Ascendance of a Bookworm

Quite entertaining, it's alot worldbuilding and how people lived in the old days, how to make stuff as books, but there's also a fair share of entertaining characters. The longer you go into the series the more entertaining it'll become.

This story has fine animation, video editing and sound editing. The original novels are lengthy, but the script writers have done a good job of condensing the story. The Chibi style inner thoughts add humor. The after-credits shorts are a hoot! The English voice actors are well known and quite good. You will recognize voices from series like Re:Zero and SAO. The story is family appropriate. If you don't like books, you may not feel the same excitement that book-lovers will find here. The author has done extensive research into the history of paper and printing and this series is genuinely educational.

The premise is the soul of a girl from modern Japan is reborn in the body of a dying little girl. The new girl is still sickly and could die at any moment. She has some memories of both lives, and she begins pushing her modern ideas onto those around her. She is constantly experimenting and creating inventions in a medieval world. She desperately wants books, so she invents paper, tools, ink, and printing technology. She also promotes cleanliness, new fashions, shampoo, and new cooking methods. In her old life in Japan, she was an isolated, self-involved book-lover. Now she is desperate to accomplish things before her soon expected death and her accomplishments far exceed her view of herself.

The story chronicles her rise from poor commoner toward greatness. She faces many challenges and dangers. Will she die of fever, will the nobles kill or kidnap her, will the rulers label her dangerous and execute her?

Season 3 should have been the most powerful season thus far, but the abbreviated season of only 10 episodes does not give the story the time it needs. Even so, you will be rewarded by an excellent season finale. If you want more, read the books by Miya Kazuki. English translations of fine quality are available for the first 20+ novels. Manga are also available. The initial web novels are available online in Japanese.

I had known going in that this was going to be a slow burner so i thought I probably wouldn't make it through series since I get bored easily....but I was super wrong thank goodness and the world building and characters hooked me into the show! At the time I watched it there were only 4 or 5 episodes out and I binged them all. I'm glad that this show actually took the time to build character relationships so that I cared. I wish a lot more anime did this with their characters. The animation isn't anything to write home about but that kind of took a backseat compared to the plot for me.

As a person who studied to be a librarian, this story warms my heart a bit. Apart from that, this story is about a young girl, Mei, who ends up in a medieval world after she is killed by falling books. She tries to remain intellectual in a world where books are reserved for nobility, doing her best to be industrious. It seems right to give this a rating of 10.

I'm 66 and my significant other is 67. Over the past 30 years, she has dutifully watched 1 or 2 episodes of the various anime that I raved about and yawned... never watching more than 2 in any given series.

And then came Ascendance of a Bookworm...

She binge-watched the English dub version 3 episodes at a time until she had seen them all, and then watched the remaining 15 or so episodes in English subtitles two-at-a-time, despite being so severely dyslexic that it was physically painful her to both read and watch TV at the same time.

After the first series concluded, she then read the English translations of the light novels back-to-back-about 12 in a row - and avidly reads each new novel as it is translated (did I mention the painful dyslexia?).

She just finished light novel 15 and is awaiting the release of the next one at the end of October (2021). Her stated intent is to not only read all 27 light novels as they are translated, but to watch every season of the anime as it is released (even in subtitle form) and then read and watch the planned sequel.

My impression is that the series appeals more to older people, even/especially those who have never even heard of anime or Japanese light novels and that the series (animated and written) is being marketed to entirely the wrong demographic.

The older you are (until dementia has totally set in), the more likely it will be that you will enjoy the series... far more likely than if you are a regular anime fan as, other than officially being an Isekai ("other world") story, it is so radically different than all other anime out there that it is only by accident that any typical anime viewer might enjoy it.

10 out of 10 for being the only anime my significant other has ever binge-watched.