I Awoke as an Imprisoned Villainess Chapter 24 Discussion

My elevator pitch for this would be what happens when an eccentric genius Cinderella and an eccentric genius rofan-style Villainess body-swap.

Sofia is our main lead and is also the Cinderella. She's a very low-key modest person who is so obsessed with making medicines that she just doesn't really care that much that she's being confined to a dirty cramped room and being scammed out of her earnings. Much of her arc is having to learn that she SHOULD expect more for herself and should be proud of her accomplishments

Violet is our "Villainess". Headstrong, confident, also an eccentric genius in her own way. She is the one who facilitates the body swap and catches on to the plots of the antagonists when no one else does.

This novel is basically the purest distilled form of Shoujo and, for what it is, I think it's done well. It's very fluffy, it's a lot of very familiar tropes, the love interest (Claude) is a little flat, but I think the writing shines when it comes to the two female leads. As much as you can call them cliche, I appreciate that the author doesn't throw either of them under the bus by trying to declare either of their personalities as the more morally superior or righteous as many other shoujos do. Sofia isn't weak or s*upid, she's just so tunnel-visioned that she doesn't pay attention to her own well-being. The author easily could've made Violet vapid and lazy to be a foil to Sofia but she doesn't, Violet is also sharp as a whip, but is unyielding and uncompromising in a way that definitely is fitting of a villainess but without ever seeming truly evil.

The translation is also very good 👍

TLDR; if fluffy, trope-y Girl Power shoujos annoy you, you will probably hate this, just being honest. But if you want a cute feel-good twist on some familiar archetypes working together to save the day, this makes for a solid and fun read