I had this one written off because the title makes it clear that it’s yet another time loop “I’ll marry my enemy to prevent myself from getting killed again” anime, but this one seems like it’s doing something interesting with it. Since I was going in blind, it got me with the fiance bait and switch, and I do really like Hades’ puppydog eyes (I’m a sucker for some gap moe men).

But that brings me to the main problem: the ages. I don’t really understand why we have two anime this season with uncomfortable age gaps, but this one is definitely worse, with our leads being 19 and 10, and he says he would have even preferred if she was a few years younger. Now, to the story’s credit, she definitely doesn’t have the mental age regression some redo protagonists do, and though the description says she’s 10 and 16 in the different time periods I definitely would have guessed 2-3 years older. Also, I’ve heard that his comments are not coming from his “tastes” but rather from some future plot element that only affects girls/women aged 16 and up. For me, I’m willing to decide that the anime is wrong about her age and she’s 13/19 and sort of be ok with that (as long as she stays in outfits that makes her look like a teen and not in that dress that makes her look like an elementary schooler), but I just seriously wish anime would stop doing this.

I give the premiere a mixed 3/5. If it leans into the age gap stuff I’ll be dropping it real quick, but if it lets me ignore that I expect this will be a good ride.