You know, I thought that these tropes were popular mostly among web comics (and novels outside of Wattpad), so imagine my surprise when I saw that they're popular on here as well. Granted, they seem more niche on here in comparison to other popular tropes, and for that matter, most of them focus on a particular fandom, like Naruto or Harry Potter. But even as niche as these tropes are, they're still the pretty damn popular ones out of the bunch.
I'm not gonna lie, as overused as these tropes are, they're also kinda like my comfort zone as a collective genre. There was —or is — something comforting about having a second life after you die or being sent back in time to relive you life to fix any mistakes. They always somewhat start out the same, either by murder, general death, or the most well known type of death: Truck-kun. But whether the MC is isekai-ed into a novel or reincarnated back in time or even into a new life, each storyline is different from there on out. Are they any good? It's hard to say with some. Some are....unique, to say the least.
Hell, my first webcomic was a reincarnation comic. It was called They Say I Was Born a King's Daughter. And let me just rant about this comic for a hot second, bc I have opinions(tm), and the comments section on Tapas (previously Taptastic...god I'm old lmao) is quiet honestly a shitshow.
This was my first reincarnation webcomic, but it's not my all time favorite. Going back to the series after having read many other comics of this trope, this one is definitely more lackluster, and the age gape between the main leads does make me uncomfortable at times, but then again, they weren't that far apart in their previous lives so eh. But regardless of that, it kept my attention and I cared about the characters enough to keep reading. Though lemme tell you, the original novel the comic was being adapted from, fucking sucked. I don't know whether it was the translator's fault or the author themselves, but the writing was a big part of why it sucked. It was confusing in a lot of places, not to mention grammatical mistakes galore, and POVs would change without warning. Even the type (compare 1st vs 3rd POV) would change too, and rather abruptly. It drove me fucking nuts.
The first time I went through the novel to see the changes the comic made, I was more or less under the impression that the novel was written more like a comic, with its sudden change in place and characters. But the second time I went and read certain chapters, it really doesn't work because even a comic would have established a change in setting before moving on to the characters and their thoughts. The translation definitely read more like a bad fan translation than an official one.
While the comic adaptation was significantly better in terms of having a better handling of multiple POVs and a consistent, steady growth of the stakes involved, it started to lose its momentum when the Saint plot got started, and it just dragged. This is a problem in the original novel too, but it sucked significantly less in the webcomic adaptation and a large majority of that was due to the comic's understanding on plot progression and quite frankly, better handling of its characters. Despite the Saint stuff dragging in places, the romance was still cute tho, the FL's relationship with her new family were still fun to read as they slowly started to change their minds and the characters were mostly enjoyable to watch as they grew. The greatest thing about the comic adaptation was that the female characters that weren't Sanghee Kim (the main FL) were treated as actual characters. Remember Princess Freesia? If you read only the novel, of course you don't, because she's barely mentioned as being found abused beyond repair at the near end of the novel. Yeah, it's pretty fucked up in how horrific it is and how nonchalant it was just...there. In fact, the entire tone and general vibe of the novel is fucked up and the good circumstances seemed to only really serve Sanghee. It...wasn't a good look for the novel, especially if you put Sanghee as a character under the scrutiny of a self-insert. In the comic, Freesia has a much bigger role as becoming one of Sanghee's friends and she actually has a bit of a character arc as well.
And speaking of Sanghee, she's kinda mean spirited in the novel, and bit of a bitch, honestly. The manhwa version of her is a lot more likable, and I genuinely felt that she was changing as well. I mean, yeah, she's still snarky and throws insults left and right in her head, but it at least makes sense given the situations she finds herself in, often by accident. The most important aspect though? She actually acknowledged that she always wasn't the greatest person towards the people she cared about. In the novel, she starts out shallow and never really develops from that point. Case in point: during her second coming of age ceremony, Hwanseok starts torturing the girls there after a misunderstanding and in the novel, the most Sanghee ever does is internally complain about how much of a jerk Hwanseok was being. In the webcomic, Sanghee comes to the realization that there's no point in acting cute and smiling a lot if it's just solely for self-preservation and that someone needs to be the change for the women in their world. It's more nuanced and I found it easier to actually root for Sanghee.
Idk apart from a few epiphanies, i never saw her growing throughout the novel. Not to mention, her relationship with her half sisters was a little more fleshed out in the webcomic adaptation than the novel. The novel from my perspective, made her half sisters look like Sanghee's worshippers more than anything.
I admit the comic is a little more light hearted in comparison to much darker and twisted tone of the novel (compare Sanghee getting strangled by Prince William in the manhwa vs her nearly getting raped by him in the novel). I can also see how Freesia dying at the end of the novel was a more realistic end, but the way the novel handled her character and the other woman characters in general was honestly abysmal.
Honestly, the general consensus seems to be that novel had good ideas but didn't know how to execute it well. I agree with that consensus. The manhwa actually changed quite a bit regarding the Saint stuff, but I get the feeling that things were changed in the comic depending on what would be a natural progression of plot and world building. The comic adaptation was initially adapting the novel by the letter (with some changes in characters' behaviors, namely, Hwanseok's wife), but the later parts, especially by season 3, you could definitely say that it was adapting the spirit of the plot, cause the novel ending is drastically different from the comic adaptation.
There was a really sweet moment between Sanghee and her dad in the later half of the og novel that the comic didn't adapt though, and I'm sad, tbh.
(Did I really create a rant about reincarnation webcomics just to rant about only one? I suppose.)
Alright, alright, I'm kidding, I do have more to say on the topic.
Lately, a lot of the reincarnation comics I've read are the ones that has the main lead return back in time for unexplainable reasons. These are normally called regression isekai (I think) but personally l like to dub them as reset reincarnation comics, because instead of being reincarnated into a new life, they are essentially sent back in time in the same life to repeat it.
There are some quirks (or sub-tropes) that come with this, namely, the main FL being super on top of things after freaking out for a bit. In addition to that, they all mostly want revenge because of their previous lives being made a living hell by either their family members, or trusted outside sources. I say its the FL, but often times, the ones I end up reading are romance comics, so a lot of them have women or girls as the main character. There are ones with the boy or a man as the MC in this situation but regardless of genre, they are a once in a blue moon occurrence.
Another sub-trope I've noticed with the isekai comics is the ones where the MC is isekai-ed into a story where their character is the main (or minor) villainess, and boy, these ones are hella popular. I've seen at least a dozen few with this trope this year alone, and even I have a couple few in my library. Wait...now that I'm thinking about it, almost half of the isekai stories in my library are the ones with this trope.
Okay, I suppose it's easy to see why the "Villainess as a MC" trope is pretty popular. Before the MC is transmigrated into the story that they were reading as the villain, said villain often dies brutally at the end of the story with the main leads getting their happily ever after. The MC gets isekai-ed into the story as the villain, think about their game plan after going through the plot in their head, and then do every trick they could pull in order to survive.
But often times, the roles between who is supposed to be the main FL of the story and the "villainess" is often switched because the ML of that world is now the MC's main love interest.
Honestly, a large portion of the ones in my library don't have this problem (I think one or two at the top of my head that actually do have this cliche), bc in the majority of the comics in my library that don't have this trope, the MC-isekai-ed villainess ends up becoming friends with the og FL (see The Villainess Wants a Divorce. I absolutely love Grace, the OG FL and her lowkey bickering friendship with the MC, Carnelia. I still remember some of the comments in the early stages of their relationship where they wanted Carnelia and Grace to get together instead of the ML or make it a poly relationship. And while I don't hate the main pairing, it really is a shame it didn't go either route, cause the chaos those respective pairings would've caused would've been kinda fucking hilarious 😂)
Regardless tho, it's still easy to see why people are getting tired of this trope, and it's mostly bc of the authors straight up just turning the OG FL into the new villain. Like I was genuinely a bit disappointed reading characters like Freya van Furiana from How to Win My Husband Over, because with her being introduced as the childhood friend of ML's younger sister, they could've totally made her a character that was genuinely nice (in comparison to everyone in the goddamn country who see Ruby as outsider) but someone Ruby saw as someone wanting to do her harm due to her severe trauma. Like don't get me wrong, in the most storytelling sense and world-building aspect of the plot, I understand why Freya turned out the way she did, but I also wish that so many authors didn't rely on this character trajectory for the OG FLs. When not done right, it sometimes reeks of lazy character writing and development.
Also one thing to note is that before the OG FL is either the villain or a friend, regardless of whatever happens, the MC is constantly trying to stick to the plot of the book, despite the events changing around them in accordance to her words and actions as they speak. It's annoying at times (but not completely unreasonable) because you think the MC would've realized that her trying to changes people's attitudes towards her also changes what happens to her? And this bit is not even pertaining to the villainess isekais, it also involves the reincarnation/time regression stories as well. You think MC's main goal would be to avoid certain consequences and yet they get the Shocked Pikachu face when the events do change drastically.
The more recent manhwa I've been reading do try to avoid this trope, which is always welcome, but...emphasize on try. The FL is unfortunately still trying to steer things down the path of the OG novel's plot despite them acknowledging that a large portion of the plot direction has changed because of their own actions.
In short:
Also this one, bc I just found this one to be accurate:
Like in a lot of these villainess isekai stories is that the FL just wants to be lazy while she watches and enjoys the drama unfolding in front of her....while being completely unaware that said drama is about her 😂
Oooh, another sub-trope with the villainess isekais: the ones where the MC is in the body of the abusive family member(tm). These ones, I haven't read much, since I already have a shit ton of comics that I've subscribed to, but comics with this sub-trope definitely take on more of a family drama as our MC become more loving towards the younger version of the MC (to the utter confusion/ sometime horror of the OG MC) in the story they've isekai-ed into. I've seen this with a lot of the fairy tale isekais though and for the most part, it's cute and sweet.
Then again, I am a massive sucker for found family relationships in stories, so take this bit with a grain of salt. 😅
That being said, I have a few favorites. Disclaimer, most of these are from Tapas. Yes, I know there are other better web comic/manhua reading apps out there, but I'm not familiar with the actual WEBTOON app or even Tappytoon, and I will get to the ones on those website/apps eventually. I do wanna read Lore Olympus, at any rate.
- Adonis (I kinda stopped with this one at the midway point of the second season — mostly cause the artist changed and it's noticeable enough that it took me out of the immersion tbh, but the main FL is 👌. But honestly, as I read random chapters that I fancied, the art did slowly get better, even if it didn't reach the quality of the first season. Nevertheless, the plot did meander around a lot, and character interactions were too focused on world-building for me to truly get back into the series. I've always said that character interactions were just as important as world-building but if you always do world-building through the characters' interactions, it gets tedious and for a lack of a better term, boring. Then again, I was always more interested in the family aspect of the story and how Ianna came to be who she is in the current timeline. Despite its future shortcomings, I will still recommend it, if only for the first season.)
- The Soulless Duchess (ongoing, and the main leads are super adorable and powerful as fuck holy shit. It also subverts and sidesteps a lot of the initial romance tropes that you would normally see (ie, misunderstandings) and for once, doesn't have the female characters constantly pitted against each other. Despite some initial antagonism, they all end up actively working together to create a better world for themselves and for others and it's so fucking nice to read a comic that sidesteps all of the initial tropes that would be the cause of the drama, and Yvona (the FL) actually discusses shit with Claude, the main ML. Although, I do kinda find it funny that Claude is literally married to Yvona and despite how close they've gotten, as both as a married couple and as friends, he's still lowkey pining after her 😂)
- The Fantasie of a Stepmother (I found this more recently, but holy shit is it so wholesome. Like give me that family fluff and angst alongside an intriguing relationship between the empire and the church. There are one or two things that might give you pause, but give the story a chance, they do call out on those things in the plot. Yes, the MC is 16 and you can rest easy, her main love interest isn't one of her stepsons, and the marriage between the MC and her deceased husband was completely platonic, and this actually does come into play later, it's not lazily pushed to the side as a plot device and some of the characters do call out on the fucked up nature of it all. Apparently, the actual translation of the title is called A Stepmother's Märchen, which, after looking up the meaning, is actually kinda fitting, bc the overall plot (and art style) does kinda play out like a fairy tale. Especially the S1 epilogue and man, that S1 epilogue will fucking hurt like a bitch. Also the main character, Shuri, is one hell of an optimistic sweetie 🥹)
- How To Survive a Romance Fantasy (I just discovered this on Webtoon, but I'm immediately hooked. Not only is the premise hilarious, it's also just the way it gets right into it. Basically all three of the main characters (the ML, FL and the villainess) are isekai-ed into the same romance fantasy novel one way or another, and simultaneously decide to fuck off to another country...only to run into each other. It's a riot, I'm telling you.)
- Into the Light, Once Again (yeah, in terms of reincarnation plots, it's pretty generic, but the relationship between the MC and her new family won me over. Ysis de Elmire is just big brother goals, and his stepmother Iris, the MC's new birth mom, is just adorable 😭. Also I read some vague spoilers and the story on the whole seems to be about healing from trauma? And given the official English translations as of late, it does seem to support that. The main thing I've noticed with this story is just how wholesome it's been so far. Although the ML being the Spirit King, not a huge fan tbh and that's like my only flaw with this series so far, but it's not detrimental to my enjoyment of it, because I'm mostly reading it for the wholesome family and other platonic relationships.)
- I am the Real One (the main FL, Kiera, is just a cutie pie who can also cut you in half. Thrown back in time before her death, she's trying to just enjoy her second chance at life and it's adorable in how socially awkward she is. Yeah, she kinda(?) wants revenge on the person who stole her spot previously in her past life, but her primary goal in her second chance is to survive that BS, put in safeguards to prevent herself from dying by execution, and also see things about her subordinates in a new perspective (ie, they really did respect and like her, they just didn't know how to approach her.) Her subordinates are also just fucking hilarious, and its one of the few comics that I've read where the brother is not a total dick and actually loves and respects his older sibling.)
- Solitary Lady (Man, this one is just....sad. It's not like tone of the comic is depressing, but the overall circumstances of the FL definitely are. The FL has relived seven fucking lives and every single one was even worse than the last. And with her current eighth life, she has just stopped giving a fuck about pretty much everything, that's how deep her trauma is. She doesn't even care about revenge like most FLs do; in her eighth life, she's just looking for a way to die and end the resurrection cycle. Also yeah, her brother and stepsister can all go die in a ditch. Her father deserves eternal torture honestly.) (Edit (04-29-23): I did start reading the novel and yeah, I can admit that the manwha's art style at times really didn't fit the tone with some of these characters horrendous actions (Gabrielle comes to mind especially). But still, I recommend it. Also, beware: the tone of the novel is super bleak in comparison, so I understand readers getting a certain amount of whiplash when simultaneously reading both versions.)
- How to Win My Husband Over (it's by the same author as The Fantasie of a Stepmother, but its a different artist, and as far as isekai plots go, this one is pretty hard to read at times because the FL's trauma over two lifetimes of abuse is fucking heavy. It also deals with the topic of EDs so proceed with caution if that's a trigger for you. But it does have its lighter moments, and it's helped by the fact that despite everything the FL has gone through, she does have a sense of humour, however morbid it may be at times. And give the ML a chance, he does get there eventually.)
- The Taming of the Tyrant (Yo. YOOOOOO— I'm sorry, I'm just in awe. The FL is dead set on revenge and does so by manipulating one of the ML and so far, it's been glorious. The art style is mesmerizing too.)
- I Fell Into a Reverse Harem Game! (This one is a guilty pleasure...for reasons that will become obvious once you start reading it. Guilty pleasure aside, the plot is unique enough and you're rooting for the new FL to survive. Also Arielle, the OG FL, is honestly just gross and needs to be offed...again, for reasons that will be obvious once you start reading it. It's still a Villainess reincarnation story, but the way it starts off is pretty unique for the genre (idk how unique, but regardless lmao), and the way it uses the game notifications to move the plot is also something I haven't seen in most stories of these types.)
- Revolutionary Princess Eve (I like and recommend this one because this one actually gets into the politics of actually becoming the head of an empire and it includes all the loop holes and political plots. It's still a regression plot, but it's way more effective because she uses her past shortcomings in order to deal with everyone trying to bring her down and not fall for their schemes as she realizes that she has to compromise and play the game if she was going to implement any sort of change. Also a few regression stories do play around with the idea of who turned back time and why they did so— see The Soulless Duchess, Solitary Lady, I Am the Real One— and with this one, you do actually see who did turn back time and why it had to be the FL to retain all of her memories. That's not a spoiler btw, it's literally revealed in the first few chapters.)
- Gimme That Pacifier! (The dumb title aside, this one is simultaneously sad and hilarious. It just fucking funny to see the reincarnated MC using her prior knowledge of magic to survive and mess with the people around her (baby antics aside), but it pulls at your heartstrings for a bit because of just how little trust the MC has in others and how her general life circumstances, both current and former lives, play into that distrust. But I will admit that the plot is rather silly, and that you're gonna need to suspend your disbelief when reading it. The new family are quite frankly not great, and I've heard that the plot doesn't have a satisfactory revenge for the MC, but I'm mostly reading it for Helia/Shelina's antics, she's just funny, period 😂)
- Villains are Destined to Die (I actually put this off for a while but recently started it bc I was bored lol. Absolutely in love with Penelope. Castillo, despite his initial murder-y introduction, is actually goals. Derrick can go suck pig's dick for all I care (yes, I caught up with the novel) and her father + Reynold are actually trying to redeem themselves, despite their own massive setbacks but that's honestly realistic, especially given the genre. I also love how her character development is intimately tied with Penelope's previous life because there are a lot of fucking similarities and Penelope is actually able to emphasize with the OG Penelope and give her some sort of a closure via how she reacts to the people around her. The way her previous life consistently plays a very important part in the story reminds me of How to Win My Husband Over and it's super intriguing. Aside from the ML, I do actually like Reynold and his awkward but well intentioned way of actually trying to do right by his adoptive sister. Same with the father too, it's actually kinda adorable in how supportive he is, has always been. His development is more along the lines of despite loving Penelope as his own daughter despite the circumstances that he brought her in under, he wasn't a good parent to any of his kids in the long run. He does his best to rectify this and does succeed in creating a new relationship with Penelope. I also love the major twists in this series and how it plays with your expectations a lot regarding the plot as well as the characters. Again, see Reynold and Derrick as an example.)
- Straight to the Red Carpet (reincarnation into a novel as a side character and but also regression isekai with a friend! The art can be objectively wonky sometimes but the plot's interesting enough for me to not drop the series, which goes to show that pretty art can't be the only good thing to keep a webtoon going lmao. I'm actually thinking of dropping The Villainess is a Marionette because of this reason, because while the art is gorgeous, the initial plot has gotten rather convoluted, and also the art has gotten way too busy in S2.)
Honorable mentions are Saving my Sweetheart (adorkable leads, the FL's mom can go to hell), For Better of For Worse (the FL's innocence is adorable but also the OG FL is also super sweet; Also ML is a himbo but he's Dillon's himbo 😂), The Little Lady Behind the Scenes (as an only child, I'm a massive sucker for wholesome sibling relationships) and The Villainess Flips the Script! (FL is so fucking dense at times but she's adorable with how much she loves the OG MC (he's not the love interest), so that makes it okay lmao)
There are a lot more I'm forgetting, but i think these are good starter points into the reincarnation/isekai trope.
I think I'll end this rant here, because if I keep this in my drafts and keep editing, I'm never gonna be able to finish this rant book. 😂 In any case, one rant down! I'll do maybe one or two rants before Ouran High School Host Club, which is gonna be the final rant. Then, it's gonna be a rant I'd like to call "the epilogue rant".
So what are your expectations and experiences with these tropes? Comment and/or vote, because a conversation fills the soul. Stay safe, and sayonara till the next one!