brother Jake is a sniper and assassin who works for royalty and princes. In the original story, he despised his sister. We see clear traces of his annoyance with her as well as Ian’s respect and willingness to carry out orders here. This, in turn, leads to some pretty amusing banter as Melissa reiterates to Jake her newfound hatred for Ian and her desire to break up. Of course, he didn’t accept it either.
Basically, we see her having outbursts and rude behavior from time to time. She intentionally plays her role when necessary for those who deserve it. She respects people who are generally disrespectful. However, her natural personality and face also lead to many misunderstandings.
While Melissa is fine with being a villain and alone, like My next life as a villain comics, the Beware of villains The manhwa shows that her kindness and general fondness for the characters shines through. She cares for Yury as much as Catarina cares for Maria. So we got such a sweet feeling. Likewise, this episode ends with the main character having the ability to support someone in a way that while she does so for a selfish reason, she also has the ability to improve their lives .
I suppose my hope is that the story is in Beware of villains there is ultimately more mischievous behavior in Melissa’s arc and the movie to make this manhwa feel more distinct from similar manga genres like My next life is a villain. There was some potential here, with her initial interactions with her fiance Ian and brother Jake leaving them unimpressed with her change in attitude due to straying from the script. It will be interesting to see how it continues to differentiate itself from similar series.
Volume 1 of Beware of villains currently available and Yen Bao will release volume 2 of the manhwa on January 21, 2025.
