The Spring 2024 Light Novel Guide

I Don't Want to Be the Dragon Duke's Maid

What's It About? 

On her sixteenth birthday, Viscountess Mille-Feuille Forêt Noire, a member of a long-lived race called dragonkin, remembers her previous life as the murdered fiancée of Dragon Duke Vacherin. She immediately vows never to get involved with him again and aspires to live a peaceful life by hiding what she knows, but after a twist of fate or two...she soon winds up the Dragon Duke's personal attendant!

Past intrigue now begins to yield problems in the present. Who killed Mille-Feuille in her last life? How can she improve the lives of fellow dragonkin women? Is she in love with the Dragon Duke, or are her feelings just lingering attachment from their old romance? And how will this all affect her new relationship with her former fiancé? History may or may not repeat itself in this romantic fantasy!

I Don't Want To Be the Dragon Duke's Maid! has a story by Mashimesa Emoto and art by Masami. Amanogawa Tenri translated this volume. Published by J-Novel Heart; PublishDrive edition (March 18, 2024).

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Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

It's a good thing that heroine Mille-Feuille (yes, like the pastry) doesn't want to be the Dragon Duke's maid because that part of the title never happens. It's become a trend in light novels for the titles to be filled with buzzwords rather than actual plot points – remember that Bell doesn't “pick up” any girls in the dungeon until the Xenos arc and that Rishe isn't any “villainess” – and frankly, it's gotten pretty grating because you're never quite sure what you're getting into. In the case of this novel, the story is a plain old reincarnation romance on the theme of “death cannot stop true love.” While it's perfectly nice, waiting for the whole maid aspect to come or fearing it as a plot development is a fruitless endeavor.

Fortunately, the book we do get is better than the one the title indicates. Mille-Feuille Forêt Noir is sixteen when she's forcibly reminded of her previous life as Charlotte, the human fiancée of dragonkin ruler Vacherin. She was murdered before she could wed him, and Vacherin vowed to find her when she was reborn, which is what the plot turns on. Mille-Feuille would be perfectly happy never to think about her life as Charlotte again and has zero interest in marrying Vacherin this time, and instead is focusing her attention on the gender inequality within dragonkin society, namely that the task of suppressing male dragonkin who turn into berserk dragons can kill female dragonkin. They're expected to just put up with it. Frankly, it's a more interesting story than what the back copy's selling.

It's also a dollar-store feminism, which is a shame. There's an obvious sense that the author wants to dig into the topic far more than they can. There are hints at a more expansive plotline on the subject, from the way men dismiss the women's complaints and genuine fears to the way Opera, a dragonkin princess, wants to take Mille-Feuille down so that she can be the savior of dragonkin women, more or less buying into the theory that the women need a single savior in the first place. Mille-Feuille's determination is her defining characteristic, and it's a good one, even if she occasionally boggles the mind with what she's blatantly overlooking about “Van,” the mysterious young man she meets in town.

This is another one of those series that would have been just fine as a single volume, and I think you could read it that way and be very happy. It's not a perfect light novel, but it is relaxing to read and plays with some of the standbys in ways that, if not fully interesting, are at least well enough done to feel fulfilling. It may not be the first book I'd recommend, but I'd place it comfortably in the middle of the pack.

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Lauren Orsini
Rating:

On her sixteenth birthday, Mille-Feuille lays eyes on the enigmatic ruler of her nation, the Dragon Duke. She suddenly realizes that her previous incarnation, the human princess Charlotte, was his true love in her past life. But now, reborn as a dragonkin minor noble, she has her own problems. Dragonkin women are used and discarded for their magic to keep dragonkin men from going berserk, and Mille-Feuille is determined to save women from this plight.

At first glance, this fantasy reincarnation story with a healthy dash of feminist theming sounds like fun. But it relies on the obfuscation of two very stupid mysteries. The first assumes that Mille-Feuille is the first person EVER to consider cooking mana-replenishing food and feeding it to dragonkin women. The second assumes that the genius behind such a novel idea is too dense to realize that the hooded man with the same voice as the Dragon Duke is anyone but.

I Don't Want To Be the Dragon Duke's Maid! could have used a good editor and the liberal use of a red pen. This light novel barely conceals its plot devices, calling Mille-Feuille's school simply “the magic academy” instead of bothering to give it a name. At magic school, everyone learns that the moon replenishes mana, but only Mille-Feuille is smart enough to think that leaving candy out under the moonlight might be a good idea. The book also leans on abruptly-introduced MacGuffins to solve Mille-Feuille's problems. For example, more than halfway through the book, Mille-Feuille reveals that she has an army of squirrel familiars who do her bidding. That certainly would have come in handy earlier! While the Dragon Duke is the love interest of the title, the novel puts minimal effort into offering any evidence of why the pair are meant to be, even when the Duke conceals his identity for covert dates. I thought Mille-Feuille had more chemistry with her brother's fiancée, Madeleine, whom Mille-Feuille escorts to a masked ball dressed in drag to make her happy.

I am not flattering the reader when I say anyone who picks up this book will be smart enough to unravel each of its mysteries several steps before Mille-Feuille does. The stupidity of its characters has the opposite effect on its purported feminist message: even after centuries of mana depletion, dragonkin women are too dumb to look outside at night and consider using the moon to ease their suffering. If I were to come up with something nice to say about this novel, it'd be that the illustrations are elegantly spare. Beyond that, I'm boggling that this threadbare plot is only the first volume in a longer series.

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