"I still remember you. Do you still remember me?"
"That's right, when I'm about to be reborn, as my life is ending, I always wish for the same thing: That my cycle of rebirth ends with this life, or that my memories don't come back when I'm reborn. But for the first time in ages, I find myself wishing for something else."
When humans die, they will be reborn. Such is the cycle of life. However, Ji-eum Ban has a unique ability: A few years after she reincarnates, she regains her Past-Life Memories. In her 18th life, she was born as Ju-won Yun, the daughter of a wealthy Korean family. Thus, a bit tired of life, she decided to live a quiet and comfortable life.
When Ju-won was 12 years old, she met the 9-year-old Seo-ha Mun, a lonely boy living with his sick mother. Ju-won and Seo-ha became friends and over time fell in love with each other. However, on Seo-ha's 10th birthday, while on their way to a theme park, Ju-won and Seo-ha were involved in a car accident in which Ju-won died. With her dying words, Ju-won stated her wish to remember Seo-ha in her next life.
Immediately after, Ji-eum Ban, a poor girl in a dysfunctional family, was born. After regaining her memories, Ji-eum set out to use her talents to work for Seo-ha's family's company, waiting for the opportunity to meet Seo-ha again.
See You in My 19th Life (이번 생도 잘 부탁해, ibeon saengdo jal butaghae, Please take care of me in this life as well) is a romance webtoon by Lee Hey published by Naver since June 2020. Since December 2020, it is published in English on Naver's LINE Webtoons site.
A drama adaptation was released in July 2023.
This series provides examples of:
- Bullying the Disabled: Seo-ha's family is full of people who mistreat him for his hearing, especially his cousin Jun-ha, who locked him in a wardrobe when Seo-ha was little.
- Childhood Marriage Promise:
- Back when Seo-ha was nine, he proposed to Ju-won (who was twelve) and Ju-won accepted.
- When a 9-year-old Ji-eum meets the 19-year-old Seo-ha, she asks him to marry her when she's grown up. He naturally refuses, as they just met and he is not into children.
- Continuity Cameo: From the author's previous work, A Good Day To Be A Dog, the protagonists and their daughter make a cameo in Episode 21. The little girl gets lost and runs into Seoha before her parents find her, reminding Seoha of his first meeting with Ji-eum.
- Dysfunctional Family: Both Seo-ha and Ji-eum's family is messed up, in contrast to Do-yun's and Cho-won's families.
- Seo-ha's father is a cold CEO who shows no love towards his son, while the rest of his family from his father's side are vying for the inheritance and their place as the successor of the Mi Group, as shown in Chapter 41.
- Ji-eum's family consists of a mother who abandoned her children when Ji-eum was four, while her father is an alcoholic and her older brother is an irresponsible troublemaker. Especially her brother, Dong-u is short on money and keeps pestering Ji-eum (and later Seo-ha who he thinks is Ji-eum's boyfriend) about it.
- Emotional Maturity Is Physical Maturity: This wasn't usually the case for Ji-eum in her past or present life. She was always noted to be a Child Prodigy (who is Acting Your Intellectual Age). However, being with Seo-ha made her feel like an innocent teenage girl. She very much enjoyed this time, which is one of the reasons why she fell for Seo-ha.
- Entertainingly Wrong: In Chapter 45, Cho-won eventually connects the dots and concludes that Ji-eum is her reincarnated sister, Ju-won... only to immediately dismiss it as silly. She then suspects Ji-eum approached Cho-won for ulterior motives, considering how much she knows about Cho-won and her family. Ji-eum then decides to just tell Cho-won the truth, even if her policy is to not reveal her secret to people connected to her past life.
- Exact Eavesdropping: In Chapter 46, Do-yun overhears a conversation between Cho-won and Ji-eum, in which Cho-won addresses Ji-eum as her older sister, Ju-won.
- First Love:
- Ju-won was Seo-ha's first love. He still isn't over it.
- Seo-ha was Ju-won's and Ji-eum's first love. Although Ji-eum later states that Seo-ha is only her first love in her current life. She naturally fell in love before in her past lives.
- Do-yun is Cho-won's first love. It was Love at First Sight.
- Forgotten First Meeting:
- Ji-eum claims this as the reason why she is pining for Seo-ha, when he asks her for her reasons. When Ji-eum was nine, she visited Seo-ha's home and saw the 19-year-old Seo-ha running away after he had an argument with his father. She cheered him up and asked him to marry her when she's grown up.
- Cho-won eventually remembers Ji-eum, who visited her old family's home when she was nine.
- Gold Digger:
- Ji-eum was reborn into a poor family. She doesn't want people to think she is interested in marrying Seo-ha for being rich, though, which is why she doesn't talk about her family. Ji-seok Lee immediately thinks she is this the moment he hears she is pining for Seo-ha.
- For similar reasons, Do-yun Ha doesn't want to date Cho-won. They like each other, but their difference in status is too much for him and he doesn't want to come off as someone who was only after her position as heir of a big company.
- Love at First Sight: In middle school, Cho-won once visited Seo-ha's high school to talk to him. However, Seo-ha couldn't face Cho-won. When it began to rain, he asked Do-yun to give Cho-won an umbrella and cover for him. The moment Cho-won saw Do-yun, she fell in love with him.
- Past-Life Memories: Ji-eum possesses the memories of her past 18 lives.
- Precocious Crush: Seo-ha fell in love with the 12-year-old Ju-won when he was nine. Since Ju-won was mentally much older, it doesn't exactly count as Puppy Love. Ji-eum in return fell in love with Seo-ha (again) when she was nine.
- Reincarnated as the Opposite Sex:
- Ji-eum was a man in some of her previous lives, such as her 17th life as the Stage Magician Jung-ho Kim.
- Min-ki was a woman in the life Jie-um previously met him in and in his first life.
- Ji-eum tells Do-yun that not only were they married in her first life, she was the husband, which unnerves him. It turns out Ji-eum was a woman in that life, but Do-yun was actually her twin sister.
- Reincarnation: Everyone reincarnates, or so Ji-eum believes. The difference is that she has kept the memories of her past 18 lives.
- Reincarnation Romance: A unique case, since only one of them reincarnates. Due to this, there is a sizable age difference of almost ten years between the two main characters.
- Min-ki needs to reunite with his lover from his first life in order to end the cycle of remembering past lives, with the only way to identify that person being through physical contact. He recovered his memory of this goal when he encountered them, but he died soon after, leaving him searching again in his following lives. Believing it's the same for Ji-eum, he pushes her to get together with that person in her life instead of Seo-ha, but it's Do-yun. Her cycle started for a different reason, so they don't have to break up after all.
- Saying Too Much: Ji-eum gives too many hints away that she is related to her former younger sister, Cho-won. For instance, after drinking in a bar together, Ji-eum brings Cho-won home. Except she doesn't bring Cho-won to her apartment, but to her house, where their mother still lives. Cho-won never told Ji-eum the address and she knows she didn't black out. Ji-eum also told Seo-ha about the features of a lighthouse, who then mentions this to Cho-won, despite Ji-eum earlier claiming she has never visited that place.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: In Chapter 37 and 38, Ji-eum's brother Dong-u, the loansharks, and Do-yun's little brother Do-jin all assume Seo-ha and Ji-eum are a couple. Seo-ha goes along with it for the former two, but he clarifies to Do-jin that they aren't together, though he still calls Ji-eum his sister-in-law respectfully.
- Something Only They Would Say: This is how in Chapter 45 and 47 Ji-eum convinces Cho-won and Do-yun that she really was Ju-won. For Cho-won, Ji-eum recalls events that not even Cho-won could possibly remember (but their mother does), and for Do-yun she reveals that she knows who gifted Seo-ha a locked box for his birthday, which is only something Seo-ha, Do-yun, and Ju-won could know.
- Stage Magician: In her 17th life, Ji-eum was the magician Jung-ho Kim. As Ju-won she used magic tricks to impress Seo-ha and Cho-won.
- Trust Password: In chapter 89, part-timer Min-ki compliments the rainy weather, which Ji-eum recognizes after a moment as a codephrase a friend who also remembered their past lives set up, and she responds with the nonsense counterphrase, "Gergdurbbuech", confirming their identities to each other.
- Undercover as Lovers: Ji-eum gets visions of her first life where she and Do-yun were a married couple, which become even more upsetting when she's told she can only stop remembering her past lives by getting together with him. Finding something odd about the emotions attached to these memories, she watches them further and discovers they were actually twin sisters, making it clear that her requirements to end the cycle are different. They were pretending to be a couple because their parents were accused of treason, and hiding that way was safer than as two women.
- Uptown Girl:
- Ji-eum has a poor background in contrast to Seo-ha, who is the son of a giant conglomerate's CEO.
- Cho-won Yun is the sole heir of WW Entertainment. She is pining for Do-yun Ha, but he rejects her advances (even though he clearly likes her).
