Reviews

Dec 25, 2019
To round off this year of abysmal drops in the bucket from the rusty spigot tapped into the vast ocean of low-effort isekai anime still waiting down the pipeline, “Ascendance of a Bookworm” hit me like a brief mouthful of ambrosia that I desperately desired.

There are only so many ways to frame an isekai anime nowadays, it’s like when Fox announces they’ve renewed The Simpsons for another 3 seasons and realizes, “Haven’t we already done everything?” In this regard, Bookworm isn’t exactly novel when you think about how it recontextualizes this tired concept. It’s not an original concept, but it’s one that recognizes the charming beauty of its simplicity.

To put it simply, Bookworm is a tight and focused character-piece that neither preoccupies itself with empty flash or needless frills. It feels deceptively quaint and almost procedural compared to most high-concept isekai anime. Its scale is cleverly stripped back, its pace slowed to a manageable stroll, and its tone kept consistently light to taste. Bookworm’s centerpiece is Maine, a delightfully original spin on tired isekai protagonist tropes.

Maine incrementally and deliberately progresses through her world much slower than you’d expect of normal protagonists. She is thoroughly constrained by the fact that she is now a sickly young girl on the lower-end of the tax-bracket and social pecking-order. The only thing that Maine really has going for her is her vast retention of book-knowledge, but don’t expect her to go full Senkuu any time soon. Bookworm embraces the mundanities of plausible conflict. Maine is a child (one who frequently suffers from an otherworldly fever) and at that one who actively lacks the resources to overcome short-term goals because of her social class. Bookworm never feels overbearing despite this. It never beats you over the head with misery-porn or begs you to feel sorry for Maine's situation, not that there aren't occasional emotional beats peppered throughout its episode count. Instead, Maine is both intrepid and charming, taking her failures in stride with a childlike irreverence.

Save for towards the very end, I never really got the sense that the show was trying to hold Maine’s hand by introducing a plot-contrivance or hand-out that would get the ball rolling. Bookworm’s idea of trial and error is one of very gradual progression, and it makes those smaller victories all the more satisfying when Maine does clear her hurdles.

Bookworm was a consistently low-key and understated viewing experience. Despite the darker implications of Maine’s reincarnation, the show never makes it a point to become overtly shocking for the sake of creating a tonal dissonance. I’m happy that Bookworm both decided to address this detail and show a commendable amount of restraint by not playing up the melodrama. Bookworm posits the question, is this world better off now that Motosu Urano has become a surrogate for this young girl who perished under the noses of her family? Is it fine for this family to keep living under the pretense that the daughter they once knew continues to live under their roof?

Bookworm’s real meat comes in the form of Maine’s identity crisis. Maine is fully cognizant of how she has essentially deceived everyone into thinking there’s nothing going on beneath the surface. This is a subplot explored through the character of Lutz. Being forced to sort of play along with Maine’s antics, Lutz begins to cultivate a deeper relationship than he previously had with her, as well as a suspicion for her true identity. This eventually culminates in one of the most cathartic and emotionally potent scenes I’ve seen in an anime in recent memory, but you kind of just have to see it to believe it. It’s simply wonderful watching this character accept both her new identity and her new family as her own. Looming fever aside, there’s always a sense of dread that Maine will have to confront her conflict of identity again and that it might just come crashing down on her. It’s an effectively simple conflict that I wish more isekai anime would take the time to explore.

Technically speaking, Bookworm isn’t all that impressive as it doesn’t particularly necessitate flashy action set-pieces. There are endearing gag sequences where the art-design will completely flip into a stylized chibi format but those don’t tend to last more than a couple of seconds and are mostly used as eye-catches to transition between scenes. The character designs lack the edge that you’d expect from an anime in this genre, although I wouldn’t necessarily consider that a bad thing. As always, Yuka Iguchi is excellent and characterizes Maine with her typical brand of saucy sarcasm.

Ascendance of a Bookworm is Dr. Stone for those who were let-down by its over-the-top antics and seemingly infallible protagonist. It’s pragmatic almost to a fault, and a show that I wouldn’t easily recommend to viewers not willing to get caught up in its slower pace. If you’re like me and have resigned yourself as an unabashed isekai garbage-eater, Bookworm might just be what the doctor ordered. Ascendance of a Bookworm was a classic case of a show far surpassing my expectations and one I learned to love more and more with each passing episode. Bookworm is as warm and comforting as curling up with a good book, and I’m sure that’s the sentiment it wanted to leave us with until its second season.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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