“Ascendance of a Bookworm” is what happens when You have an interesting premise with a cool twist to the isekai genre and skill to make watching it enjoyable.
The story is pretty simple. A young girl, who loves books more than anything and I do mean anything, dies. Instead of going to the great beyond she ends up in the body of a little, frail, sickly girl in a different world. A world where books are a luxury only for the nobles or the rich. Possessing the knowledge from her former life and assimilating the memories of her new host body she embarks on a quest to create and sell her beloved books.
The main heroine is Myne, well technically it’s Motosu Urano, but we’ll get to that. A blue haired, frail and sickly 5 year old girl. One day she succumbs to her illness and her body gets a new tenant. Motosu Urano - a Young woman from our world, who studied to become a librarian, read a metric shit ton of books on many different subjects and who… died. Yes, it’s death galore when it comes to the MC in this show. For someone who read a lot of books, Urano (I’m just gonna call her Myne, she does assimilate the new reality quite fast after all) wasn’t blessed with the abundance of wisdom. Her first reaction to a new, rather fantastical situation, that is waking up in a new body, isn’t to check her surroundings, determine her status or even to determine her position in the new family. No. It’s to find something to read. I have met people who lack common sense but this is getting into “Hey, kidnap/ kill/ enslave me. I’m really dumb” territory. Her lack of understanding and basic knowledge will come to bite her in the ass rather often… as it should. It’s nice to see a show that at least tries to touch that subject.
That said, Myne thanks to her knowledge is rather OP. A different kind of overpowered than in most isekais. Her power is knowledge and she’s adept at using it… without caring that a 5 year old displays knowledge and skills she has no business possessing. Despite that no one actually confronts her on that… except one person but that would be spoiler territory. Everyone else just treats her like a genius, despite the fact that there is little to no evidence that the original Myne was anything other than a sickly child. Something I really liked is that her brains are the only perk of her being overpowered. Her body is weak, she succumbs to the sickness she inherited from the original Myne and she more often than not has to be carried everywhere. I liked that. It’s a nice balance - a word I’m sure that most isekai authors have never heard of. She also isn’t perfect with the use of her knowledge. Apart from cooking her first attempts at creating her own book are rather abysmal.
Most of the plot centres around Myne trying to find a way to create a book with trial and error. A lot of errors to be fair. During that undertaking she unintentionally creates some chaos within the local market with the products she produces. The second most important of the plot is Mynes' business venture to secure the means to create the books. To do that she becomes a merchant and sells her knowledge of otherworldly goods. Her confrontations with merchants who want her for themselves are one of the best parts of the show. Not only because it’s fun watching a child confuse adults but also because Myne isn’t savvy enough to fully grasp the value of her creations. The moment she realises that she could have made a better deal are really well done.
That said, the plot has some holes. The biggest one is the fact that no one in her surroundings questions the source of her knowledge. One day a 5 year old can create things that even the rich desire, “invents” (I use this term loosely) new dishes and talks about creating paper - something so rare and pricey that most people don’t have a clue about how it’s made, and everyone is ok with that. Her new world is a classical mediaeval world so I would probably expect (no, not the spanish inquisition, no one expects them) an exorcist before everyone accepts the fact that a child invents new things that could very well turn the entire economy on it’s head. Even her young friends just roll with her crazy antics.
Second problem is with the characters. More precisely their behaviour doesn’t match their age. Myne is surrounded, at least in the beginning, with mostly 5 to 7 year olds. Yet they all act like at least highschoolers. It’s a bit confusing. I get it, in this world You become an adult when You’re 15 but we are talking about 7 year olds who have skills and physical abilities that You wouldn't expect them to have for at least 5 years. Granted I'm not a hystorian so maybe I'm wrong about this. Most of the adult cast is pretty well done in my opinion, even if some of them should be a little less trusting towards Myne.
All in all it’s not a bad plot. Yes, sometimes it loses its focus for an episode or two, but it does remind the viewer of it’s main goal. Well… two goals to be fair. Around the halfway point Myne get’s a second goal but let’s not spoil the surprise. A few more things could be taken apart but the story itself is rather enjoyable. Most scenes don’t overstay it’s welcome (apart maybe some with Lutz but I’ll just put them into “world building” category) and the dialogs are mostly well written. Even if it’s hard to buy a 5 year old would speak in such a way.
I can honestly say that I enjoyed the show. Yes, there were moments where I wanted to facepalm so hard I would forget what I have seen but those moments were few and far between. If You can forget about logic, even the shows internal one that it tries to establish, You can have a real blast watching this.