Literature / 7th Time Loop

Rishe Weitzner is publicly dumped and shamed by her fiance, Crown Prince Dietrich, who accuses her of a list of crimes and sentences her to exile - or he would, if she hadn't just calmly accepted the broken engagement and rushed out of the ballroom. The thing is, for Rishe, this is the seventh time it's happened; she's stuck within a time loop, which begins on the day she's dumped and ends on her death. She has spent each of her lives in a different career, from peddling goods as a merchant to locking blades as a knight, but no matter the job she takes or the location she goes to, she always ends up dead at 20, five years after the annulment. So now she’s determined to kick back and enjoy. This time her goal is to live a lazy life of ease, and a long one.

However, on her way out of the palace this time, Rishe catches the eye of Imperial Crown Prince Arnold of the neighboring Galkhein Kingdom. In all her previous loops, he was the cause of her various deaths, indirectly as the source of a world war, pestilence, resource depletion, and even directly murdering her in the most recent loop. Before she can make her way out of the country. Arnold catches up with Rishe and proposes marriage on the spot in public.

Though initially reluctant, Rishe accepts his proposal of marriage on the condition she doesn't have to perform royal duties, and gets to loaf around; Arnold not only agrees to this but swears to fulfill her every wish. However, she soon starts using all her past life skills to help out the people of the Galkhein Kingdom and sees Arnold is not the same cold person as in her 6th loop; making Rishe wonder what made Arnold's heart grow cold. It will take six-plus lifetimes of experience and skills for Rishe to break the time loop and make her extravagant dreams come true!

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys A Carefree Life Married To Her Worst Enemy! (Loop 7-kaime no Akuyaku Reijō wa, Moto Tekikoku de Jiyū Kimamana Hanayome Seikatsu o Mankitsu Suru) is a series of Light Novels written by Touko Amakawa and illustrated by Wan Hachipisu. Originally a Web Serial Novel that was first released on Shousetsuka ni Narou in February 2020, it was later picked up for publication in October of that same year. It also has a manga adaptation by Hinoki Kino, which began serialization in Comic Gardo in December 2020. Both the novels and the manga have been licensed into the English language by Seven Seas Entertainment.

An anime started on January 7, 2024. It can be seen on Crunchyroll.

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This show provides examples of:

• Action Dress Rip: Or rather, action skirt rip, when Rishe is escaping her kidnappers. It's a neat tear, cut with her own knife down the length of the skirt. And the resulting fanservice is acknowledged; when she reunites with Arnold, one of the first things he does is give her his coat to cover up.
• Adaptation Distillation: Both the manga and the anime have to cut details that were available in the novel; the anime does this in particular to Rishe thinking back on the political implications of past loop details that she remembers about Arnold's various deeds, which makes his reputation as The Dreaded mostly deducible from in-universe reactions to him rather than anything he did off screen and out of Rishe's sight, such as his time serving in the army during Galkhein's most recent war.
• Adaptational Context Change: The original novel has the scene where Rishe tries to help Arnold take a nap follow directly the day after the events of her kidnapping to explain why he hasn't gotten sleep the previous night, and Arnold is the one to mention how long he's been awake. In the anime, this scene is moved to a few days later, and Oliver is the one to alert Rishe; he explains it by saying that Arnold was unexpectedly asked to take over the night watch and has now been up for over 24 hours, all but pleading with her to make Arnold take a nap or break of some kind.
• Adaptation Explanation Extrication: The manga cuts the scene where three ladies at the party in Galkhein attempt to humiliate Rishe by giving her wine spiced with peppers to drink, and Arnold later finishes off the wine rather than let her keep drinking it when she refuses to just toss it. The missing scene makes it harder to understand Rishe's belief that he has no taste buds after he eats her badly flavored attempt at soup and declares it good. (The artist actually makes a note in the manga about the missing scene and that it's connected to Rishe's belief, for anyone who hasn't read the novel.)
  • With the above mentioned soup scene, the anime cuts some of Rishe's thoughts on Arnold's response to it. It keeps her belief that he might have no taste buds, but cuts her realization that he might be trying to be kind as a way of letting her save face.
  • The anime cuts part of Kaine Tully's explanation of why he doesn't want to sell to Rishe in their first meeting. It keeps the part that he's leery because she seems too desperate to make a deal with his company specifically, but doesn't explain why he was wary even before he first met her.
  • In the light novel and manga, it's explained that Rishe has seen Arnold's signature in previous loops on the official letters declaring war that he sent out to other countries - this enables her to identify the note from Arnold requesting the meeting in the chapel as a forgery, as his real signature is very messy compared to the note. However, this explanation is cut from the anime, making it unclear how she realized the note wasn't from Arnold.
  • Some of Rishe's conversation with Theodore in the chapel is cut from the anime, reducing his attempt to turn her against Arnold to only one crime beyond his actions in war: matricide. This makes Theodore a much less persuasive person, and also reduces background world details.
  • In Episode 6, Rishe lectures Theodore on the properly secure way to keep a prisoner, such as searching them to make sure they haven't got a weapon hidden. However, the anime cuts the explanation that Elsie and Kamil were the ones to search Rishe, and thus let her keep the weapon that would allow her to break out and fight the guards.
    • Episode 6 also cuts the fact that Rishe left a note for Arnold letting him know she was "going to finish the conversation from the chapel" so he would know Theodore had taken her and she had planned for it. Technically, Arnold has already seen Rishe's ability to pick locks, escape from an upper story room through a window/balcony, and swordsmanship, so he'd probably be confident in her abilities anyway, but it definitely adds a layer of smug in the light novel when Theodore starts detailing his imprisonment measures and Arnold just becomes more and more amused at all the escape holes left for someone like Rishe.
• Ambiguous Start of Darkness: Rishe doesn't know what the tipping point was in previous loops for Arnold to decide that the right choice was killing his father, pulling off a coup, and starting a world war. She's hoping to avoid it this time around.
• Archnemesis Dad: Arnold's father. When Rishe begins her 7th loop, she knows only that Arnold committed Patricide in all previous loops, and public record makes it look like Arnold's main goal was to seize power by crowning himself Emperor, with the previous emperor's death just being one step in the plan. Over the course of series, however, it is slowly revealed that Arnold has many valid reasons for hating his father, and the most surprising thing is not that he killed his dad; it's why he didn't do it earlier.
  • So far, the light novels have revealed that Arnold's dad has a harem of hostage brides from other countries (and is encouraging Arnold to follow in his footsteps even if he takes only one bride), is guilty of Offing the Offspring who didn't take after him in hair and eye color, and has a taste for conquest and expansion by any means.
• The Bet: Rishe offers Arnold a bet based on the outcome of their training spar in Episode 7. If she wins, she wants him to answer one question for her, no matter what the question is. If he wins, she will grant one wish of his, no matter what the wish is. What Rishe doesn't tell Arnold is that she'll gain something either way: if Arnold answers a question, she can gain information; if she has to grant a wish, she can learn more about him based on what he chooses to use the wish for. Arnold agrees, wins the spar, and asks her to clear her schedule for an outing in town together in two days; she'll find out what his request is then. His wish turns out to be to let him buy her a ring of her choice.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: The fate of Arnold's personal knight guard. Especially since Arnold would prefer to do the work himself for a quicker response time and so they aren't risked in non-battlefield situations.
• Broken Heel: A literal example is averted as Rishe makes her escape from the ball in episode 1, during the 7th loop. She deliberately breaks the high heels off her ballroom shoes so that she can run in them.
• Career-Ending Injury: Oliver was originally a squire training to be a knight; however, an accident during the training process ended his dream. He was still trying to figure out what to do with himself when he ended up in Arnold's service. It's implied this is part of the reason why Arnold designed the special training regime for his knights (and in previous loops, for the rest of the army) to include training to fight as though a soldier had received such injuries and had to keep fighting anyway.
• Cast Full of Pretty Boys: A lot of the people Rishe encountered over her previous loops, many of whom are showing up again in this one, are very pretty.
• Chekhov's Gunman: When Oliver shows up with the guest list for Rishe's wedding, she notes that the most prominent and powerful names on it are key people from the countries Arnold would go on to antagonize in previous loops — and all of them would thus end up enemies of Galkhein when Arnold started a conflict.
  More than a wedding guest register, this was a list of key people from the countries Arnold would go on to antagonize. Even before the murder of the king^note Arnold's father and the start of the war, there must have been a trigger—a sea change in the affairs of state. Everyone on this list was most likely involved.
  • The names Rishe picks out specifically from the guest list — King Zahad, Prince Kyle, Princess Harriet, Lord Jonal from the Kingdom of Domana — are also people Rishe herself knew in different loops, and will prove to be important in various arcs over the series.^note So far, in the light novels, Kyle has featured in volume 2, Lord Jonal in volume 3, and Princess Harriet in Volume 4. King Zahad of the desert kingdom has appeared mostly in flashbacks to previous loops and background references in the current loop so far, but it's been mentioned that he met and hung out with Arnold when they both were kids and Zahad's father came to visit Galkhein, so he may become more prominent when the actual wedding happens.
• Comically Small Demand: When Arnold wins their bet over the outcome of the training spar, Rishe has promised to grant any wish. He could have asked to touch her, or anything else that might overstep her boundaries. Instead, he asks her to come out and pick a ring for herself which he will then be allowed to pay for. Not as an engagement or wedding ring — Galkhein doesn't have that tradition, although Rishe's country of Hermity does — but because he noticed she was always working with her hands.
  Arnold: Well, it doesn't really matter that it was a ring. But... You do a lot of hands-on work, don't you? I just thought it must feel good to have the ornament I gave you on that finger.
  • Rishe points out he could have used the wish for something larger. Arnold says that this is something he actually wanted, and it's the only way she would have cooperated. Even then, he has to point out the economic benefits to making an expensive purchase locally to get her to cooperate.
    Rishe: How did you come to such a conclusion?
    Arnold: I don't think you'll be honest about your choice if I tell you, "I'll buy you a ring and you can choose whatever you want." You don't like the idea of someone buying something for you, right?
    Rishe: *stammers incoherently*
    Arnold: The stones handled here are first-rate. I'm not going to pay a penny if it isn't worth a penny.
    Rishe: However, Your Highness, I think it's best not to spend too much on expensive—
    Arnold: Any ring you pay for here will mean an immediate transfer of funds into the castle town.
  • To make the demand even more comically small, while also Played for Drama, when the ring is actually finished, Arnold tells Rishe she doesn't have to wear it. At first she thinks it's a rejection, then he clarifies that his wish was only to buy her the ring after she chose it; he has no right to ask for anything more.
• Compressed Hair: Rishe is able to tuck her shoulder blade-length pink hair under a small wig with no issues when disguising herself as a man.
• Crippling Overspecialization: The Coyolles Kingdom has rich mineral wealth in the form of large deposits of gemstones but virtually no other resources. Because it has heavy snows for much of the year, trapping the people inside their homes for months on end, it can't produce or transport enough food for its citizens on its own, and burns through more fuel than it can produce, making it heavily dependent on imports from neighboring countries to survive. It's heavily dependent on importing food and fuel from other countries for its citizens. While it does have a tradition of knights and a good harbor for trade and ships, its military is not a strong one. If a neighbor decided to conquer it, it would be easily overrun, and the wealth makes it even more of an attractive target. For centuries Coyolles has maintained its independence by a careful balancing act of political marriages, vigorous diplomacy, and trading the highest quality gems in the world. However, its gemstone deposits are almost completely tapped out, which will leave it with nothing but the natural harbor that is perfect for invading the north of Galkhein by sea. In previous loops, Coyolles was pressured by its neighbors into fighting against Galkhein because the harbor would also have offered a straight invasion path if Galkhein got control of Coyolles. This made Coyolles one of the first targets and one of the first places to fall.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Any fight where Arnold decides to take on a group of opponents by himself, basically. He has a reputation for mowing people down with lethal force offscreen as well as onscreen, though his fight with the bandits in episode 2 shows he's also capable of doing this on non-lethal settings.
  • If this doesn't happen, it's likely he's given himself handicaps for the fight or is deliberately drawing it out, such as when he's running a training spar with Rishe. And even so, he wins; it just takes longer.
• Damsel in Distress: Theodore assumes Rishe is this trope, whether or not she knows it, due to the Political Hostage aspect of her engagement. He offers her an escape, but specifics are never discussed, as Rishe turns him down.
• Damsel out of Distress: After Rishe gets kidnapped by Theodore in a Zero-Approval Gambit to make Arnold's claim on the throne stronger, Rishe rather effortlessly escapes on her own, even beating up her guards, rather than waiting for Arnold to rescue her.
• Dances and Balls: As one might expect from such a setting.
  • Rishe's original engagement is broken at the very same ball where it was to be announced, as added humiliation for her.
  • Episode 3 features a ball in the Galkhein Empire. Even though Arnold's father wants him to take a foreign princess as a bride/hostage, Arnold is required for the sake of peace at home to make a show of searching for a candidate among Galkhein nobility. However, Arnold has no qualms presenting Rishe as his already chosen bride from the start at said event, when she suggests that option and says she's ok with it - probably because she's temporarily lifting the rule forbidding him to touch her for the length of the party.
• The Empire: Galkhein's place in the world at the end of the five-year loops, complete with the rest of the world rising against it.
• Everything Makes a Mushroom: In a flashback, we see Michel setting off a gunpowder bomb of his own invention that causes a massive explosion with a mushroom cloud and instant winds, looking more appropriate to a scene from Oppenheimer.
• Fantastic Naming Convention: Most people in this world get three names: a first name, a surname, and the middle name that's actually a Rite-of-Passage Name Change - the baptismal name. In the light novel and the manga, Arnold's lack of a baptismal name is pointed out by his younger brother Theodore as a proof that Arnold wasn't loved by his parents and was denied their blessing at birth. Readers don't know the middle name of every character, but generally if a character's full name has been provided, it includes a middle name.
• Fantasy Gun Control: The main form of warfare is knights fighting with swords. (Rishe mentions at one point that only the eastern countries see and value the benefits of archery in warfare, so there isn't really a role for artillery, only cavalry and infantry and ships.) There are no guns or firearms or even fireworks in this world, because gunpowder has not yet been invented. Actually, it has been invented, by Rishe's mentor Michel Evan, but he hasn't yet found someone he trusts to see and make the best use of his game-changing substance in war... or at least, that was the case in previous loops. In the seventh one, he meets Arnold in person, and finally decides this is the right person. Rishe, who knows the terrifying potential of the substance from her loop as Michel's student, doesn't want that to happen — not only because it would make the war she's trying to stop even more devastating but also because she thinks it would break both Michel and Arnold even more than they are already.
• Forged Message: In Episode 4, Rishe receives a note from 'Arnold' requesting a meeting in the chapel that evening^note at 9 pm in the light novel, at midnight in the anime and promising to tell her a secret. But when she shows up, Theodore is the one awaiting her. Rishe was expecting this, however, and sent Arnold a reply, saying she would be there to answer his invitation, setting the time at half an hour after Theodore set the meeting to start. This means Arnold was guaranteed to show up - and in fact does so fifteen minutes before the time she named.
  Arnold: As if I would ignore the reply to a letter I never even sent.
• Gratuitous German: Theodore's apology letter to Rishe is written in German, and while the entire letter isn't visible on screen, what is shown basically matches Theodore's narration of the contents.
• Green-Eyed Monster: During their training spar in Episode 7, Arnold thinks Rishe is reacting as though she's previously faced someone more dangerous than he is, despite her claim before the spar that his swordsmanship was the most beautiful and dangerous in the world. Rishe assures him she was only thinking of him. They're both right - Rishe was thinking of his five-years-older self who she faced in a Duel to the Death in the sixth loop.
  Arnold: Come on. Pay a little more attention to me.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: Rishe's time loop lasts five years, returning her to the moment of her broken engagement and ending at her death. She is able to make any changes in it she likes, but learns early on that making different choices will close off previously available ones; the five year length essentially makes each loop an Alternate Timeline of its own.
• Hairpin Lockpick: Rishe reveals that she learned how to do this in her fourth loop, when she worked as a maid and had to occasionally pick the locks on the bedroom door of the lady she worked for when her employer would lock herself in her room.
• He Who Must Not Be Seen: Arnold's father, the current Emperor of Galkhein, is The Ghost variant, mostly because Rishe is the main narrator and Arnold is actively trying to avoid her coming in contact with the Emperor. This is partly at her request to avoid living with her in-laws but also because Arnold doesn't have a good relationship with the guy either; in all previous loops he chose Patricide.
• I Ate WHAT?!: Downplayed. The wine prank backfires because Rishe not only sees it coming, she drinks it with a perfectly straight face rather than the Spit Take the ladies responsible were hoping for. When Arnold can't talk her out of finishing the already ruined wine, he takes the glass out of her hand and drinks it himself with an equally straight face, while complaining about the spiciness of the peppers that the pranksters added.
• I Have Just One Thing to Say: When selecting her personal maids at the end of episode 3, Rishe addresses Diana's outrage over not being chosen, noting how she's been mistreating the new recruits by expecting them to meet standards set too high for them. Diana is fired from her position as head maid, and Rishe reminds her that her background of literacy gave her an advantage that she used for her own benefit but not to aid her juniors. As Diana is prepared to embrace her fate, Rishe steps forth and offers her a new position as a trainer for new maids.
• I Have Your Wife: Theodore's intention with the kidnapping plot is to get Arnold's attention and demand Arnold surrender his place as Crown Prince in exchange for Rishe's safety. Of course, because it's Rishe who was kidnapped, Arnold doesn't buy it, correctly predicting that Rishe would free herself and find her way to them.
• Insidious Rumor Mill: Theodore attempts to get Rishe to distrust Arnold by using this, though he's careful to tell her truthful facts and point out the terrible implications of those facts. Unfortunately, Rishe has seen enough of Arnold up close that she no longer thinks his bad reputation is the full truth or that his kindness is a mask, so she refuses to buy into it, especially when Theo is trying to get her to trust him instead and Arnold warned her to stay away from his brother.
• Insomnia Episode: While Arnold is implied to have some regular sleep problems, the second half of episode 7 tackles this as Rishe tries to help him take a nap during the day.
• Klingon Promotion: How Arnold became emperor in previous loops, combined with a military coup.
  • Theodore's conversations with Rishe in the seventh loop, where he guesses this is part of his brother's plans, indicate that this is not actually a legal form of succession in the empire, so there must have been some mitigating circumstances or the military support to allow Arnold to survive and inherit when he did this. Possibly the mitigating circumstances include that something had happened to Theodore, as Rishe had never once heard of his name in any previous loop, leaving Arnold as the only male heir eligible to inherit the throne.
    Theodore: I bet he’ll kill Father someday too. And when he does, being crown prince won’t save him—he’ll be a traitor, and they’ll execute him. There will be no escape.
• Love at First Sight: Arnold claims this is the reasons he proposed to Rishe. She doesn't believe him, but also doesn't dare call him out as a liar. But there are increasing hints that he is very strongly attracted to her, at the very least.
• Medieval Universal Literacy: Averted trope. Merchant class families and above do tend to be literate for reasons of their jobs, but many people aren't. Rishe directly references this fact when she explains to the maid Diana that Diana's background, from a family of merchants whose business collapsed, gave her a literacy advantage over her fellow maids - while all of them only received instructions for a task once, Diana is able to write those instructions down to refer to later, and thus has progressed more as a maid in seniority and competence. Her high standards stem from her own ability to keep up with the workload without realizing that the other maids may not have the same skills as her. Diana has a breakdown at the realization.
• Mistaken for Servant: Rishe is mistaken by the castle maids as a new hire. It's an understandable mistake, because she's wearing one of her oldest dresses to clean her villa and does have a maid's skills because that was her job in the fourth loop.^note Though why no one questioned her lack of uniform... Rather than correct the mistake, she uses it to judge both her prospective maids and their working conditions, revealing her true identity only when it's time to choose which ones will personally serve her.
• Never-Forgotten Skill: Rishe remembers all the skills she's learned in each of her previous loops with perfect clarity, even if (from her perspective) it's been more than two decades since she's practiced them. The only issues she's run into so far is that she's not as good with a sword as she was in her sixth loop because she hasn't had a chance to gain back the muscle she had then, and she has a lower stamina so she can't concentrate or go without sleep as long as she's used to.
• Non-Indicative Title: Unlike what the subtitle may suggest, Rishe's actions appear to be focused toward bettering herself or those around her, and they don't paint her to be a villainess.
• Nothing Is Scarier: In the opening of Episode 1, while it's still the sixth loop, Rishe and her fellow knights defend an empty corridor, looking towards the far end, as they hear Arnold's footsteps steadily approaching the corridor. The camera cuts back and forth between him walking up the various hallways and the knights awaiting the moment when someone arrives - until he finally steps out, to the sound of thunder, a flash of lightning, and the beginning of a music soundtrack.
• Oblivious to Love: Rishe, to any hint of attraction Arnold has for her. At first she's certain his entire proposal must be part of some plan or other, and is openly skeptical of any compliments he gives her, even when she accepts said compliments. Meanwhile, Arnold has claimed from the start that he fell in love with her at their first meeting, and as she slowly relaxes the refusal to touch him or let him touch her, there's a lot of hints she's driving him a little crazy.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Played with. As one of her conditions for agreeing to the marriage, Rishe demands her own space to live in. Arnold assumes that she's afraid of this trope, and Rishe pretends that's the truth. In actuality, Rishe is trying to avoid a repeat of the previous loops, where Arnold began a coup by killing his father, followed by starting a war that would indirectly kill Rishe. Since she doesn't know why Arnold killed his dad, Rishe is hoping to avoid the unknown trigger by having Arnold move in with her and minimize contact with the current Emperor.
• Offing the Offspring: How Arnold's father the current Emperor of Galkhein enforces a Strong Family Resemblance in all his children: he killed any kids who didn't inherit both his black hair and blue eyes, in front of their mothers and Arnold.
• The Outsider Befriends the Best: Arguably what Rishe has done in each lifetime - when pursuing a new career, she has found a teacher who is the best in the field, accidentally or on purpose, and learned everything they are willing to teach.^note Loop one - merchant, mentor is Kaine Tully of the Aria Trading Company, which went global in less than a decade. Loop two - apothecary, mentor is a yet-unnamed healer from Renhua, the medical country that's the best of the best and rarely lets outsiders have their secrets. Loop three - alchemist, mentor is Michel Evan who she met previously and arguably is the best inventor and teacher of the scientific method. Loop five, trained as a hunter and secret agent, mentor is Raul who is a master of disguise, infiltration, tracking and scouting and espionage and sabotage and general black ops skills. Loops four (maid) and six (knight) may or may not apply, as that was more immersive learning than finding a specific mentor, and loop seven is bringing out her old skills of crown princess from before the loops on top of all her previous lifetimes' skillsets.
• Political Hostage: How Galkhein makes vassal states cooperate. The current emperor of Galkhein has married multiple women from the royal families of other countries to serve as such, and encouraged his heir to do the same, even stating he would only accept Arnold marrying foreign royalty to make sure of it.
  • Arnold technically has excused his engagement with Rishe as such, because she is the daughter of a duke and has some royal blood from previous family marriages; he added an additional subterfuge of implying he was responsible for her ex-fiancee breaking her first engagement and then taking advantage of the situation to steal her himself. Rishe plays along because being a hostage means she has almost no royal duties and plenty of free time for her own hobbies and leisure. However, Arnold's protectiveness of Rishe gives away that he cares about her as more than a hostage.
• Reality Has No Soundtrack: In the opening of Episode 1, while it's still the sixth loop, we have no background music, only the thunder and rain and the clash of swords and battle, and Arnold's footsteps steadily approaching the corridor with the last line of defense. When he steps in sight of Rishe and her companions and lightning flashes through the window behind him, that's the first time music is played.
• Revenge Is a Dish Best Served: A group of ladies, upset that Arnold picked Rishe, approach her with falsely welcoming smiles and a glass of wine. Rishe can't turn down the wine without being impolite, so she accepts it, and sips it - and compliments it, much to the ladies' surprise and annoyance. It turns out that the wine was spiced with peppers, specifically mashed capsicum, and they were hoping for an impolite Spit Take. But Rishe doesn't turn a hair, despite suspecting a trap and immediately being able to taste the peppers. In fact, she insists on finishing the wine even after the women have gone, on the basis that the pranksters have wasted good wine already. When Arnold catches her and hears about the prank, and he can't talk her out of finishing it, he takes the glass and downs the remainder himself, with a perfect poker face of his while complaining about the spiciness.
• Right in Front of Me: The maids realize that the person they thought was a competitor for the position of Rishe's maid was actually Rishe herself, when she appears to select the ones serving her.
• Rising Empire: Galkhein's place in the world at the start of the loop. It's already done quite a lot of rising, however, and is still thoroughly in its expansionist phase.
• Royally Screwed Up: Galkhein's royal family is strongly hinted to be this, though it's revealed very slowly because Arnold is going out of his way to limit Rishe's contact with the other royals. Theodore is one of the first to reveal details in an attempt to scare Rishe off. From the outside, there is very little hint of such problems, and none that Rishe was aware of in previous loops; she believed that Arnold's reign of war and terror, beginning with his father's death, was a quest for power, and is only just beginning to learn that it's more complicated than that.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Generally true for most countries in this world where we've met the monarchs. The reason Rishe is so insistent that she have the right to be lazy and set her own schedule as a condition of accepting Arnold's proposal is because she knows from her education in preparation to marry Dietrich that a royal (and particularly the monarch, the heir, and their respective spouses) will have a round-the-clock active schedule involved with various aspects of government. Even as heir, Arnold is heavily involved with running the executive branch of the government, and also active in the legislative branch and the military. Likewise, Crown Prince Kyle of Coyolles is as active a participant as his health will allow.
  • In cases where this is averted, such as Theodore and possibly Dietrich, it usually indicates that the royal in question is deliberately slacking off and being allowed to get away with it for some reason. Theodore did it in part so that he wouldn't be taken seriously as competition for the succession.
• Secret Test of Character: Played With. The maids initially think that Rishe was going incognito to judge them, and is firing the more experienced maids because they put the new girls down, including the disguised Rishe, while bragging how they were sure to get the position. In actuality, Rishe announces she plans to use her villa as a school to train the maids for the main palace, and she wants to hire the more experienced maids not as maids but as instructors for the rookies. And she wasn't intending to test them; it was a case of mistaken identity that she never corrected them on.
• Short Title: Long, Elaborate Subtitle: 3-word title, 11-word subtitle.
• Sleep Deprivation: Rishe has a very full schedule generally, and it's common for her to reducing her sleeping hours or sacrifice sleep entirely for several days at once if she's trying to meet deadlines. When the lack of sleep catches up to her, it hits hard and with inconvenient timing.
• Spoiler Opening: Rishe is quite discreet about what she was up to during her fifth life (the one between the maid and the knight) in the early parts of the story. The anime's opening, meanwhile, has a brief montage of her six previous lives, with the fifth showing her doing acrobatics in a dark hooded outfit that evokes that of the bandits from the second episode. While there is still room for surprise for the job's exact nature, it narrows down the range of options compared to having no information at all.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Or the Aristocratic version of it. Most ladies in Rishe's home country are encouraged only to be educated enough to pass in social circles and are otherwise told to focus on the homemaking arts. It's hinted that one of the reasons Rishe caught Arnold's attention is because she has proven to have multiple areas of knowledge that are unusual for a Lady to know, to a depth that would take a lifetime to acquire - except, if she was spending her full life as a court lady, where did she find the time?
• Sweet Polly Oliver: Rishe pretends to be a man for her sixth loop to live as a knight. She also does it again in the 7th loop, though only part time and for a few weeks to under go the Galkhein knight's basic training.
• Taking the Bullet: In the sixth time loop, Rishe and her fellow knights were trying to buy time for their royal family to escape from Emperor Arnold's troops. Arnold himself arrives and cuts them down, until Rishe and one other knight are the last two left. When Rishe's sword breaks, the other knight throws himself between her and the Emperor, impaling himself on Arnold's sword, trying to buy her a few more seconds of time and draw the fight out, as they haven't received the signal of the escape yet. It works - but only for a few seconds. Enough time for the royal family to escape, but not enough time to save Rishe herself.
• Too Good to Be True: Rishe is so overeager to build a relationship with the Aria Company for its future connections that she sparks the suspicions of its boss and makes him decide not to risk selling to her.
  Kaine Tully: Unfortunately, I cannot sell to you my lady. Or rather, I will not sell to you.
  Rishe: May I ask why?
  Kaine Tully: My lady, quite frankly, your insistence doesn’t match my offerings.
  Rishe: My insistence?
  Kaine Tully: You appear ready to stake your life on this deal. Am I wrong?
  Rishe nearly lost her composure then. With a huge effort, she willed her expression into one of polite confusion. His deep, long-lashed eyes were openly searching her now. It seemed they were past pretense.
  Kaine Tully: Let’s speak plainly, my lady. We’re discussing wedding preparations. I know that for a crown princess, your wedding will be your crowning jewel. However… You have the look of a woman staring down death. Whatever you’re after, it isn’t a flawless marriage ceremony or a well-heeled soirée. And I don’t like complications.
  • Kaine Tully knows that there's no way a future Crown Princess would offer his up-and-coming-but-unknown business the job of providing all the goods for her wedding, nor that she should be so frantic if he refuses, so he initially turns Rishe's offer down because he doesn't want to get dragged into what she's planning - albeit while letting her know they'll stick around for a few days, with the implication she might be able to change his mind. When she tries to get him to wait, he walks out of the meeting - proving his own point about how desperate she seems.
    Rishe: *sweatdrop* This is a once-in-a-lifetime event. I'm sorry if I appeared overeager. I don't have any event planning experience.
    Kaine Tully: *laughing* You have nothing to worry about. I’m sure you’ll find the perfect business partner. Unfortunately, my company will not be it. *bows mockingly* It was an honor to be invited to speak with you. Now, if you'd please excuse me.
  • A second instance happens when Rishe turns up to a second meeting at the inn in disguise. Tully is initially more eager to hear her offer this time, thinking she has a business plan in mind and could be a good business partner, but when she tries to gain the partnership without revealing her long term plans, he refuses outright as too risky. However, he's willing to give her a third chance if she can come up with an actual local business idea within a week's time.
• Undressing the Unconscious: In Episode 6, Rishe passes out when extended sleep deprivation finally catches up to her. When she wakes up, she's been moved to her bedroom, with Arnold doing work at the desk while waiting for her to wake up. She finds she's been changed into a nightgown, but only has a second to panic before Arnold reassures her that the maids did the changing.
• Uninvited to the Party: Played with. Arnold got the invitation to Dietrich and Rishe/Marie's engagement party, but Dietrich didn't recognize or greet him. Arnold uses this as an excuse to have his aide, Oliver, complain to the royal chamberlain of Dietrich's father the King of Hermity:
  Later, Rishe would learn that Arnold’s attendant had spoken to the king’s own gentleman, certain that his words would reach their target. “My master took such trouble to attend these festivities, and this is the welcome he is offered? I wonder, what will the emperor think when he learns of his son’s slighting at your nation’s hands?"
  • This causes the monarch to show up in a panic, force his son to apologize, and be ready to give Arnold anything he wants so he doesn't declare war over the insult as RevengeSVP - including pressuring Rishe to change her mind and accept Arnold's proposal. Arnold de-escalates, saying this won't affect relationships between their countries and asking for a private conversation with Rishe instead, but he almost certainly made the complaint to give himself more options, predicting he'd get this exact response. Because when Rishe hesitates, Arnold warns her, “If you refuse to hear my suit, you won’t deter me. I’ll simply move on to Plan B.”
  • Played straight with Theodore, who Arnold has forbidden to attend the same parties as him generally as part of avoiding contact with his brother.
• Waking Up Elsewhere: In Episode 5, Rishe is on the verge of passing out from extended sleep deprivation and wakes up having been kidnapped to another location in Episode 6; it's implied she was unconscious for the kidnapping.
  • Later in Episode 6, after the kidnapping is resolved, Rishe passes out when extended sleep deprivation catches up to her again. When she wakes up, she's been moved to her bedroom, with Arnold doing work at the desk while waiting for her to wake up.
• Wall Pin of Love: Arnold does it to Rishe in Episode 4, in her room, having waited for her to come back from sneaking out. It's perhaps noteworthy that he does it against a balcony door rather than an actual wall, and thus leaves her a potential escape route through said door, so she's not fully trapped.
• Worrying for the Wrong Reason: In Episode 4, Arnold confronts Rishe for having snuck out in disguise at night without guards to meet with Kaine Tully. Rishe assumes he's concerned because of the potential for scandal. It turns out that what he's concerned about is her safety because she didn't take any guards.
  Arnold: *huffs in laughter* So, even you look like that when faced with a man alone at night.
  Rishe: *gulps* I... am very sorry. Sneaking out of the villa alone at night is unbecoming of my position as your fiancée. If your reputation were damaged because —
  Arnold: I don't care about that. You're not hurt, are you?
  Rishe: What? No, I'm not.
  Arnold: From now on, whenever you visit town, I will go with you.
  Rishe: What?
  Arnold: I told you. You're free to do as you like. I also told you that I would help you in that.
  Rishe: Oh, but... I couldn't possibly ask Your Highness to go along with my selfish behavior!
  Arnold: I said that you're free to do as you like. I didn't say you're free to put yourself in danger.
  • In the Light Novel, Rishe discusses the possibility of scandal more explicitly than the anime, specifically thinking of the possibility that someone would assume she was having an affair - hence why it would damage Arnold's reputation. Arnold actually brings it up aloud, saying that he'd have a very different reaction if he thought she actually *did* mean to cuckold him, but he predicted that she was probably meeting with the Aria Trading Company again in this case.
• Voiceover Letter: Done with Theodore's apology letter (which is written in German).
• Zero-Approval Gambit: Whatever Arnold's endgame is in the seventh loop (and presumably whatever it was at least originally in the previous loops), it seems to involve this. Theodore and Oliver have all but confirmed that Arnold is actively encouraging the rumor mill to keep his reputation as a ruthless conqueror and dreaded warrior constant in everyone's mind both in his own country and abroad. Theodore also notes that Arnold's policies are designed to keep working even if he dies and has taken it as proof that Arnold intends to remove himself from the picture at some point. When Rishe confronts Arnold about it, he refuses to confirm it, saying Theodore has read too deeply into things; naturally he wrote the policies to make sure they could still function even without his personal intervention and existence.
  • Theodore begins by trying to carry out his own version of this, with the end goal of removing himself from the succession line as either a disinterested and lazy prince or an outright criminal; by removing himself, he would make Arnold the only option left to succeed the throne, and hopefully counter whatever Arnold's plans are. It's not known if he succeeded in previous loops, but Rishe notes she had never heard his name before the seventh loop. In the seventh loop, his plans come out and he appears to have given up on them after finding there's a better way to help his brother.

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