Are there any "redo" stories where a person jumps back for someone else?

[Oobaka-san]

An odd request, but something I thought of due to the recent airing of a "redo" or "do-over" type series. Just about all of these series amount to "a person lived a crappy youth that led to a mediocre if not sucky present, then he gets thrown back far enough to make his life happier". That's fine and good, but it made me wonder if there are any where a person went back to try and help or support someone else? Not just to prevent a murder, but to improve a person's life. Like, for example, a guy went out of his way to help a girl and was misunderstood in the process, resulting in him suffering severely for his good deeds; one day the girl finds out what really happened and goes to bed wishing she could go back and help him have the better life he deserves, only to wake up in the past (that's just an example, one I thought up right after seeing Ishigami's flashback in Kaguya-Sama).

I don't know, it just feels like these redos always tend to be the same. Either the guy gives himself a makeover and puts himself out there in hopes of doing things he couldn't do before, or he manipulates/forces things in ways that he thinks will improve his future.

 

[undeed]

but... "to prevent a murder" is mostly "for someone else", right...?
I mean... they're about to "improve a person's life" from being "dead"

Well, let me see my library for a bit

 

[undeed]

The closest I can remember for now is the for virginity time travel

I mean... there are things like Erased, Tokyo Revenger, etc. where they time travel for others, but mostly to prevent deaths.
Or stories like JK Kara, Bokutachi Remake, etc. where the main character's initial intention is to improve their own future condition, which coincidentally impacts the improvement of others as well.

 

[Oobaka-san]

but... "to prevent a murder" is mostly "for someone else", right...?
I mean... they're about to "improve a person's life" from being "dead"

Well, let me see my library for a bit

It's true "to prevent murder" is "for someone else", but it's kind of a different genre in general a lot of the time. Like, it's usually mystery or suspense, whereas the rest are more in the drama or slice-of-life area. It just feels like a different thing, you know? Not to mention I'm fairly well aware of at least a few (such as the ones you mentioned).

And yeah, I loved Shinu Hodo. And I do think it's probably the closest I've come across, though it's still "go back so I can get together with her" for much of the story (does shift later).

I sort of figured it'd be rare at best if not nonexistent. I've had a number of stories I'd thought would be awesome but just don't yet exist.

 

[Cubicle255]

From the perspective of the MC, no. But if we're talking about side characters, that sounds a bit like this manhwa. It looks like any other random sol lazy OP MC hunter story who is seemingly loved and blessed by the whole world but

Spoiler

It's actually about how the Male Leads who she saved in her previous lives constantly reset the world until they find one where our lazy MC lives past the age of 20 due to her practically suicidal sacrifical nature. Although it is about preventing the MC's death, it doesn't have the mystery/suspense vibe you complained about

it's mostly sol and lighthearted with only a few bits at the end being a bit tragic. It has a happy ending

 

[boursk]

The title that comes to mind for me is Tsuihou Sareru Tabi ni Skill o Te ni Ireta Ore ga, 100 no Isekai de 2-shuume Musou.

It has a weird initial premise of a guy who is forced to go through 100 different worlds where he has to join that world's heroes' party for at least a year(?) and get expelled from them, before being allowed to go to the next world. After having gone through the final world he is allowed to go back to his own world (which is what he has been working towards), but before he can, he is made to look at the fate of one of the worlds he's been to. He thought all the worlds were well off after he left, but the reality turned out to be far from the truth.

And thus, instead of going back to his original world, he chose to start over from world 1 (and back in time before he met the heroes of each world) and make them a better place. There's nothing really in it for him to go back, since he's not planning to stay in any of those worlds. And it's not like those worlds were doomed because of him, so he's not trying to fix something he did. He's mainly doing it for the sake of the people he met and got close to in those worlds.

 

[Oobaka-san]

I'll take a look at the isekai tsuihou one, seen it around a few times.

Oddly, I stumbled on one entirely by accident, and a hentai at that. The hentai aspect does detract from the story since the guy's main way of fixing a problem is sex, but the concept fits and as hentai goes it's not too bad. Doesn't seem to be on MD, it's called "Seishun Complex, Time Leap de Ero Musou!" by Nagase Tooru. The MC was a lonely otaku who after various traumas became unable to communicate well with women. After college he became an adult video star and developed a real talent there. He still has trouble with women outside work, but in bed he can play a woman like a violin. He gets a letter announcing his childhood friend's upcoming wedding, and he remembers how various rumors and traumatic events led to her becoming isolated and hurt when they were students, and he falls asleep wishing he had his stuff a bit more together back then, as then maybe he could have helped protect her. And then he wakes up in the past and, like I said, solves things with sex (like in the first chapter, where he overhears a senpai from the girl's club calling someone and telling them to spread rumors of her sleeping her way to her ace position, and he basically assaults her until she's addicted then makes her apologize before he'll finish).

Again, not a great story. I'd so much love to see the same story without the sex, or at least with far less. Have him stand up for her and denounce the rumors to get people to listen, or find ways to catch the people spreading them; patch things up with his stepsister naturally and find the roots of what's leading her to delinquency and worse; show a normal, slow struggle to get through to the childhood friend and maybe gradually get her to look at him as more than just the old friend who's let himself go. As I said, there could have been a lot of better stuff if the author wasn't writing a hentai. The basics though fit better than I expected so I felt I had to mention it.

 

[ConfuciusRex]

Kimi wa Yotsuba no Clover is pretty much precisely what you're looking for. The stakes are still more heightened than what you're asking for, but it more or less fits the bill.

 

[Oobaka-san]

Kimi wa Yotsuba no Clover is pretty much precisely what you're looking for. The stakes are still more heightened than what you're asking for, but it more or less fits the bill.

Read a couple chapters so far, WOW is that dark. But I'll read at least part of it before letting it finish. I learned from "I Would Die to Have Your First Time" just how stressful it can be to have to wait for the next chapter to see whether things get better or worse in these sorts of stories. Though I also learned just how awesome it is to reach the happy ending afterward.

 

[Oobaka-san]

Just stumbled on another one, one which has only gotten a couple chapters translated. For the first several volumes it looks like it's the standard "life was utter crap but I got a chance to do it over and do it right" story, only for him to discover suddenly that he'd looped within someone else's loop, someone who was looping for his sake. In more detail...

Spoiler: long and also a big reveal

Kiraware Ouji has a prince who was discovered to have a "Dark Power" crest in a world where that one element is treated as monstrous because anyone with such crests all turn into demons if they actually use magic. He's disinherited, abused, ostracized and ultimately spends much of his life shut in his room before he finally decides to end it all with poison, but before he does that he figures he'll use his magic just once. He gets sent back to right before he and other kids are to be given their crests. When he gets the dark crest and is disinherited, he takes the land he's given in place of the throne and decides to make it a place where people of all races and crests live in harmony. He occasionally encounters his ex-fiance, the only one to defend him when he was denounced, framed and all but disowned, on his travels. Eventually, he one day rescues her during a major mission, and while helping her recover accidentally sees her memories. Turns out that she's been looping through her whole life over and over, always dedicated to him from the moment they first met. The first time, she stayed by his side into their late teens, at which point a war broke out with demons and, in an attempt to protect her, he accidentally cast a spell with devastating consequences that also cost him his own life. Seeing her beloved die in her arms, she breaks down and somehow activates a time-travel ability. After that she tries over and over to change his life for the better, sometimes defending him better, or taking him to different places, or dealing with situations in different ways. One time she even runs away with him, and they live well into adulthood as a happy couple before global events come to a head and he still ends up killed. In the last life, she thought maybe he was doomed because of her so she forced herself not to interact with him at all, right up until she discovered his lifeless body right after he jumped back and so jumped back into the present timeline herself. Like with Four-Leaf Clover, she's basically been doing anything and everything she could think of to try and give him a happy life, no matter what it means for her own.