I’m still reading many different isekai manga. It sucks that so many of them are in very early stages, sometimes only 3 or 4 chapters are out. Usually there’s a light novel or web novel behind them, but I can’t be bothered to track those down for most series. Ascendance of a Bookworm / Honzuki no gekokujou is one of the few exceptions where I read the scanlation up to chapter 12 and then read the raws all the way up to chapter 31, the latest available right now.
Summary: Urano, a bookworm who had finally found a job as a librarian at a university, was sadly killed shortly after graduating from college. She was reborn as Main, the daughter of a soldier in a world where the literacy rate is low and books were scarce. No matter how much she wanted to read, there were no books around. What is a bookworm to do without any books? Make them, of course. Her goal is to become a librarian! So that she may once again live surrounded by books, she must start by making them herself. [from novelupdates]
What’s so good about Ascendance of a Bookworm
- Although it’s an isekai fantasy series like a hundred others currently running, it’s low fantasy with a bigger focus on slice of life and everyday survival. Main lives a life far removed from castles, demons, goddesses, stat level ups, just a little kid trying to get by in the world.
- It has one of the few protagonists who is not hopelessly overpowered right from the start. In fact Main is totally weak and prone to illness.
- Main is not super-intelligent either, just blessed with a lot of book knowledge. In particular she doesn’t know much about business and would be swindled regularly if it wasn’t for adults looking out for her.
- No harem, no huge crowd of adoring fans lapping up his every move. A few people know just how amazing she is, but the majority of people including her own family see her as an ordinary, rather weird girl. She does have the obligatory good-but-not-too-competent isekai companion though.
- You read a lot of manga where the heroine/hero can make a lot of stuff just because they saw it on TV once, but Main doesn’t have it that easy.
- The art is excellent and the little children are drawn suitably adorable. The food looks great too. I know there’s a web novel, but the manga is so cute and clear and easy to follow that I have zero desire to try the WN.
- The pace is relatively slow and there’s no real story so there’s plenty of time for world-building. You get to know a lot about how the city is run, how society is organized, how people relate to each other, etc. It’s very down to earth and interesting if you like to get immersed in fantasy worlds.
- I learned a lot about making paper from scratch by reading it. That should come in handy if I ever go to another world, right?
What’s not so good about Ascendance of a Bookworm
- It’s ridiculous how few people are suspicions of Main’s true identity once she starts making paper. It’s an extremely convoluted process requiring very specialized tools and materials and yet she knows all of them and all the right proportions? At only 6-7 years old? No one gets suspicious and starts fishing around when a kid that young starts going in and out of various workshops under Benno’s guidance, ordering this strange item and that? The world is a little too idealistic. The adults are a little too conveniently dense.
- The world-building gets a bit too much sometimes. Half of the chapters are devoted to long treatises on how the city works, politics work, business work, etc. It’s interesting at first but later on it gets in the way of plot progression.
- There’s a long slowdown between Main being diagnosed with consumption and any further advancement being made in her treatment. Then another long break before a more permanent solution (joining the church) comes along. Some of that time is taken up by the paper-making process, but there’s still a lot of dead time spent on stuff. I know it’s a slice of life kind of show but it gets a bit tiring anyway.
TL;DR
Ascendance of the Bookworm is good and I want more!
