Winter 2024 Anime: 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!

Synopsis

Rishe Irmgard Weitzner, a duke’s daughter, has a secret: she died at the age of 20 and returned to the moment five years prior when her engagement was called off. She has already experienced this time loop six times and lived out those five years a different way each time, as a merchant, a doctor, a maid, a knight, and more.

Now, on her seventh go-around, she’s determined to live to a ripe old age and spend it relaxing. But the moment she flees the castle with that decision in her heart, she runs into the infamously cruel crown prince of a rival kingdom, Arnold Hein. He happens to be the one who killed her during her life as a knight, but now, he seems to have taken a bizarre liking to her… and begs her to become his wife. Thus, in order to stay alive and prevent a war, Rishe utilizes her previous experiences to kick off her seventh life as the bride of an enemy nation’s crown prince. (From Crunchyroll)

Comments

Alif Naufal H. (The Indonesian Anime Times)

In our lifetime, there is always this one pivotal moment that starts it all. The moment that practically changes your life forever, for better or for worse, with a myriad of choices in front of you to take. The moment where you can take your life in drastically different directions, depending on your choice back then. What would you do if after you die, you could go back to that moment in time? Would you take a different path that would immensely change your life, resolving past regrets you’ve had in your previous lifetime, and reveling in the luxury of a second chance?

That question is what 7th Time Loop as a show asks via its protagonist, Rishe Irmgard Weitzner. Every time she dies, she goes back to that pivotal moment in her life that practically opens up a lot of opportunities for her. In the first episode itself, we see her choose a different path in every iteration of her life: A traveling merchant, a doctor, a researcher, a maid, and in the iteration before the current one, she chose to be a knight. Then in her current, seventh life, she decided her ultimate goal would be living a long and comfortable life without early death like her previous life. 

Rishe herself for me is what makes the show really compelling, for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, she’s really pretty. I love how they draw her pink hair and how it seems like it shines, and her different outfits in each of her lives look great on her. Second, I like how Rishe is portrayed as a character. She is a daughter to a duke, whose duty is decided from the very beginning of her life: to marry into the royal family and produce an heir for them. Despite this, from what I can infer from the brief flashback in episode two, she’s very curious and has a desire to learn a lot of things–a desire that her family denied her because she doesn’t need them to marry the crown prince. 

This makes Rishe as a character really ‘greedy’, in a sense that as soon as she gets a second chance in life, she actively seeks out different experiences than her previous life, which stems from her regret of not being able to do the things she wanted when she was younger. I can resonate a lot with this sentiment; the lingering regrets of not being able to do the things I wanted, and wishing for a second chance in life where I can do over and finally do them. Rishe also treasures her experiences a lot. The moment she comes to the Galkhein Empire—a place she hasn’t visited in all of her previous lives—she’s very excited and eager to learn about the locations she can visit there and get to know the locals. She always lives her life to the fullest—all six of them—and I really admire that aspect of her. Because of this, I think Rishe is a really great character that makes the show worth watching by herself. 

It wouldn’t be right to talk about Rishe without talking about her main love interest: Arnold Hein. He is the mysterious crown prince of Galkhein Empire, who in Rishe’s previous lives, will eventually become an emperor and instigate a war between multiple nations. He even killed her when she was living as a knight, even. In her current life though, he takes a liking to her and eventually asks her hand in marriage. There’s this air of mystery around Arnold where it’s unclear why he started a war in the future, and whether or not Rishe can prevent this from happening. Maybe what the young prince needs is love, after all?

One more thing about the story I liked is that it feels almost…game-like? The way Rishe loops back to a fixed point in time feels like a reference to time loop games like 12 Minutes or Deathloop, where the player has a limited time where they can progress the game in a set amount of time before the game sends the player back to the beginning–but this time with more knowledge about the game itself. That is exactly what Rishe does, as we see her trying to navigate the events of her life differently based on the knowledge she gains from her past lives, and how even the slightest change can affect the path she takes. It’s also really neat that she keeps the expertise she obtained from her life as a doctor or a knight, for example. 

Visually, the show is drop-dead gorgeous. It may not be the best animated show ever, but how the show presents its drawings is so captivating to me that I can’t look away while watching. The highlight though, is in the show’s opening, helmed by the legendary combo of Ryosuke Nakamura and Mieko Hosoi who previously worked on other shows like Your Lie in April, Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, and Attack on Titan. The opening of 7th Time Loop is amazingly directed, with superb character acting, and made complete with Mieko Hosoi’s gorgeous artwork sprinkled in. I especially love the part where they displayed all of Rishe’s previous lives before they went into the chorus. It’s definitely the opening of the season for me right now. 

Overall, I think it’s worth giving this show a shot if you love the villainess genre of stories in general. Even if you don’t, maybe you’ll like the heartwarming story of Rishe trying to live her life to the fullest and her budding romance with Arnold. It’s a great anime either way, one that has the potential to leave its mark in my heart for a long time. 

Facts and Figures

Screenshots and Trailer

The Indonesian Anime Times