In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, an Office Lady dies after being made redundant at her company. She is reborn as the infant Keikain Runa, villainess of the Otome Game Love Where The Cherry Blossom Falls. Set in a Japan that had fought its way to a conditional surrender in the Pacific War, the villainous Runa is destined to lose the three love interests of the game, her wealth and her life to the financial crash. Equipped with the knowledge of future economic markets and the story of the game she's in, Runa sets out to save herself and her family by shoring up Japan's economy and avoiding the mistakes that led to its crash in her own history.
Provides examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Past: The novel was published in the 2020s, but the main plot is set between 1990 and 2008.
- Adult Adoptee: Runa's grandfather Hikomaro was adopted into the childless Keikain clan in the 1930s.
- Alternate History: In this world, Japan got a conditional surrender and the Japanese peerage continued to exist as American influence on Japan's internal politics is limited. Also, there was a "North Japan" on Sakhalin Island until Japan reclaimed it. The ruling party is the same one before the Pacific War
, localized as "Fellowship for Constitutional Government." - Bastard Angst:
- Runa gets an inherited form of one—it's not herself that's illegitimate, but her father Otsumaro. From the outset of the story, she is definitively seen as The Unfavorite of the Keikains partly because of this.
- Tokitou Aki is even worse than Runa's case; at least Runa is treated as a Keikain and at least has some resemblance to an Ojou, but Aki wasn't even treated as a Keikain, and struggles with her college tuitionnote
- But Not Too Foreign: Runa is, by heritage, three-quarters Russian, and as a result, she doesn't look a bit like an Asian. But as she says, that's the only non-Japanese thing about her.
- The Casanova: Runa's grandfather Hikomaro. In addition to his official wife, he had affairs with at least two women which bore him illegitimate children: Runa's father Otsumaro was born of his affair with a Russian lady, and Tokitou Aki was born out of his affair with his maid Keiko.
- Corporate Warfare: Runa employs her PMCs to fight against terrorism, including attempting (and failing) to stop the September 11 bombings.
- Death By Child Birth: Runa's mother Natasha died giving birth to Runa.
- Diplomatic Impunity: A variant. Noble families in Japan are immune from prosecution (unless a waiver is granted by the Emperor), so Runa plans to use the Keikain Dukedom's status to avoid trouble if the Ministry of Finance or the tax bureau comes knocking. However, she still tries to keep her dealings as legal as possible (given the fact that it's high finance, breaking the law at several points is inevitable). It must be noted that, however, this immunity does not preclude the possibility of forced suicide or extrajudicial killing claimed to be suicide; Runa suspected her father Otsumaro died this way after finding out he might have been unwittingly acting as a front for Soviet spies.
- Down to the Last Play: This is used as a metaphor for Runa's first financial coup. When she invests in Silicon Valley and in U.S. foreign exchange right before the dot-com boom and pulls her family's collapsing bank out of a hole, the business world refers to it as Far Eastern Bank's clutch home run; bottom of the ninth, two outs, two strikes.
- Elevator School: The novel covers all of Runa's school years from kindergarten and up, and she studies in the Gakushūkan for the entire time.
- Family Theme Naming: Following the customs of the old Japanese families, all the male members of the Keikain family contain "maro" (麿) as the second kanji of their names.
- Fauxreigner: The Moonlight Fund is a corporate example. It is established using Japanese money and controlled from Japan, but Runa tries her best to make the public believe it's a private equity fund headquartered in California. It's to the point that when Moonlight Fund announces a tender offer for the Hokkaido Kaitaku Bank, Runa hires an American actor with a law degree as the spokesperson who poses as the Fund's legal counsel, and the press conference is conducted entirely in English.
- Fiction 500: By the fourth volume, people in the US government are looking at Runa and seriously considering the possibility that she'll use her wealth to take over Russia and Japan.
- Fictional Counterpart: Since the story is set between 1990-2008 and largely parallels real-life events, this is frequently used.
- "Lehthan Sisters" is the version of Lehman Brothers in this alternate world.
- Sankai Securities, the first company Runa bails out and thus the first time when she explained her "Keika Rules," refers to Sanyō Securities, whose bankruptcy in November 1997 was the first bankruptcy for a brokerage after WWII. "Yō" means "ocean," "kai" means "sea."
- Ichiyama Securities is one for Yamaichi Securities, which in real life ceased operation in 1997 due to being overwhelmed by off-sheet debts.
- Hokkaido Kaitaku Bank is one of the Hokkaido Takushoku Bank, whose failure in (real-life) 1997 was the largest bank failure in Japanese history. Both "Kaitaku" and "Takushoku" means "Development."
- Runa's epithet comes from an advertising campaign from the Teisei Department Stores, a department store Runa bailed out. This is a reference to the real-life Saison Group, with Seibu Department Stores being the leading company. It is one of the largest casualties of the Japanese asset bubble. At its peak, Saison Group also owns the supermarket chain Seiyu (eventually sold to Walmart), convenience-store chain FamilyMart (sold to Itochu, another major trading house), a credit company, insurance companies (which was sold to Mizuho but retained independence inside the group), as well as the beef-bowl chain Yoshinoya (later gained independence).
- Iwazaki Group is a stand-in for the Mitsubishi, which in real life is founded by the Iwazaki family.
- By extension, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi became Imperialnote Iwazaki Bank.
- Akamatsu Corporation is a mishmash of several real-life trading houses:
- One of its predecessors, Akamatsu, is Marubeni with the second kanji changed and the order swapped. However, while the historical Marubeni did record large losses in 1997 and was on the verge of bankruptcy, it has been able to recover without major ownership change.
- The fact that Akamatsu merged with Matsuno and renamed Akamatsu from one kanji of each is similar to the case of Sojitz.Explanation
- The fact that Rena assigned Teisei Department Stores to Akamatsu, however, is similar to the case of Mitsubishi Corporation, which owns its retail empire based on Lawsons and Seijo Ishii, or Itochu, who owns FamilyMart.
- Teia Motors refers to Toyota Motors, not only for the fact that it's Japan's largest, but also for being developed from a machine loom company.
- Futagi Group refers to Mitsui Group, which was founded on the drapery store Mitsui Eichigoya (later known as Mitsukoshi), who pioneered the sale of luxuries to the bourgeoisie class; after the dissolution of the zaibatsu in our history, the keiretsu is coordinated by the Futagi Club. It was said to contain companies like Shibaura Electrics (Toshiba, formerly known as Tokyo-Shibaura Electrics), Ishihari Shipbuilding (IHI, formerly known as Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries), and Fusoufilm (Fujifilm—Fusou is one name for Japan), the real-life counterparts of which are all part of the Mitsui keiretsu (thus, the Futagi Club).
- Yodoyabashi Group stands for Sumitomo; most of their companies have international or regional headquarters in that area in Osaka. (Compare: Marunouchi for Mitsubishi, and Nihonbashi for Mitsui).
- DK Bank refers to Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, whose finances had been relatively fine throughout the 1990s but was hit by a Sōkaiya (localized as "corporate bouncers") scandal, leading to a confidence crisis that causes it to merge with Fuji Bank and the Industrial Bank of Japan to form the modern Mizuho.
- The several bank mergers mentioned in quick succession in the second novel mirrors real-life ones in late 1990s to early 2000s. In the novel's chronological order:
- The three-way merger between DK Bank, Fuyou Bank, and the Commercial Bank of Japan started this trend. In real life, this refers to the aforementioned the merger between Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, Fuji Banknote , and the Industrial Bank of Japan, into the Mizuho Financial Group.
- The merger between Futaki Bank and Yodoyabashi Bank, both mentioned above, mirrors the merger of Sakura Bank (controlled by the Mitsui) and Sumitomo Bank into Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.
- The merger between Owari Nagoya Bank and Yamanaka Bank refers to the merger of Tokainote Bank and Sanwa Bank into the UFJ Group.note
- The merger between Asahi Bank and Osaka Nomura Bank mirrors the merger of Asahi Bank and Daiwa Banknote into the Resona Holdings.
- Footnote Fever: The author prepares a glossary section after each chapter, which explains terms and provides context specific to the era (such as pop culture or prices). However, they were written for the benefit of Japanese readers, which means it does not include certain Japan-specific things that English speakers don't usually know, such as Ichiyama Securities' tobashi scheme.note
- Former Regime Personnel: When North Japan collapsed and was re-integrated into Japan, many former soldiers and weapons from the regime found themselves out of a job, often joining up with terrorist groups and Private Military Contractors.
- Grade-School C.E.O.: Deconstructed. Runa is a reincarnated adult in a pre-kindergartener's body when she starts her corporate conquest, but she has to bully her butler and a bank manager into acting as her "designated adults" to invest her money for her and uses cutouts, actors with law degrees and shell companies to hide her activities. This is precisely because a minor isn't competent to enter into multi-billion-yen contracts in her own name. Some members of her family also threaten to take control of her wealth because she's underage.
- Honest Corporate Executive: Runa downplays this. She is lawful and honest in her dealings, genuinely wants to help protect Japan's economy from a looming crash (even if only to save her own wealth) and has no tolerance for incompetent or criminal executives (even passing up a profitable bailout for the Enron expy because it would mean the workers suffered while the criminal executives got off scot-free). But she's honest in the Ebenezer Scrooge sense. She's almost completely ruthless within the boundaries of what the law allows, and aside from the above, isn't really interested in environmental, social, and governance considerations; she'll happily establish PMCs so she can sell cup noodles to American soldiers, or develop real estate in America with the intention of excluding minorities, because rich white racists will pay a premium.
- Impoverished Patrician: Keikain Runa is from an illegitimate line of the Keikain family. She's got servants, butlers, a Big Fancy House, and...assets that are drowning in bad debts, an allowance that's down to three million yen a month (which according to Runa is barely enough to pay for 4 staffers plus utilities), and the sure knowledge that all of that will go away in the financial crisis. To get started with her investments, she has to reverse-mortgage the house.
- Insistent Terminology: Kagurano Asuka insists tangerines to be called oranges. There's a reason behind this—her father is a Diet member from a major tangerine-producing prefecture, so the liberalization of agricultural imports in the 1990s means they now have to compete with Californian oranges.
- Just a Kid: Even after her investments turn her into the world's youngest self-made billionaire, people still think of Runa as just a child and Tachibana and Ichijou as the brains behind her schemes. Since she's the legal owner, people talk over her head and discuss "buttering up a little girl" without realizing she can hear and understand them. And even after no one can question the "Little Queen's" ability or her status as the center of the Keika Group's wealth, there's still a strong feeling that, because she's a child, she has no business on the financial or political battlefield.
- Leave Behind a Pistol:
- A non-lethal variant is implied to used. When Runa bails out a company, she usually requires its top management to be removed. However, if the transaction is negotiated through a third party (such as the Ministry of Finance), it is implied the third party will the urge the people involved to resign to prepare for the acquisition. This is why during the bailout of Sankai Securities, Runa explained the Ministry staff about removing the upper management, yet the news report quoted several paragraphs later mentioned its management have "resigned."
- More conventionally, it's unclear whether Runa's father was encouraged to commit suicide, or whether his family made the decision for him.
- MegaCorp: Another effect of Japan getting a conditional surrender in 1945 is that the zaibatsus were never dismantled, which means the family-owned conglomerates that existed before WWII still exist, instead of being transformed into groups of independently-owned companies connected by their major lender. The Keikains are of a smaller zaibatsu whose main business is in pharmaceuticals (and by extension fine chemicals). The real-life zaibatsu that mentions the most in the novel is the Mitsubishi, referred to as Iwazaki Group owing to the real-life Mitsubishi being found by Iwazaki Yataro.
- The Merch: In-Universe, Runa is displeased to discover unauthorized merchandise of herself as the Little Queen, and goes berserk on one shop that's selling it.
- Nazi Gold: An alleged case of Imperial Russian Gold. Runa is of (extremely collateral) Romanov blood, and when her connection to the Moonlight Fund and its Swiss Bank Account is discovered, the government of Russia starts snooping around to see if it was being used to launder treasure that had gone missing in 1917.
- New Transfer Student: While for all facts and purposes, Runa goes through the entire Gakushūkan elevator, technically she started a few weeks late in kindergarten, owing to the elders worrying if she would become a Bully Magnet owing to her European looks and would rather have Tachibana tutor her before elementary when the trope of Compulsory School Age hits. Since Runa insists to go to school owing to the person reincarnating as she wishes to re-enact her childhood, she enters Gakushūkan's kindergarten division after it started, necessitating the standard new-transfer-student-introduction scene at the beginning of Chapter 3 of the novel.
- Next Life as a Fictional Character: The protagonist was reincarnated into the villainess character of an otome game she knows.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Koizumi Junichirō, the Japanese Prime Minister for much of the period covered by the novel, is bland-named to Koizuminote Sōichirō.
- No Name Given: The protagonist's prior name as an Office Lady. That person isn't important to Runa, anyway.
- "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: In the glossary for Chapter 2, the author specifically clarified:Actors with law degrees: They exist. You just need to do some research.
- Oddly Small Organization: Becomes a problem for the Keika Group in Volume 4. Previously, Runa reigned over the Keika Group as a whole but mostly let the various companies involved manage themselves, unless they were personal projects like the railroads or weren't making a profit for her. However, it's still a ten-trillion-yen conglomerate employing hundreds of thousands of people, and yet the big decisions still need her sign-off - which is a bad thing for a girl who still has to attend elementary school. This was part of the reason (the other part being government pressure) that she took Keika Holdings public and invited other shareholders in to help her oversee the Group.
- Parental Abandonment: Runa, who started off as a toddler, practically lives alone in her house, with a few servants. Her mother gets a case of Death by Childbirth, while his father was apparently Driven to Suicide after he was found to be a front for the Russians.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: In the second book, Runa plans a gated community for the rich and plans to ensure that African-Americans and Hispanics aren't invited, since that would disquiet the rich white residents she's looking for.
- Preppy Name: Runa's name is deliberately designed by the game's developers to complement her Alpha Bitch role in the game. Her surname Keikain is of the type exclusively used by the kuge class that she is descended from.note "Runa" is also a full-onyomi name and uses difficult kanji (瑠奈) to show off their class.
- Private Military Contractors: In the third volume, Runa starts establishing Keika-affiliated PMCs both for her own personal security, and to support the United States' invasion of Afghanistan. She also uses the connection to sell the troops cup noodles and curry, which are far tastier than the usual MREs.
- The Purge: This is part of the "Keika Rules" that Runa employs when she bails out a failing bank or other business. The entire upper management get thrown out on their asses for getting the company into that mess in the first place, and the board hires new managers. If illegal activity is found, she'll zealously prosecute everyone involved. After the Keika Group controls the company in question, the companies will usually have their entire share capital cancelled and immediately issues the same amount of shares to Runa's companies, meaning even the shareholders are purged as well.
- "Reborn as Villainess" Story: An unnamed Office Lady died unceremoniously after being made redundant by her employer and reincarnated as the villainess Keikain Runa from Love Where the Cherry Blossom Falls, an otome game set in Turn of the Millennium. In the game, Runa will meet her downfall from the financial crisis of 2008 and losing everything from money to her betrothed. So the way to keep herself alive is... changing the entire economic structure of her country? This work also breaks the usual mold of setting the story in a Medieval European Fantasy; it's set in an Alternate History Japan with events mostly parallel to the 1990s and 2000s decades in real-life.
- Red Baron: Runa earns the title of "the Little Queen." It's originally because of an ad campaign of Teisei Department Stores that she bailed out featuring her wearing a princess dress and sitting on a throne, but it's later used seriously by those who know of her financial and political influence.
- Right Hand Versus Left Hand: The Infodump at the beginning of the fourth volume explains why, at this point, Keika Holdings is a mess internally. Because of the mix of mergers, purges under the Keika Rules, transfers and consolidations, Runa's wealth is composed of a chaotic confederation of corporate fiefdoms, which lays the stage for the feud with the Koizumi Administration. However, because of this, they also have no real internal controls, allowing Runa to effectively do what she wants without anyone realizing what she's about.
- Royal School: Par the course of a "Reborn as Villainess" Story. And this time, the author doesn't need to make one up from scratch, because real-life Japan already had one in the form of Gakushūin; the author bland-named it to Gakushūkan.
- Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Runa refuses to bail out the Enron expy in part because, while it would be a profitable deal for her, the restructuring plan would lead to mass layoffs while the executives escaped with a golden parachute. Runa may be a ruthless young businesswoman, but she's an honest one and hates crooks.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Naoyuki, Hikomaro's first cousin by blood, defies it at first. His relationship with the Keikains would quite certainly be able to get him a job in the several companies they owned (such as Far Eastern Bank), which is why he ends up at Hokkaido Kaitaku Bank, which is quite a bit more prestigious as an employer.note So when he begged with Pose of Supplication for the Keikains to save Hokkaido Kaitaku as the latter is in huge trouble in 1997, Runa realizes how bad the situation has been for Naoyuki to abandon his principles.
- Short Title: Long, Elaborate Subtitle: 2-word title, 10-word subtitle. Most of the subtitle
does not exist in the original title, but it's here to clarify this is a business thriller as well as a "Reborn as Villainess" Story. - Stealth Expert: Hotaru, one of Runa's school friends, is so good at remaining unseen that surveillance cameras and thermographic goggles can't spot her if she doesn't want to be found.
- The Spymaster: The first Keikain duke was an officer of the Special Higher Police in the 1930s, and pretty much got his peerage by pretending to ignore who killed the prime minister at the time (which happened a few times in that decade in real-life).
- Swiss Bank Account: The Moonlight Fund (the protagonist's personal wealth) is based around a private Swiss bank account, which is the hub for the funds that manage the US-based assets that make most of her income. Repatriating that money to Japan requires some financial shell games, foreign exchange trades (borrowing in yen and repaying in dollars), favors owed by the Ministry of Finance, and later Russian oil.
- Unperson: Runa's parents were basically unpersoned by the rest of the Keikain, owing to them being effectively fronts for a Soviet-controlled trading house.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Like the Trope Codifier of villainesses, Runa does not realize her being a reincarnate already sent the universe Off the Rails. Though many high profile events in real life still end up happening in spite of her attempts at trying to prevent it from happening.
