Honzuki no Gekokujou: Shisho ni Naru Tame ni wa Shudan wo Erandeiraremasen

Urano Motosu loves books and has an endless desire to read literature, no matter the subject. She almost fulfills her dream job of becoming a librarian before her life is ended in an accident. As she draws her last breath, she wishes to be able to read more books in her next life.

As if fate was listening to her prayer, she wakes up reincarnated as Myne—a frail five-year-old girl living in a medieval era. What immediately comes to her mind is her ion. She tries to find something to read, only to become frustrated by the lack of books at her disposal.

Without the printing press, books have to be written and copied by hand, making them very expensive; as such, only a few nobles can afford them—but this won't stop Myne. She will prove that her will to read is unbreakable, and if there are no books around, she will make them herself!

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Myne Main

Iguchi, Yuka Japanese

Lutz Main

Tamura, Mutsumi Japanese

Ferdinand ing

Hayami, Show Japanese

Benno ing

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

Gunther ing

Koyama, Tsuyoshi Japanese

Tuuli ing

Nakajima, Megumi Japanese

Frida ing

Uchida, Aya Japanese

Otto ing

Hino, Satoshi Japanese

Eva ing

Orikasa, Fumiko Japanese

Ralph ing

Nabatame, Hitomi Japanese

Oomori, Shinji Producer

Ozawa, Fumihiro Producer

Tsunoda, Hiroaki Producer

Yoshida, Yoshihiro Producer

Reviews

Dec 25, 2019

Stark700

Recommended

You’ve probably heard the phrase “knowledge is power”. One of the fundamental elements of power comes from books and even in our modern world today, that phrase remains as true as ever. Ascendance of a Bookworm attributes to a bookworm named “Myne” who is reincarnated into another world as she hopes to regain her ability to read.

With the amount of isekai anime coming out in recent years, it’s easy to paint this show as another clone. However, you should actually take a careful look into this anime and see it more of as a slice of life isekai. What does that mean? In some ways, ... Ascendance of a Bookworm contains fantasy elements but also relies a lot more on realism than what people will realize. The first episode drops main protagonist Myne into a world of uncertainty. It doesn’t take long for her to adjust to her newfound life as she carves for books and love of reading. To her, reading books is equivalent to a life necessity and she would do anything to get her hands on them.

We shouldn’t judge on Myne too much. She’s a child who is eager to learn and explore. My impression of the show at first is that of a slow paced story to teach us about the person Myne really is. She’s an innocent girl who is staring a new life with a ion to collect books. On the surface, she is a kind girl who is also eager to make friends. Considering the difficulty to acquiring them in the new world, it comes to no surprise that she would have to use some creativity to further her ambitions. She experiments with inventing objects associated with books and begins to gain a reputation among their society. This is where a certain level of realism comes in. Throughout the anime, the show rarely relies on magic when inventions are made. Most of it comes down to trial and error in the hands of Myne’s ideas. Ironically, Myne seems to be suffering from a mystical mana related illness that often puts her into a weakened state. This happens often in the show where viewers may wonder if her life is at jeopardy. The main plot doesn’t devote too much time into this although it does limit Myne’s abilities to make books and inventions. Instead, we are treated with a show that focuses on the life of Myne and her character. Whether you like her or not, this is an anime that dedicates time into exploring the reincarnated life of a bookworm.

And as the starring protagonist, it didn’t take long for Myne to establish meaningful relationships in the show. Myne is highly protective of her family where in one particular episode, she shows a dangerous side of her after they were threatened. It’s the type of bond that translates into how much she values her family. Similarly, Myne makes friends with the locals including a young child named Lutz. As someone close to her age, Lutz often looks after her well-being and they forge a close relationship. While the anime doesn’t truly dedicate them as a couple, there’s some charming amount of teases that fans can imagine. Other close relationships Myne develops throughout the show includes Eva, Ralph, Turi, and others who realizes how kind and gentle she is. Even someone as stubborn as the merchant Benno sees her good side despite not showing it. However, I should say off the bat that most of the anime is focused on Myne. Most of the characterization is limited to our protagonist so it may disappoint some people if they wish to see more depth into the other cast . Thankfully, the character chemistry among the cast is charming and often embedded to get us to understand Myne more.

I’m not going to lie though. Watching Ascendance of a Bookworm can be a bit of a chore sometimes due to its repetitive story nature. Most of the episodes revolves with the same concept of storytelling and recycled themes. With each ing episode, it’s easy to see how slowed pace the show is. Unlike most isekai, you won’t find much action. This actually feels more like a coming-of-age slice of life but taking place in fictional fantasy world. There’s a balanced amount of drama and comedy that shouldn’t be overlooked. The drama comes from Myne living her new life but often facing obstacles when she isn’t prepared for. Meanwhile, the comedy comes from Myne’s own imaginative mind that often takes the shape of cartoonish skits. I mean, she is a child after all and her imaginations are limitless. It’s often played for laughs but also shows how open minded she can be. For a bookworm, she definitely shows exactly why she loves books.

As someone who has read the novels, the 14-episode anime adaptations serves more as a baseline to get viewers into the franchise. Make no mistake though, there’s definitely more that I wish to see being adapted. But on the plus side, I do welcome studio Ajia-Do’s effort into making the show as colorful and vibrant as it can be. As an anime that doesn’t rely on magic, the show tells some surprising amount of choreography with the body language and character designs. In fact, characters looks like they belong in this setting with their simple clothing and everyday lifestyle. The most noticeable character is protagonist Myne. Designed with a frail and petite look, there’s no doubt people will see vulnerability in her character. Also, I would also give praise to the voice acting to her character as taking on the role of a child is no easy task. Yet, voice actress Yuka Iguchi is able to portray Myne perfectly. It’s exactly how I pictured Myne as a character bought to life in animated form.

If you’re a fan of isekai anime, this may be something unorthodox that you’re not used to. Rather than a decorating itself as a fantasy adventure, Ascendence of a Bookworm explores more of the mundane life of a bookworm. I can’t say it’s easy to recommend this show with the story’s slow pacing. But if you want a different type of isekai than what you see too often these days, then this anime might just surprise you.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jan 12, 2020

Honesty

Mixed Feelings

*NO SPOILERS*
I watched this anime due to the high ratings it has been receiving on this website and I can say that it most certainly did not live up to them. Honzuki no Gekokujou is an isekai in which a japanese bookworm gets reincarnated into a sick five year old's body and lives as Myne/Main, the daughter of peasants. One of my primary gripes with this anime is the MCs mental age. Myne is meant to be at least a young adult, but instead acts and thinks like a child with the knowledge of an encyclopedia. Subsequently, she fumbles around social interaction with the emotional ... intelligence of a child, not knowing how to handle her own position.

People are praising this show for changing the isekai formula, but there isn't much substance past that. It's a slice of life show where the MC invents things from the future in a Middle Ages setting, if you enjoy that coupled with some wholesome family and friendship moments, you'll enjoy this. However, saying this show is anything more than a moe primitive technology from Youtube is giving it too much praise. Also, this idea of an MC inventing technology in an isekai is hardly unique to this show, and is handled with more thought in other novels and manga.

Story: 4
There really is none, as I said the MC invents things in a Slice of Life manner while attempting to deal with the illness plaguing the body of Myne, who she spawned into.

Art: 8
Art is good, around what one would expect from a modern anime. Animation is clearly a bit choppy at times, with the budget clearly not reaching Ufotable levels, but show still does a good job conveying the emotions of characters and the mood the author intended to create.

Sound: 9
Quality sound, nothing to complain about especially, not extraordinary either.

Characters: 4
This really is the major flaw with this show, most of the characters are extremely shallow and the MCs actions are not what one would expect from one in her position. Myne is incredibly naive and the majority of the world reflects that same design, not testing the limits of her character. Would have made for a more interesting plot if there were characters that truly challenged the mood of the MC and show, but instead it stayed monotonous throughout, the characters interacting in a very fantastical and ideal manner to suite the others desired world. Thus, the characters were very cute but also quite shallow.

Enjoyment: 6
Was a fair waste of 5 hours or so, obviously watching the inventing process and cute relationship interactions was fun, but not anything overly stimulating either. The drama fell flat for the most part, as did the majority of the show, still was a decent time killer however as I had nothing else I wanted to do [Sry government, I'll do my taxes eventually].

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 24, 2020

Allwynd

Not Recommended

The premise of the anime, at least in the Synopsis section made it feel like it was going to be something interesting and out of the ordinary. Turned out to be one whiny anime riddled with plot holes and plot armor left and right.

Even in the first episode when the protagonist gets the memories of the body it now inhabits, she doesn't get all of them and starts looking through the house for books as if she doesn't already have the memory of the body that there are no books there.

This trend of things not making any sense continues as the anime develops. The most ... striking of all is all other characters, like her sister, her friend and his brothers, all act too mature for their age. These kids are supposed to be ages 5 and 7 and yet they act like they are 25-27 all the time. When you make a story where your characters are 5 and 7 old, either make them act like it, or just make them older.

The characters are the worst imaginable as they all act like the main character, except they don't have her 21 century planet Earth knowledge. Seeing a 5 year old acting and deducting like he is in his 20s is just laughable. I know anime and manga like to portray young character like 13-15-17 to be more mature than their age, but this is just getting out of hand and being the most ridiculous thing I've seen in many years.

As the story unfolds during the 12 episodes, I expected more "greatness" from the show, with the last few episodes being the culmination. All that happened was the last scene with the head priest, the rest has been just boring and uneventful chatter about unimportant things and the occasional (probably supposed to be funny, but come off just retarded) moment where the main character shows her version of "Inner Sakura", which got boring and retarded in Naruto back in the day and it's stupid still now. The second part of the show was the one that felt like it was losing its direction and the plot armor created for the last episode built by Benno the merchant is just awful. The anime ends with a happy ending that made everything (no matter how little or insignificant it was) feel like it was meaningless.

The anime feels like a toned down, more boring and whinier version of Dr. Stone where inventions are put aside and whiny, meaningless dialogue is the forefront.

I watched this anime out of sheer curiosity seeing how high score and placement it has, so I thought it was good. It was different, I give it that, but the nature of it was too whiny and stupid for my taste, also those plot holes and plot armors become even more visible in an anime with no fighting. Fighting works to cover up the shortcomings of an anime, because it's a change of pace and viewers don't give it too much thought. Back around 2010 I watched some Yaoi anime called Gravitation, I don't like this genre as with my track record, I prefer shounen, thriller and mystery anime, mostly with fighting, so I don't even know why I watched that anime back then, but it felt weird, I didn't care for the story, but just pushed through, because it was only 12 episodes and didn't want to have dropped an anime. Now I don't know why I watched it, but this one feels the same way - I only pushed through it, because I hoped it would get better, but it didn't, it only got worse in the end. If there is a second season, I won't be watching it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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