This is a reincarnation anime centered around a once noble protagonist, Rishe, who is about to dumped by the kingdom's prince . . . for the 7th time. The other 6 lives were met with a premature death followed by a resurrection by a mysterious force. The heroine wasn't a villainess in her previous life so I don't think this is one of those Groundhog day scenarios where she is intended to learn a lesson through repeated death. I just have to assume this is all for gaining cheat abilities through effort rather than bestowal.
Similarly to Gekai Elise, another anime released around the same time, we are never told what powers allowed Rishe to come back to life, or what purpose her resurrection is intended to serve. The anime at least, doesn't cover the other 6 lives she lived extensively. Only the end of the 6th where she meats Arnold, the prince of a foreign kingdom. He is charmed by her athletic abilities and decides to offer her the chance to marry him. He is also the one who killed her in her last 'loop'. Yet seeing him come to aid Rishe and smoothly taking a knee to propose was enough to win me over. Add that to the stellar quality animation and beautiful opening song and this had all the makings of a fantastic romance adventure akin to Beauty and the Beast. Sadly, it was a steady slope downward from here.
With each loop, Rishe tried a new tactic of living in order to actually survive long enough to escape what leads to her untimely demise. Her various teachers, at least the ones we see, were all bishonen to the n-th degree to the point of all of them having glossy lips and exhaling their every word in a seductive tone. In fact, all the hot guys of significance in this story have those shiny lips. It's honestly a little funny how they all look and sound like otome game targets. But this isn't what bothers me. The problem is that these are supposed to be her former teachers as well as people of high rank and education from past lives. And yet they all seem to be made deliberately clueless at key points for the sake of promoting the heroine's assortment of skills. The kinds of things she suggests to appeal for their support in the 7th loop don't seem inconceivable for her teachers to have thought of themselves. It's hard to go into detail without spoiling the narrative. I'll just say that resolving the more dramatic parts of the story didn't reveal very compelling reasons for their execution in the first place. Since the purpose of this loop was supposed to be discovering the reason for an impending war but without knowing the cause, all Rishe can really do is try and make life better for those around her in the hope that something changes. A half cour just wasn't enough time for things to 'build'. Episodes went by in a flash with some spending over half the time without leaving a room. Mind you, this is partially due the amount of tender flirting scenes that unfold between Rishe and Arnold (And they WERE nice). However it also slowed the pace of the story and some conflicts felt more like interruptions. Perhaps things will pick up more in the next season and I can re-evaluate this. Until then, I'm mostly disappointed that intelligence needs to be lowered for the key characters just to promote the heroine's strengths. Having different occupations worth of skills may put you in a great position to mingle as the future queen, but it will take more than a jack of all trades to end this conflict. And If the reasons for it are as silly as the ones in this first cour, I'd be very sad.
