Ascendance of a Bookworm is a reincarnation story about Urano Motosu, a japanese woman who is infatuated with books and all sorts of literature. It is said, in her past life she wished to become a librarian but died before her wish was fulfilled. In a new life reincarnated into a commoner girl named Myne, she strives to complete her goal as a librarian and read as many books as she can possibly read.
S1 Recap
In the first season of Ascendance of a Bookworm, we are introduced to a wide palette of characters that help Myne in her dream of reading books by establishing some ground goals. In this new world, Myne is illiterate so she begins studying the numerical system at the market with her Mom. She also has support with numbers and alphabets at the quarters of the south gate by being Otto's assistant (his father's subordinate). However, Myne needs financial stability so she can begin her endeavour of finding and creating books so her goal now is to commission products with a merchant. Fortunately, she meets with Beno who is the older brother of Otto's wife and the owner of Gilberta Company. From there, they establish trade relations by creating all sorts of products from Myne's old world such as all-in-one shampoo, hair accessories, plant based paper etc. Thus Myne's journey and next steps begin from the Temple where Myne does her baptism and discovers a library.
Story: 7/10
We can see Ascendance of a Bookworm spares no efforts when establishing the 'new' story and world building elements. We are greeted with a simple back story to fill us in on details of her past life and are greeted in her new life as a commoner. The events that follow Myne's pursuit of bookreading are fairly mundane yet entertaining and still contribute to establishing the world with character connections.
Art & Sound: 6/10
After watching some CGI series, my standards for animation have increased. I've noticed that this series uses a lot of panning shots for stills and slideshow animations to save budget. The art quality is still up to date and competitive with other series released nowadays but there isn't fluidity or motion.
The music used in Ascendance of a Bookwork reminds me of a slice of life fantasy series. It is a perfect match for the kickback atmosphere of this show and even the suspenseful music is well informed when characters mention the devouring illness Myne has or when she faints iterally every episode. The sound effects are pretty average, nothing out of the ordinary in terms of sound effects and music.
Characters: 5/10
As a person who reads books non stop, surely Myne would have been well informed of caste systems and noble etiqettue from the get-go
but it appears she doesn't have knowledge that reaches that deep despite reading undiscriminately in her past life. Furthermore, the devouring and her brittle physique plays a part in preventing the story from developing which kind of acts as a debuff of her vast sea of knowledge. The other characters personalities and backgrounds are fairly well detailed.
Overall: 6/10
The story itself is very entertaining, Myne as a character isn't really captivating for the story. Maybe in the future her brittle physique will be solved by a chemical component that she read from a science book. I haven't read the source material but I hope that this is the direction the story will move on so Myne's health increases and she is more energetic.