she doesn't seem to realize that the "heroine" is obviously reincarnated like her cousin.

her cousin

I mean, she does think the targets are beautiful people, but she doesn't fall in love at first sight

1. I really like Shiori. She’s a bit dense but quite smart, caring and totally unaffected by all the eye candy. While she spies on the heroine for her cousin, she is genuine in all her interactions, the complete opposite of the heroine.

2. The heroine.. Is not a bad person. She’s also a reincarnator that aim to achieve the reverse harem endIng and just does not seem able to see all the characters are real human beings but only as capture targets. She lives in her ultimate fantasy and it makes her quite unlikeable as she plays the selfish airhead otome game heroine to the perfection.

3. There are so many characters and many capture targets, secret or not, that it is quite hard to really follow them all of care for them. As for now, we are currently in the second volume and only a handful really stand out:

- Kazu-nii, the OG reincarnator and the sensei capture target is my favorite love interest for Shiori so far. I know they are to be cousins -somewhat distant I believe- and the age gap is quite big but I just love how he does does pressure her and respect her. He does like a huge overprotective big brother at some point, but the fact that he manages to balance wanting her to experience her youth and having obvious feelings for her is quite impressive and charming in my opinion.

- Airhead-kun would be my second favorite, probably because he just acts like a cute puppy and has the most potential as a love interest so far. He’s pretty indifferent to heroine-jou which also helps making less idiotic.

- the other targets go from creepy to boring with the exception of Heroine-jou’s childhood friend that kinda breaks my heart every time as he is the only one having genuine affection towards Maria.

4. But the two main supporting characters might actually be my favorite. Yuri-chan is adorable and I would not be surprised if Shiori ended up kidnapping her at the end. She is not aware of the game but as an otaku and otome game fanatic she realizes Heroine-jou is super weird. And Iinchou.. Well he is probably the most interesting of them all and in my opinion is one of the self aware characters.

.

I read a spoiler in the forums that the true male lead is Kazu-nii. I honestly hope this is misinformation but if not then this is just wrong on so many levels. First of all, Kazu-nii is Shiori's first cousin, however they have a closer bond than most cousins which is more on the level of siblings. So in this story in*est IS win*est. Second, Kazu-nii knew Shiori since she was in elementary school and he's got to be at least 7 years older than her. Third, he's her teacher. I can accept Kazu-nii as a second male lead or romantic interest but I can't accept him being the true lead. Does this mean I'm gonna drop this series? Probably not, because other than that this is still a well-written story with more pros than cons.

She knows that the otome game world she is in right now is her real world now. She makes some reasonable decision. Knowing what she is able to do, or the other way around.

She makes some good idea to prevent the Heroine making any moves towards her cousin (after he ask for her help) but she's also dense because I think it's obvious that Kazu-nii likes her, no?

I'm just wondering if Shiori and Kazu-nii is endgame...? I somehow prefer her to end up with Katsuragi because... well, I have to say no to siscon and lo*icon.

Kazu-nii, Shiori's cousin and also one of the capture targets.

The only reason I’m not giving this gem a full five stars is because of Kazi-nii. This man made the entire story unbearable whenever he appeared. He’s a disgusting pe*ophile—how do you fall in love with your own cousin who’s ten whole years younger than you?! And apparently, he’s liked her since she was in Elementary school. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. Absolutely tr*sh behavior. I was so stressed throughout the novel, worrying that he’d end up as the ML. Thank god he didn’t. The ending is open, so I can just pretend my favorite character is the ML instead. But if Kazi-nii had been the endgame, I swear I would’ve pulled my hair out in distress and figured out how to give this book a negative rating.

But thankfully, Miss Author-nim had some sense and spared me from that nightmare.

Seems to be heading towards the Kazuto route. (Older cousin who is a reincarnated individual)

BUT because so many people are picking up the in*est label like it's on sale, I feel like adding my two cents & quoting the analysis I wrote in the spoiler thread:

✨*They're not siblings (1),

Kazuto hasn't grown up with Shiori (2) He lived till 12-15 y.o with his own family in another city, when his folks died he spent ~3 years with Shiori's folks and then got an apartment from grandpa & went to uni.

Kazuto has already lived a whole life as someone unrelated to her (3) in 'the real world'.

✨*Niisan, gege and oppa, etc. Are a cultural thing for which we don't really have an equivalent. YES, it means big brother. But it's also for young men you're close to! Many asians call older women they're close to auntie. If you become attracted to a Ning-jiejie from Class B you're not really crushing on your older sister. She calls him Kazu-nii because he is a young man who is a cousin & close friend. I don't know if this will change but by chapter 29 she never thinks of him as her brother, never refers to him as her brother. Again, there is no real squick factor unless someone superimposes their relationships on these characters.

Next, power imbalance you say?

✨*Kazuto likes Shiori but he hasn't told her because he's letting her have a childhood and adolescence.

(Quote from chapter 29: "Give it all you have with what you can only do right now. If you don't enjoy life as a kid while you are a kid, you'll regret it later.")

✨*For the most part, he's a teacher when he needs to be and an friend when he can. Yes, he messes up sometimes, but he's only human.

So far, Kazuto's acted like a person whose younger relative came to work in the same company. 80% professional, 10% forgetting you're at work and 10% volunteering them for the 'coffee runs' because if you can't trust your little cousin with your coffee order, who can you trust?

So we have a ~16y.o girl who is slowly (1000% slower than reality because it's shoujo romance not josei) discovering romance & an older male relative (degree of relation +/- close, based on how you interpret him having lived this whole other life before meeting her & in his second life, meeting her only in his teens) who is in love with her and wants to give her space to grow up (normal. Healthy) but doesn't want to lose her to any h**ny teenage boy (possessive but relatable).

Only complaint I would have is more personal but with a reoccurring cast of more than 8 characters, I cannot for the life of me match a name to an individual in this story about half of the time and I don't think it would be any easier even if most of the characters had more generic names I'm more familiar with (ex. Arthur, Seth, etc.).

The only way I can figure out when a certain individual/s shows up is by how they interact with other characters since most of the time only their nicknames come to mind like Designer-kun. And unfortunately no, I could not tell you what Designer-kun's actual name was right now as I'm writing this lol..

If you have a hard time putting names to faces like me, it may get a little tricky but it's not too bad. Might be handy and fun to make a character reference sheet as you read though lol.

I came in expecting a shoujo and a bit of mystery but now it's kind of scary lol??still good though!

Iinchou because god dammit that fact that he reincarnated just to see Shiori? “Take responsibility for me”? My heart, god dammit Shibuya and Shiori would be a damn cute couple.