Series Blurb
Jill Savelle—fiancée of the crown prince Gerald de Kleitos and known as the "Lady Goddess of War"—is being hunted down by the same country she swore to protect. Betrayed by her betrothed, she is framed as a traitor and imprisoned. In her last moments, Jill is filled with regret, but just as death approaches, she awakens six years in the past. This time, she will not be a mere pawn.
Now as a 10-year-old girl, Jill resolves to escape her imminent engagement to the prince. To this end, she jokingly professes her love to the 19-year-old dragon emperor Hades Theos Rave, who will one day stain the land in blood due to madness. But against all expectations, he accepts!
In contrast to the tyrant from Jill's memories, the Hades of this time is a kind albeit unfortunate emperor. Can Jill prevent Hades from descending down the same dark, villainous road, or is he bound to an inevitable future?
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Great, if the MC wasn't physically a 10 year old
If you're like me didn't think too clearly about the description: Jill is 10 (but mentally 16) and Hadis is 19. The story is very aware that nobody knows she's internally 16. Initially it's somewhat critical, but it also uses it for humor, and clearly intends for them to be together. If it wasn't for the ages, I'd give it a 4 or 5.
Language: I think this is a good medium-difficulty fantasy show. It's probably harder than something like 痛いのは嫌なので防御力に極振りしたいと思います。 S1 | L26, but much easier than say ダンジョンに出会いを求めるのは間違っているだろうか or Re：ゼロから始める異世界生活 | L32. The characters speak clearly, and usually at a reasonable pace.
What's compelling: action and heroism, a really strong and incredible female lead, makes good use of the reincarnation & knowing about the future feature, music, political challenges, humor (tho the themes less so), etc. Compared to say 私の推しは悪役令嬢。 S1 | L29 it is much more interesting in this regard, as the Jill knows certain parts of the future, but not to the extent that she can automagically, perfectly manipulate everything - in fact, very much the opposite. She has to really work for her progress (and does so quite impressively). And unlike Claire, Hadis does actually have something of a dark side. Jill manages to tow the line between “I know the future” and “I can’t tip my hat” pretty believably (unlike Rae Taylor).
One of the really interesting elements is that the people she encounters are extremely different than the way she knows and interacted with them from 6 years later. While I’m pretty iffy on “I can change him/her” setups, it’s very clear that environment and circumstances played a very huge role in how those people and situations turned out, in the original timeline. There is genuine potential for things to be different.
Also Iwaza, Shiori plays one of the main characters - which is always exciting for me!
What's unpleasant: literally everything to do with age, and the fact that romance is so prominent. So to start with… Initially the MC is 16 and her murderous fiance (and prince) is 21… she ends up going back in time 6 years, to right before he started to court her. So now she’s 10 (but mentally 16), he’s 15, and the guy she uses to get away from him is a 19 year old emperor.
Most of the time she acts much more maturely than a 16 year old (typical for fantasy, or really a lot of anime), and contrary to the premise, she’s certainly not drawn as nor treated as a 10 year old (for the most part)… like she’s short, and looks a little young, but definitely not 10 years old. The main time she really acts her age is when it comes to being naive/inexperienced about love, and the guy’s obvious attempts to woo her.
On top of that it turns out the 19 year old is only willing to consider people under 14 (there is a plot reason for this), and also despite their initial agreement, continually tries to woo her, including making (what would otherwise be very light) physical advances, even to the point of of momentarily kissing her on the lips (off-camera) during an argument, for which she rightfully gives him a hard slap afterwards (which happens more than once). In other moments, he has some rather creepy/red flag things to say, while also being genuinely quite charming most of the time.
The story both uses this as a source of tension, plot development, and quite frequently for comedy - with this being a rumored/open secret that is not exactly looked kindly upon (but neither is as extremely scorned as one might expect). There’s lots of different ways to contextualize/wave this away - she’s technically 16, so their age gap is only 3 years (even though as far as everyone else knows, she’s a literal child); political and circumstantial engagements and marriages with large age gaps were common historically, particularly among royalty and nobility; their marriage is in name-only and not physical (except they basically act like a couple, and the guy keeps breaking physical boundaries); etc. However the story very clearly intends for them to someday love each other. And while I don’t like this, the corresponding drama is mostly well-written, and in some way interesting.
I do think the writing has some loose ends, but overall it's probly the anime I've found the most exciting this season (in spite of the pedo elements).