It happens suddenly. One day, you're your normal, ordinary, nothing-special self, in a normal, ordinary, nothing-special world. The next day, you wake up in a strange bedroom, and you see a total stranger when you look in the mirror. But wait a minute—that face looks kinda familiar—is that?
You've been reincarnated as a character in one of your favorite works of fiction.
Maybe it was a romance choice game, or a popular novel. Whatever it was, you're now in it. But not as yourself. You're now an established character in the story, be it the hero, the villain, or a minor or background character.
When that happens, you'll try to change the events of the story to get a better ending, especially if you're the villain who is doomed should the plot progress as it originally did. Or maybe you'll just coast on a life of luxury, since most of the time, your new identity comes with a title and high class lifestyle.
Whatever you do, it'll be different than what the character did in the original story, meaning that it will alter the course of the tale. No matter how small your actions are, as long as they are different, they will result in the story being diverted from the original course, for better or for worse.
Since the world you did Reincarnate in Another World, it will be very different from the real world, taking place in a setting resembling Regency England, Victorian Britain, Steampunk, or The Enlightenment, which also took place during the Georgian Era of powdered wigs and ruffles. This world will fall victim to the Ermine Cape Effect, where all high-ranking people only wear Impractically Fancy Outfits.
Subtrope of Media Transmigration, the specific kind where a character in the "real world" is reincarnated as a character in a fictional work they knew of. In recent years, the My Next Life trope has become so popular and frequent that it has enough examples for a page of its own. You don't have to die, just become an established fictional character. Related, Meta-wise, to Self-Insert stories that involve the author inserting themselves into an established character.
The most popular Subtrope of this is the "Reborn as Villainess" Story.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- City Hunter Rebirth is a spin-off of City Hunter about a 40 year-old woman reincarnating as a teen-aged character in the original City Hunter manga, ending up joining Ryo and Kaori in their adventures.
- Dragon Ball: That Time I Got Reincarnated as Yamcha! is a spin-off of Dragon Ball where a high school student reincarnates as Yamcha and takes the occasion to try changing the story of Dragon Ball by making Yamcha the strongest character in the series.
- I Raised Cinderella Preciously: After waking up in the story of Cinderella as the Wicked Stepmother, a woman resolves to be much nicer to the titular heroine and help mend bridges between her and the stepsisters, also keeping an eye out for Prince Charming to fulfill the original Happily Ever After.
Fan Works
- Sean Bean Saves Westeros: The actor who plays Ned Stark in Game of Thrones is reincarnated into his character on the day he's supposed to die and steps up to save the Starks.
Literature
- In Accomplishments of the Duke's Daughter, Iris was originally a Japanese accountant who played an otome game where Iris was originally the game's antagonist. She regained her memories during what was supposed to be game's Dénouement where Iris is punished for her bullying of the game's heroine Yuri. Since she was too late to change the story's outcome, all she can do is pick up the pieces of her life and reputation and forge a new path.
- Happily Ever Afterwards: Subverted. The character is reincarnated into the world of The Song of Askar after the events of the story, as a princess from a land foreign to the character's homeland. Nevertheless, she, a fan of the novel, is a hopeless stan for the Tall, Dark, and Handsome Jerk with a Heart of Gold antagonist with White-and-Grey Morality, Richt, who by now is exiled to a wasteland after failing to defeat his brother and win the love of the story's heroine. Peony soon after insists on an Arranged Marriage with Richt, hoping to warm his heart and get him to fall in love with her.
- I Became The Wife Of The Monstrous Crown Prince: The protagonist is a Korean girl who was reborn as Anthia, a minor character of the R-19 novel "The Beast and the Young Lady". In the original story, Anthia jumped into a lake and drowned, causing a lot of grief for her young husband Blake who later would fall in love with Anthia's younger half-sister Diana. Having been rescued from drowning by Blake, the protagonist accepts the role of his wife, but she feels conflicted about her love for Blake because she thinks Diana is the only one with the power to save him from the curse that's slowly killing him. The trope is eventually Played With; turns out the protagonist and the original Anthia have the same soul and they're both the reincarnation of someone from the novel's world.
- I'm All Out of Health!: A Korean woman fall asleep one day and discovered that she was reborn as Ninenya Seiah, a minor character of a web novel that she was reading. The problem is: according to the novel, Ninenya is a Delicate and Sickly who died at the age of 20...like some three months after she realized where she is. The Korean woman who now lives in her body, of course, doesn't want to die yet, but can she overcome all Ninenya's cards against her?
- I'm In Love With the Villainess has Rei Ohashi reincarnate as the heroine of her favorite Otome game, Rei Taylor. Here, she decides to pursue the villainess Claire Francois instead of any of the men that were romancable in the game. She also introduces numerous items to the new world that we take for granted in ours, like mayonnaise. Of course, for good measure, she derails the plot to hilarious levels.
- I'm The Tyrant's Secretary: A secretary is reborn into the world of "Taming a Tyrant's Heart", the book she was reading the night before she incarnated. After trying and failing to commit suicide, she decides to accept her new life as the daughter of a viscount, then becomes the Emperor’s secretary in place of her clumsy brother in order to save her family from certain doom.
- In I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss, Aileen Lauren D'Autriche, the villainess of the Romance Game Regalia of Saints, Demons, and Maidens, has frequent dreams of her past life—that of a terminally ill teenage girl who played video games non-stop to take her mind off of it.
- Living As The Tyrants Older Sister: The protagonist is transferred into a fantasy novel as the sister of the future tyrant. The sister happens to be a minor character who gets beheaded by her brother. Determined to escape that fate, the protagonist seduces the male lead’s merchant friend (who also doesn’t appear much) and is about to leave the country with him when she learns that the so-called "merchant friend" is actually the male lead himself.
- Lout of Count's Family: Kim Rok Soo, a man in his early 30's, reincarnated as Cale Henituse, a minor villain in the Show Within a Show "The Birth of a Hero". Wanting to avoid his canonical ill-fate encounter with Choi Han and keeping his Idle Rich but peaceful lifestyle, Cale acted to get the story going as smoothly as possible, but as Cale slowly starts to help make changes such as rescuing Raon who would be killed under Choi Han's hand in the original story, things had gone Off the Rails.
- Married Thrice To Salted Fish: A young man from modern-day China dies and is reborn in a book set in ancient China that he'd read prior to his death as Lu Wancheng, a character who died early on in the book after being married off to the book's villain Lin Qingyu. Then he dies and gets reborn as a different character from the same book. And then this happens a third time. Unusually for this trope, he's not the main point-of-view character and the POV character is instead Lin Qingyu who starts out with no idea of his new husband's true origins.
- The Matchmaking Baby Princess: A 30-year-old woman is reincarnated into a web fiction as the long-lost infant princess Amelia. After using her knowledge of the story to reveal her status to the Emperor and move into the palace, thus escaping a tragic fate for her and her adoptive aunt, Lucinda, Amelia decides to use her new title and privilege at the palace to set Lucinda up with a rich and handsome gentleman from court.
- Modern Villainess: Subverted. The protagonist, after dying after she has been laid off, was reincarnated into the villainess character in a universe similar to Love Where The Cherry Blossom Falls, an otome game she knows. However, she has been able to confirm she was not transmigrated into the game itself, but an equally-real universe that just happens to be similar to the game in question.
- The Trope Namer, as well as the series that made this trope so popular, is My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!.
- A Rich Bitch named Catarina Claes hits her head as a child and regains memories of her past life as an Otaku schoolgirl. She remembers an Otome Romance Game she played in her past life, and realizes that she has reincarnated into the world of the game. But in the game, Catarina Claes is the villainess who is doomed to exile or death years later for bullying the heroine. To avoid the predestined fate, Catarina turns over a new leaf and uses her memories of the game to avoid making the same mistakes as the original Catarina that led to her downfall. However, she inadvertently makes each and every character, even the heroine who was supposed to enchant the four male leads, fall in love with her.
- Zig-Zagged with another character. In the novel's timeline, it turns out that Sophia, another of the romantic rivals in Fortune Lover is the reincarnation of the best friend of the girl who became Catarina. However, unlike Catarina, her Past-Life Memories remain latent and mostly come to her through Dreaming of Times Gone By plus the time her past life pulled a Backup from Otherworld through a voice behind her head. That past life, however, might still have an influence on her; the two seem to share a common obsession with romance fiction.
- An Observation Log of My Fiancée Who Calls Herself a Villainess: The story is told from the POV of Crown Prince Cecil, the main love interest of an Otome game, who encounters two different characters who have reincarnated into his world.
- The first is his titular fiancé Bertia Ibil Noches, to whom he's been engaged since age eight. Unlike most examples of this trope, she openly admits her reincarnation and villainess role on the first day of them meeting, and, rather than change to avoid a tragic end, vows to play the part of the villainess as planned to give Cecil his happy ending with the heroine, as thanks for bringing color into her past life. This falls flat, however, as Bertia is too much of a Nice Girl and any attempts at being "evil" fail.
- The second is the girl who's supposed to be the heroine of the original game, Heronia. Unlike the character in the real game she reincarnated into, however, Heronia is an Entitled Bitch who cannot accept that the world is now different from the one in the game, and is willing to do whatever it takes to end up with the prince she believes she is destined to be with like in the original game.
- Overlord: Satoru is the only member of his guild present for the last day the YGGDRASIL servers stay online. He messes around with the player-created NPCs as a joke, waits for the game to shut down... and when he wakes up, he discovers he now inhabits his character, a supremely powerful lich, in a world that uses many of YGGDRASSIL's mechanics, and the NPCs are now living creatures with their own personalities instead of Welcome to Corneria spouters.
- In Reincarnated as the Piggy Duke: This Time I'm Gonna Tell Her How I Feel!, an unnamed male otaku found himself reincarnated into Slowe Denning, the Fat Bastard romantic rival for the main girl, in the Battle Harem anime Shuya Marionette.
- The Saintess and the Villainess: The reader Anne, who has the same first name as the heroine of her favorite book, The Foundling's Wings, hates the main love interest and feels like the villainess Lady Corvina is more sympathetic and deserves a redemption arc. After being killed by a truck and reincarnated into the book as the Saintess Anne, the story heroine, she vows to save Lady Corvina from her tragic death, but must recruit The Chessmaster Corvina to change the story.
- In The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System: Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong, modern Chinese Shen Yuan finds himself incarnated into the body of Shen Qingqiu, the villain of the "trashy" (in Shen's words) xianxia harem Web Serial Novel Proud Immortal Demon Way who was eventually killed owing to him being a Sadist Teacher to the hero, Luo Binghe.
- Ta Shi Zhujiao: Due to having the same name as the female lead, Yu Ru Bing is pulled from the real world to the world of a novel by a system, so she can fix the bugged antagonist Tang Han Qiu. Yu Ru Bing is very resistant to this and tries to go back to the real world, but the system won't even let death bring her back. This is until Yu Ru Bing realizes she has fallen in love with Tang Han Qiu, and is content to never go back to her original world.
- In Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs, while Leon and Marie are reincarnated into mob characters never mentioned in the original otome game series, Marie's daughter from her original life was reincarnated into Erica Holfort, the villainess of the third game of the series. However, by the time the third game's events started, Leon and Marie already caused events to diverge. Not to mention Erica was a nice girl who lived to her 60s in her previous life, so she isn't interested in having events play to her favor.
- Villainess Level 99 has Yumiella, who, at the age of 5, discovers that she's the reincarnation of a Japanese college girl who enjoyed playing a videogame called Light Magic and the Hero (or LMH), a mixture of an otome game and an RPG, and that she reincarnated as an incredibly tough superboss.
- Villains Are Destined to Die: The main character has just escaped her toxic family when she comes across a romance choice game with two modes—normal mode, where one plays as the heroine and has chances at multiple happy endings; and hard mode, where one plays as the villainess Penelope Eckheart, who only has one happy ending to be earned, while all the other routes end in her untimely demise. After failing various times to win hard mode, the real life character falls asleep and wakes up as Penelope Eckheart, and just makes choices like in the game to avoid death, but it's not easy when the household is just as toxic as her old family, if not more so.
- Who Made Me a Princess: An orphan is reincarnated into a doomed princess in a cheesy novel, and does her best to earn the love of her cold-hearted father who is supposed to have her executed in the original book.
- Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion: Eunha Park is unexpectetedly pushed to her death from the top of a building after receiving news of being accepted into her chosen university and winds up in the murder mystery novel, Beatrice' as the one who sets the events of the novel into motion, the murder victim Raeliana McMillian. Knowing her book canon fate is inevitable if she doesn't do something, she tries her hardest to break up with her treacherous fiance. When those attempts fail, Eunha/Raelliana decides to turn to the male lead of Beatrice to escape that destiny.
Webcomics
- The Antagonists Pet: The protagonist is reincarnated as Sasha, the daughter of a poor noble family in a romance novel she used to read. When Rebecca, the antagonist of the story, takes a particular liking to her, she must decide whether to help Rebecca find a happy ending, or side with the sweet-natured protagonist to ensure her own survival. However, when the protagonist appears and ended up being different from what she remembered, Sasha assumed that the protagonist is also reincarnated and ended up choosing to aid Rebecca. It's later revealed that it's not Lilith, the protagonist, but the Lilith's mother who is reincarnated that caused Lilith's change when Sasha meets her.
- Beware the Villainess!: A college-aged student reincarnated as the villainess, Melissa Fodebrat, tries to break off her engagement to one of the heroine's love interests, Prince Ian, before the events of the novel start and set her on the path to doom. But the guy is a Prince Charmless who Really Gets Around while still betrothed and refuses to annul the engagement, and her family thinks her lack of interest in him is a phase. When the heroine comes along, instead of antagonizing her, Melissa becomes her dearest friend.
- The Male Leads Girlfriend: A poor, plain-faced and lonely girl who dreams of a happier life is reincarnated as the villainess of her favorite novel, Louise Sweeney. She attempts to get her engagement to the prince broken so she can avoid her death and continue to live a life of luxury with a loving mother.
- My Life as an Internet Novel: Ham Dan-i, an avid reader of internet novels, wakes up to find herself at the center of one, complete with a beautiful best friend and four good-looking boys who all happen to be in her class. Dani is determined to stay out of the way and not get involved in the plot, but it may not be as easy as she thinks.
- Seduce The Villans Father: Following a bus accident, the protagonist is reincarnated in the fantasy world of a webnovel they enjoyed reading before their death as Princess Yerenica. Remembering that her character's older sister is pregnant with the future female lead then suddenly kidnapped by the Belgoat Empire’s emperor, Yerenica tries to protect her, but gets kidnapped instead. Now the only way to save the emperor, who is destined to die at the hands of his own son after marrying the villainess, is for Yerenica to convince him to marry her.
- Surviving Romance: The protagonist is reborn as Chaerin Eun, the main character of ‘’I’ll Love You Every Day’’, a romance novel she read. Unfortunately the novel's happy ending is suddenly replaced by a zombie outbreak. This is later revealed to be a circumstances put into motion by the original heroine of the romance novel who gains sentience Chaerin and the Devil, a being who escaped from another story and disguise herself as one of the heroine's classmate Se-Eun.
- A Tender Heart The Story Of How I Became A Dukes Maid: The protagonist is transported into another world as the maid of the disgraced Duke and side character, Alejandro Quillo Vel Laviti. Having always sympathized with Alejandro, who was shunned by his family and rejected by everyone after getting stricken with a curse at a young age, she does everything she can to save him from his fate.
- This Isekai Maid is Forming a Union! : Subverted with the main character Bridgette who is always a fictional maid character in every otome isekai novel read by her modern counterpart (who is still alive), she is however abused by the female protagonists from every otome isekai stories that she is going to form a union to stand up against them.
- Tricked Into Becoming the Heroine's Stepmother: Daisy is reincarnated as a commoner in a book she helped write about a Duke's daughter who seduces multiple men. After a run-in with the main character's adoptive father, she reveals her knowledge of the world and the story. The Duke then hires her and makes her tell him about his daughter Petra's suitors, who are fighting for her in the book. The Duke uses what she tells him and his connections to keep the suitors away from Petra, who is only a little girl now, before they fall in love with and start vying for her and prevent Petra's tragic end.
- The Villains Savior: The protagonist is reincarnated as the twin sister the heroine of the novel she was reading before she fell asleep. Having sympathized with the villain of the story beforehand, she sets out to protect him from his destiny at all costs, making him fall in love with her in the process.
Real Life
- Yes. There are, in fact, people who believe this to be a possible thing. An infamous example is the Final Fantasy house
, where the people the original poster met believed themselves to be reincarnations of fictional characters from Final Fantasy VII. In case you're also wondering; yes, the leader is more or less running it like a cult. On a less cult-y scale, there are those who believe Multiverse theory means fictional realities might exist in another universe, and that we reincarnate into those other realities when we die. This is a bit of a stretch, as most science points to other potential universes being relatively close to our own with minor differences..
