We open with a catastrophic airplane crash. Cut to Aoi Takamoto, a highly skilled surgeon who has saved countless lives. Her friend and colleague Shouko calls her the “Surgeon Queen.” Aoi and Shouko grab dinner with a younger colleague who is starstruck to meet the great Surgeon Queen, and later she runs into the daughter of one of her past patients, who tearfully thanks her. But Aoi has a secret: she remembers her past life in another world, where she was Elise de Clorence, an evil empress who was burned at the stake by a mob led by the man she loved. To atone for unspecified misdeeds committed in her first life, Aoi became a doctor, with the aim of saving as many lives as she could. This brings us back the opening, where Aoi was on a flight to Germany to perform an exceptionally difficult surgery. She survives the crash and promptly begins administering first aid to the other passengers. But then it turns out she suffered a fatal wound, and she dies…only to wake up as Elise once again. She’s overwhelmed to see her parents and brothers again, and tells them she loves them.
I enjoyed this episode, but I have a couple complaints. First, we get almost no information regarding what kind of person Elise was or what sort evil deeds she committed. It’s hard to appreciate her repentance and atonement when we have no idea what she’s done. Second, the part where she dies was handled poorly, very diabolus ex machina. She appears to survive the crash uninjured and then BOOM, SHOCKING PLOT TWIST she was actually hurt all along and drops dead. From what the episode has established about her, it’s totally believable that Aoi would knowingly devote her dying moments to save others’ lives, but springing the fatal wound out of nowhere was lame. My grumbling aside, Aoi/Elise is a likeable protagonist who is easy to root for, and the reverse-reverse-isekai (or is that reverse-isekai-isekai?) premise piques my interest. How will a contrite Elise re-live her life now that she’s equipped with medical knowledge and skills from our world? Oh, and the episode managed to include the old “doctors have illegible handwriting” stereotype, which made me laugh. So overall, I recommend trying this one. I think it has potential.
Doctor Elise: The Royal Lady with the Lamp is streaming on Crunchyroll.
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