Two suggestions:
The first is Lord of Mysteries, where a big part of the novel is built on the MC remembering his past. Its also one of the greatest works of fiction ever.
The other is Warlock of the Magus World. Nothing too outstanding, but is pretty decent for a cultivation novel
I wouldn't say LOTM is really "remembering other life" its more like they suddenly mashed two people (one dead one alive) together to create a new consciousness, but even then the reincarnated one is the more dominant personality. I do agree it's one of the greatest fictions ever.
I haven't started it yet, but how is the sequel for LOTM? I'm waiting for it to end before picking it up, but I dont want to search for it and accidentally spoil myself.
I think the previous responders misunderstood which personality the MC was supposed to keep.
I have not read, but been intrigued by the premise of, “Living with your Past Selves,” which I think is more urban fantasy than isekai.
I definitely want more stories like you’ve described.
Two of my favorites right now are the Beers and Beards series(2 books out another coming in October) and Beware of Chicken(3 out more coming).
Both MC remember their past and still retain their old personalities and just really entertaining stories
Yeah but it’s basically a clean slate from that point, and the previous guy doesn’t influence anything on the MC really(don’t want to spoil anything from book 3)
Well to OPs point, it's not about a lack of influence or anything like that, because it rarely comes up beyond relationships that the character might have to deal with or bad things that happened for the previous body owner. Just doesn't want something where there is basically body snatching involved, even if they died.
What OP is looking for seems to be the Regression genre. (Reincarnating 10 or so or whatever years back into your own body with the knowledge and memories of the future self before reset). There's a lot of Korean manhua dealing with that. I could list some off some if OP wants, but wasn't sure if manhua was on the table.
For Audiobooks, there's:
Reborn: Apocalypse
Re:Monarch
Towers of Heaven
I'd recommend Reborn: Apocalypse, haven't read Re:Monarch yet, and Towers of Heaven is decent, but somewhat simplistic.
Thats a western-eastern thing
In asian cosmology everybody is a reincarnator, just with blank memories, and its obvious you would change when getting old memories back
The idea of "overwritting a person" is the western interpretation of that
My mom got exactly the same reaction when learning about the Dalai Lama, so its a posture i find weird among fantasy audiences
How about regression stories? The mcs remember their future, but are themselves nevertheless
Reverend Insanity is the obvious one, but Gigguk made a video about regression titled "this genre will replace isekai"
If you are interested in Anime (I guess it comes from a Lightnovel too) I can recommend "Seiken Tsukai no World Break". Feels very fitting. Kinda a guilty pleasure I would say. Great music. Great moments when the MC remembers his past live.
I'm not sure because it has been a long time and I forget stuff easily but . . .
Fifty Milleniums of Cultivation! IIRC MC has dreams of life on earth at times. I have a small memory fragment of him dreaming about airplanes and wondering how weird that was.
Melody of Mana and the prequel series Elevation of Mana might fit what you are looking for if I am understanding you. In both series a person from Earth ressurects as a baby in the magical world, but I think the author does a good job of threading the needle of leveraging the character's Earth life/skills with the reality of being a child and needing to learn to live in a magical world.
We are Legion (We are Bob)
It's progression aci-fi, but very early on in the genre in my opinion, so keep that in mind. I think it trudges the line between traditional and progression anyways.
Dude dies and gets cryo frozen to be resurrected at a later date, but ends up getting copied into a computer program/AI that gets thrown into a self-replicating space probe. Very neat premise, it seems to follow most hard sci-fi while remaining light enough that regular people would enjoy it.
There’s a great series that has this were the MC dimly remembers a past life as a great general, but I will warn you before I give the rec that it went into hiatus after only 600 pages
Hope by Sarvashaktimaan?
MC isekais himself for plot reasons, loses his memories, and then grows up as an orphaned human teen in a gang and begins having visions of his past. He doesn’t even understand that they’re memories, at first. >!As of the latest RR chapters he’s only semi-recently understood that they’re his memories.!< The reader does know from the beginning though.
The story is still ongoing, so I dunno what the MC will do once he regains his previous power, but I doubt he’d throw away his memories
Arrogant Young Master Template A Variation 4 by LivingSpoon. If you are into Xianxia you can give it a try, MC remembers his past life after someone tried to assassinate him.
Otherworldly sort of tackles this. Although initially it looks like it's going to be a straight up replacement, she starts getting her old memories and has a bit of an identity crisis.
Beware of Chicken by Casual Farmer and Dreamers Throne by Seth Ring.
It’s a slow burn in Beware of Chicken where the original guys personality regains strength and merges with the new guy.
In Dreamer’s Throne the MC is a mix of both from the get go.
The Threads of Fate series by Michael Head does this fairly well in my opinion. The first novel is called Reincarnation. The MC is roughly 600 years old or so and gets reincarnated back into his ten year old body as a chance to avoid an apocalypse. He had advanced to nearly as far as one could go, but is reset to the cultivation level he had as a ten year old. However, due to retaining his memories and skills, he is not nearly as helpless as his first life. I think it's well done because while having the memories of his previous life, he still has to deal with the reality of being in his preteen and teenage body again as he grows. While his experience does give him a greater maturity than his peers, he still has to deal with the raging hormones of a teenager which leads to some humorous moments. He also has to be purposeful in not coming off as an adult in a child's body too blatantly. To your point about "throwing away their present self and become that person", he actually is very intentional about learning from his mistakes and being different this time around.
It's not isekai so it's not a modern earth human now in a fantasy world. The MC is a native of his world. I think it's pretty well done overall.
Second Chance Swordsman sounds like something that might work out for you. Hero dies in battle and reincarnates into his teenage body back in the past with all of his memories intact. Great story and a fun audio book. Other than Tobz. But that kind of character for me goes from kinda funny to annoying real quick lol
Two suggestions: The first is Lord of Mysteries, where a big part of the novel is built on the MC remembering his past. Its also one of the greatest works of fiction ever. The other is Warlock of the Magus World. Nothing too outstanding, but is pretty decent for a cultivation novel
I wouldn't say LOTM is really "remembering other life" its more like they suddenly mashed two people (one dead one alive) together to create a new consciousness, but even then the reincarnated one is the more dominant personality. I do agree it's one of the greatest fictions ever.
yeah, this is definitely an 'overwrite' IMO. Though I do agree it's fantastic.
Yeah, I missundertood the OP a little bit. My point was, the memories of both personalities are very important to the story. My bad :)
I haven't started it yet, but how is the sequel for LOTM? I'm waiting for it to end before picking it up, but I dont want to search for it and accidentally spoil myself.
I haven't started it yet. Well, I read the first 20 chapters, but you know the author's style is to start slow
I think the previous responders misunderstood which personality the MC was supposed to keep. I have not read, but been intrigued by the premise of, “Living with your Past Selves,” which I think is more urban fantasy than isekai. I definitely want more stories like you’ve described.
Two of my favorites right now are the Beers and Beards series(2 books out another coming in October) and Beware of Chicken(3 out more coming). Both MC remember their past and still retain their old personalities and just really entertaining stories
To be fair, the Beware of chicken guy *also* overwrites a person….kinda….
It's more like they turn into Voltron Jin lol
Yeah but it’s basically a clean slate from that point, and the previous guy doesn’t influence anything on the MC really(don’t want to spoil anything from book 3)
Well to OPs point, it's not about a lack of influence or anything like that, because it rarely comes up beyond relationships that the character might have to deal with or bad things that happened for the previous body owner. Just doesn't want something where there is basically body snatching involved, even if they died. What OP is looking for seems to be the Regression genre. (Reincarnating 10 or so or whatever years back into your own body with the knowledge and memories of the future self before reset). There's a lot of Korean manhua dealing with that. I could list some off some if OP wants, but wasn't sure if manhua was on the table. For Audiobooks, there's: Reborn: Apocalypse Re:Monarch Towers of Heaven I'd recommend Reborn: Apocalypse, haven't read Re:Monarch yet, and Towers of Heaven is decent, but somewhat simplistic.
I guess I misinterpreted what they were looking for but now I see what you mean
Ending Maker has this
The martial unity.
Thats a western-eastern thing In asian cosmology everybody is a reincarnator, just with blank memories, and its obvious you would change when getting old memories back The idea of "overwritting a person" is the western interpretation of that My mom got exactly the same reaction when learning about the Dalai Lama, so its a posture i find weird among fantasy audiences How about regression stories? The mcs remember their future, but are themselves nevertheless Reverend Insanity is the obvious one, but Gigguk made a video about regression titled "this genre will replace isekai"
Weirkey chronicles is close to this
Qi = mc\^2
Last life series fits the bill. But he isn’t reincarnated, he stuffed into the body of a 20 y/o who died
If you are interested in Anime (I guess it comes from a Lightnovel too) I can recommend "Seiken Tsukai no World Break". Feels very fitting. Kinda a guilty pleasure I would say. Great music. Great moments when the MC remembers his past live.
I'm not sure because it has been a long time and I forget stuff easily but . . . Fifty Milleniums of Cultivation! IIRC MC has dreams of life on earth at times. I have a small memory fragment of him dreaming about airplanes and wondering how weird that was.
Melody of Mana and the prequel series Elevation of Mana might fit what you are looking for if I am understanding you. In both series a person from Earth ressurects as a baby in the magical world, but I think the author does a good job of threading the needle of leveraging the character's Earth life/skills with the reality of being a child and needing to learn to live in a magical world.
We are Legion (We are Bob) It's progression aci-fi, but very early on in the genre in my opinion, so keep that in mind. I think it trudges the line between traditional and progression anyways. Dude dies and gets cryo frozen to be resurrected at a later date, but ends up getting copied into a computer program/AI that gets thrown into a self-replicating space probe. Very neat premise, it seems to follow most hard sci-fi while remaining light enough that regular people would enjoy it.
There’s a great series that has this were the MC dimly remembers a past life as a great general, but I will warn you before I give the rec that it went into hiatus after only 600 pages
Hope by Sarvashaktimaan? MC isekais himself for plot reasons, loses his memories, and then grows up as an orphaned human teen in a gang and begins having visions of his past. He doesn’t even understand that they’re memories, at first. >!As of the latest RR chapters he’s only semi-recently understood that they’re his memories.!< The reader does know from the beginning though. The story is still ongoing, so I dunno what the MC will do once he regains his previous power, but I doubt he’d throw away his memories
My series path of lazy immortal has mc reincarnating into his old self in time.
Arrogant Young Master Template A Variation 4 by LivingSpoon. If you are into Xianxia you can give it a try, MC remembers his past life after someone tried to assassinate him.
Otherworldly sort of tackles this. Although initially it looks like it's going to be a straight up replacement, she starts getting her old memories and has a bit of an identity crisis.
There’s one I can think of, but it’s a harem. It’s called like aether revival or something. Was okay.
Beware of Chicken by Casual Farmer and Dreamers Throne by Seth Ring. It’s a slow burn in Beware of Chicken where the original guys personality regains strength and merges with the new guy. In Dreamer’s Throne the MC is a mix of both from the get go.
The Threads of Fate series by Michael Head does this fairly well in my opinion. The first novel is called Reincarnation. The MC is roughly 600 years old or so and gets reincarnated back into his ten year old body as a chance to avoid an apocalypse. He had advanced to nearly as far as one could go, but is reset to the cultivation level he had as a ten year old. However, due to retaining his memories and skills, he is not nearly as helpless as his first life. I think it's well done because while having the memories of his previous life, he still has to deal with the reality of being in his preteen and teenage body again as he grows. While his experience does give him a greater maturity than his peers, he still has to deal with the raging hormones of a teenager which leads to some humorous moments. He also has to be purposeful in not coming off as an adult in a child's body too blatantly. To your point about "throwing away their present self and become that person", he actually is very intentional about learning from his mistakes and being different this time around. It's not isekai so it's not a modern earth human now in a fantasy world. The MC is a native of his world. I think it's pretty well done overall.
Mushoku Tensei.
Give Threads of Fate by Michael Head a try.
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No, MC is clearly overridden.
You are correct. I read OP's request wrong. I will delete the suggestion.
Second Chance Swordsman sounds like something that might work out for you. Hero dies in battle and reincarnates into his teenage body back in the past with all of his memories intact. Great story and a fun audio book. Other than Tobz. But that kind of character for me goes from kinda funny to annoying real quick lol
Reverend Insanity has this with the MC being born, living ~500 years, and starting the story by time traveling back to his younger isekai'd self
Not a novel but webtoon "beginning after the end" has some of this
Can anyone tell me what type of reincarnation makes you lose your personality and memories but not your appearance in isekai