Talking about the premise that I am familiar with in xianxia, where MC takes over a young body and stuff, iirc was 风凌天下 who played with this trope a lot for most of his books. Now that there is a new manhwa named the Great Mage who returns after 4000 years which basically has the same thought and a newly translated JP novel naming Previously a Sword Emperor, I would like to know if there are much more KR, JP or even english works that has the same premise. Note that the person who possesses the body must not be themselves from the future like Kang Hansoo in Reincarnator or that weird failure mage of oldman JP novel. Basically am looking for something like Lazy Swordmaster with OP MC who got reincarnated/ possessed a new body.
JP: Asendence of a Bookworm ? Demon Noble Girl ~Story of a Careless Demon~ Korea: Breakers The Novel's Extra That said, what is the difference between remembering your past life or taking over a body? I say this because generally the person themselves interprets it as they wish. Bookworm for example assumes she took over, while others, mostly in the villaness genre assume it is their past life or just claim they "became" them and that is it.
There has never been a clear definition on that as well, for instance, Strongest Abandoned Son MC thought that he somehow took over a body when he suddenly woke up in class and the premise remains. But after awhile, he claims that this life is either his past/ future or even in an alternative timeline. To me, the difference of remembering your past life and taking over is which personality is now in charge, whether has your personality gone through such a drastic change or not, that leaves me the question of personality merger. Because our personality is shaped by experience, when one experiences their past life which might be drastically different, their personality shifts as well. To me, if the shift is minor and the personality change is not that drastic, then perhaps it is the former. But I cannot concretely say that as there is the issue of similar personality folks, where it is definitely possession. So I am bummed out as well. If I must force an answer, remembering one's past life is a form of possession, as the personality of the past life is trying to influence the current, leading to the erasure of the current or merging. In Cultivation 40K, MC almost got took over as a soul tried to have his memories replaced with its own, which will result in the MC's original personality getting suppressed and renoved.