Title: Doctor Elise: The Royal Lady with the Lamp

Author/Story: Yuin

Artist: Mini

Rating: Teen

Genre: reincarnation, historical fantasy, medical drama, romance, villainess, war

Hosted On: Lezhin

Official Link(s): English, Korean

Official Summary:

Jihyun is a master surgeon at the peak of her medical prowess. She’s made it her life’s mission to save lives in order to atone for the sins of her past life, but her dreams are cut short when her plane crashes in the middle of the Pacific. When Jihyun wakes up, she finds herself back in her first life as Elise de Clarence – the haughty nightmare of a girl who brought on her own tragic end. The new Elise, however, still has time to set things straight – with her newfound medical knowledge, the reformed Elise sets out to right the wrongs of her tragic first life!

My Thoughts:

Please do not ask me how much time I’ve spent on Doctor Elise in its run between TappyToon (where it was hosted at one point) and Lezhin. But trust me… it was all worth it.

Medical dramas can be hit or miss for me, especially after spending time in the hospital with my dad and ultimately losing him, but I decided to slowly wade into the murky waters since I loved military dramas so much in my past. I finished Doctor Cha this weekend and I also finished this webtoon while lying around being ill, something that’s been a long time coming. And I… I can’t believe I was able to stomach a medical drama that contains almost all of my triggers that usually crop up… in medical dramas.

In her first life, Elise is the ultimate villainess. Wounded by her fiance’s rejection and spoiled rotten as a daughter of the nobility before that, Elise was a terror who ruined the empire she lived in – especially after the Crown Prince comes to power and undertakes a violent purge in revenge for his tragic past that ruins his life. As a result of her bad behavior, Elise is sentence to be burnt at the stake and she awakens in modern-day Korea as… Jihyun, an orphan who becomes a great surgeon and saves countless lives.

The series opens with Jihyun dying in a plane crash (not so great for me, a coward) and waking up in her original past life in Elise’s body at the tender age of sixteen, almost a decade before her tragic violent death. It takes her some time, but she eventually realizes she’s back in her old life and that she has to use her second chance as Elise wisely. Starting with trying to figure out a way to break off her engagement with the crown prince, Lindon.

Doctor Elise is honestly really good? It’s tropey as hell in the romance and webtoon departments and, if this were fandom, Elise would be a Mary Sue because she’s got all of her medical knowhow from modern-day Korea stuffed inside her head as a 16 year old. The only thing she really struggles with is adapting her techniques to a lower – but not low – tech environment. Because of her memories of the past and the drive to change it all, she even becomes somewhat known as a military strategist and changes the tides of war in a war that had previously killed off multiple people integral to the state of their empire. When I started reading this comic and I checked the usual comment pages – as Lezhin doesn’t have a comment section and I crave people reacting to what I’m reading – so many of the comments were yelling about how perfect the New Elise was like… excuse me, how many times can we have a returner come back even better and no one say shit because they’re a dude? Yes, Elise is pretty perfect and… that’s what this story needs. Because she’s an angel of hope for the world around her and she brightens up a very bleak narrative.

The romance in this is… initially dissatisfying up until you realize the male lead is so traumatized that he literally can’t relationship. It takes time and effort for him to realize his own feelings for Elise… and then to break down the walls she’s built from the memories of her past life. Lindon is the male lead, of course, but the second prince Michael is… sort of the second male lead? It’s weird because he’s not actually a romantic option for her (Elise sees him as her only friend and doted on him in her first life) but he’s out here fully thinking he is. He doesn’t do anything sketch to her, mind you, but it’s like… a really weirdly paced and written secondary romance because it’s so one-sided.

I also really loved the art in this series. It’s very bright and vivid even during the wartime scenes and I’m a huge fan of the character designs. It’s weird how familiar they seem when Mini’s only art that I know of is this series and some Haikyuu doujins – and I do not HQ beyond the surface so I’m definitely unfamiliar with her work outside of this webtoon. But I love it so much. There’s a character, Yulina, I believe? She’s one of only two dark-skinned characters in the series and she is just… such a good character and she/her brother are so nice to look at. Even one of the early main antagonists is a babe… right up until he gets what’s coming for him after he makes Elise his target during a time of war.

Anyway, I really had a lot of fun with this series because it does hit all of my favorite tropes in reincarnation stories without being too preachy? Elise does better and becomes a doctor because she wants to do this work, not because she’s atoning. Her atonement for her past life is internal and something she’ll bring up and struggle with across the series, but she’s a doctor because she loves the work of it and wants to make the world a better place. And I love that for me – and for her.

Essentially, this is a circular reincarnation series where Elise functionally takes the role of Florence Nightingale and Joan of Arc in an alternate history of the Earth where great medical prowess and tech develops FAR earlier. Elise is reincarnated as Jihyun who’s reincarnated as Jihyun who’s then… well… that would be a spoiler, but trust me, it’s super satisfying.