So, the first epsiode of this has aired, so I thought I best post a discussion thread. Note that there are spoilers for the first episode below.
All discussion I've seen of this has focused on the "Villainess" subtitle, so I suppose I ought to correct that. This story has very little to do with the common Villainess genre that has been popular (like Bakarina). I suspect the subtitle was added as a marketing ploy to get more readers.
First of all, this is not an isekai story, there is no game knowledge or anything like that. The only villainess element is that our female lead, as the daughter of a duke, was betrothed to her country's crown prince, and he dumps her for her "villainess ways" in favor of another woman. (Obviously this story recognizes that many of the "villainess" of otome games are hardly villainous in their opposition to the other woman trying to steal their fiancee). However, the story rapidly leaves that behind, as our female protagonist Rishe has no time for this nonsense, she has her 7th life to prepare for.
Yes, that's the important part of the title: 7th Time Loop. Rishe is caught up in a time loop situation where at the moment of her death she returns to the past just at the time when the crown prince breaks her engagement, and banishes her from the country. She has also discovered that it is quite difficult to replay out the same events from previous lives and so has decided to stop trying to do so. The one constant that always happens, is that eventually the Crown Prince of another country, Prince Arnold Hein, murders his father, declares himself Emperor, and then proceeds on a war of conquest that inevitably results in her death (directly or indirectly) approximately five years since the time her engagement is broken.
This has started to frustrate her, as no matter what she does, she keeps on dying every five years. But no time to worry about that right now, since she has learned that every time she goes back in time she has only briefest window to return home and gather her things before being thrown out of the country, and if she doesn't have money to start her new life with things tend to become difficult, and she wants to take it easy this time.
That's how the books start, and the first episode does give us this same information, but makes the interesting choice to start not with the beginning of her 7th time loop, but with the final moments of her 6th time loop. I think this is a very good decision for the medium, the emotional weight of having a sword stabbed through your heart and then suddenly being five years in the past at the time your fiance denounces you is much better experienced this way. Not to mention it gives even more wieght to how strange her 7th life becomes when Prince Arnold Hein does this:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKhJcFZronQ
And so this life Rishe looks to remain a noble lady for the first time in all her previous lives.
This is looking to be an interesting adaptation, and I think a lot of people will enjoy it. I'll repeat that there are no isekai elements. Rishe has no modern knowledge to help her. What she does have are the broad strokes of what will happen in the next five years, and more importantly, all the skills she learned during her past lives as a commoner. So rather than a "modern ideas revolutionize the medieval world" element that you get in isekai, instead it's more of "the prospective of a commoner allows a noble lady to be a better noble." Which is a moral I can get behind.
It also has a lot of the "bad boy" and "I can fix him" romance, though since there are time shenanigans involved it's more of "How can I stop him from being broken in the first place" than anything else. There is also a mystery element to it, as Rishe tries to figure out how the Prince Hein she has met in her 7th life, could ever become the Emperor Hein that kills her in her 6th.
I encourage everyone to check it out, based on what I know of the books, this story probably will need three episodes before you really get an idea of what it's going to be like, though I do think the first episode ought to catch people's interest.
All discussion I've seen of this has focused on the "Villainess" subtitle, so I suppose I ought to correct that. This story has very little to do with the common Villainess genre that has been popular (like Bakarina). I suspect the subtitle was added as a marketing ploy to get more readers.
First of all, this is not an isekai story, there is no game knowledge or anything like that. The only villainess element is that our female lead, as the daughter of a duke, was betrothed to her country's crown prince, and he dumps her for her "villainess ways" in favor of another woman. (Obviously this story recognizes that many of the "villainess" of otome games are hardly villainous in their opposition to the other woman trying to steal their fiancee). However, the story rapidly leaves that behind, as our female protagonist Rishe has no time for this nonsense, she has her 7th life to prepare for.
Yes, that's the important part of the title: 7th Time Loop. Rishe is caught up in a time loop situation where at the moment of her death she returns to the past just at the time when the crown prince breaks her engagement, and banishes her from the country. She has also discovered that it is quite difficult to replay out the same events from previous lives and so has decided to stop trying to do so. The one constant that always happens, is that eventually the Crown Prince of another country, Prince Arnold Hein, murders his father, declares himself Emperor, and then proceeds on a war of conquest that inevitably results in her death (directly or indirectly) approximately five years since the time her engagement is broken.
This has started to frustrate her, as no matter what she does, she keeps on dying every five years. But no time to worry about that right now, since she has learned that every time she goes back in time she has only briefest window to return home and gather her things before being thrown out of the country, and if she doesn't have money to start her new life with things tend to become difficult, and she wants to take it easy this time.
That's how the books start, and the first episode does give us this same information, but makes the interesting choice to start not with the beginning of her 7th time loop, but with the final moments of her 6th time loop. I think this is a very good decision for the medium, the emotional weight of having a sword stabbed through your heart and then suddenly being five years in the past at the time your fiance denounces you is much better experienced this way. Not to mention it gives even more wieght to how strange her 7th life becomes when Prince Arnold Hein does this:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKhJcFZronQ
And so this life Rishe looks to remain a noble lady for the first time in all her previous lives.
This is looking to be an interesting adaptation, and I think a lot of people will enjoy it. I'll repeat that there are no isekai elements. Rishe has no modern knowledge to help her. What she does have are the broad strokes of what will happen in the next five years, and more importantly, all the skills she learned during her past lives as a commoner. So rather than a "modern ideas revolutionize the medieval world" element that you get in isekai, instead it's more of "the prospective of a commoner allows a noble lady to be a better noble." Which is a moral I can get behind.
It also has a lot of the "bad boy" and "I can fix him" romance, though since there are time shenanigans involved it's more of "How can I stop him from being broken in the first place" than anything else. There is also a mystery element to it, as Rishe tries to figure out how the Prince Hein she has met in her 7th life, could ever become the Emperor Hein that kills her in her 6th.
I encourage everyone to check it out, based on what I know of the books, this story probably will need three episodes before you really get an idea of what it's going to be like, though I do think the first episode ought to catch people's interest.
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