Ascendance of a Bookworm - Part 1 - Reviews

There are plenty of reincarnation mangas and each of them have their own strengths. Honzuki no Gekokujou is certianly more unique amongst them.

With typical reincarnation stories, the MC is either overpowered, surrounded by a harem or both. Whilst they can be fun, this mangas MC is neither of those things. It's certainly more of a slow burn but the virtue of this is that you get much more focus on world building as she tries to figure out how to make reading/book materials in an illiterate middle ages setting.

The characters are charming and suit the time period they are set in. Importantly, they are also sympathetic. The MCs family is hardly well off but they simply make the best of their time that they can. There's a few forgetable faces but the core characters are easy to identify and they help progress the story.

The art is well drawn too. Nothing is overly detailed and the space for each panel has been utilised to its best extent.

I'd recommend this to people who like the reincarnation genre of mangas but who might be a bit bored of the typical tropes belonging to them. Because of the sympathetic characters, lack of fanservice and setting, I really can't wait for more releases.

Honestly the MC is terrible. She is reincarnated in a kinda poor family but allshe can think about are books. She doesn't help her family with house work and she sometimes even create problems. I took really enjoy reading book, I wouldn't define myself as a bookworm, but nevertheless I still find her behavior strange. She doesn't want a certain type of book nor is she looking for something specific in books, she just want to touch, smell or read them. Kinda strange to me.

Overall I don't recommend reading it, I too won't continue it. If you're looking for an isekai with a strong female lead than this isn't the right one

This manga's storyline is based on the mc new reincarnation as a child remembering past lives and helping the present family she has reincarnated to.

Sweet lovable and determined female mc with male helpers. It has been a delight to read, showing one person can make all the difference.

Myne's soul was transported to the body of a sickly girl in another world, a world without books. For a bookworm, this is unacceptable. So fe decides that if books aren't readily available to commoners, then fe'll just have to make books femself. The paper of this world is parchment using animal skin, and this can be expensive, so fe tries out various other primitive paper-making methods from our world. In many ways, this manga functions as an educational guide of techniques on how to make paper or paper-adjacent products: papyrus, clay tablets, wooden slips, and finally what's referred to as "Japanese paper." Myne also introduces innovations in weaving, knitting, cooking, and hygiene. By this world's standards (that judges a woman's beauty based on feir household skills), Myne is probably the most beautiful girl. Which makes Lutz, the boy who acts as feir strength because feir body's too weak, the luckiest boy in the city since fe gets to be in a close relationship with fem.

Primarily, the manga focuses on Myne and Lutz working to make in-roads in the merchant world (first through Otto, then through Benno). For this portion of the manga, we see Myne's skill as a negotiator as well as feir apparent genius. Though fe's too considerate of feir customers for Benno's tastes, and fe has to constantly be reminded to be a bit more cutthroat. The second major focus of the manga is Myne's sickness, which is called the Consuming. It's difficult for Myne to even walk too far without getting out of breath. And it seems like every couple chapters fe comes down with a fever and is bedridden for a few days. Through perseverance, determination, and a lot of support from Lutz (and feir family) fe's able to work through the debilitation toward accomplishing feir goals.

By including the tension of fem wanting to put in 100% effort into accomplishing feir goals (a very common manga cliche) but being unable to put in even 10% effort or else fe'd risk straining feir body and coming down with a fever, the manga becomes much more interesting. It turns what could've been a mediocre isekai story into something much more captivating.

This is a really interesting Isekai story. It's not the usual overpowered protagonist. Quite the opposite, in fact. I don't want to say it's a more realistic take on the genre but the author does an excellent job of keeping everything grounded. There are fantasy elements that are kind of fringe at this point but I feel will become more of a focus as the story progresses and the character ages. The character relationships feel a lot less forced in this story than they do in other Isekai stories. In other stories, the protagonist would run into a bunch of different people who tell him/her how amazing they are, and then recruit themselves into the protag's cause/harem. Half of these people serve no greater function in the plot and you just kind of forget about them. In THIS Isekai story, though, all the relationships are natural and seem very genuine. The protagonist isn't amazing, she's not super strong, or super talented or anything like that. She just has her knowledge from her past life to try and help her out in this medieval peasant lifestyle. It's really interesting to see her struggle with making things that everyone in the modern era takes for granted. I could not even begin to figure out how to make something as simple as soap. The only reason the protagonist can make anything at all is because she was an avid reader in her past life and retained a lot of her knowledge. And she doesn't even remember it perfectly. She still fails at things she understands how the process works, but underestimates the amount of time and effort it actually takes. It's a truly fascinating take on the trapped in another world genre.