(CR) Honzuki no Gekokujou (Ascendance of a Bookworm)[anime]

[Random Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Kanon

I thought it was odd Urano didn't spare a thought for the little girl whose body she hijacked. What even happened to the real Myne?

Sadly, the original Myne is dead. She lost the will to hold on to her life against the pain and fever.

Our heroine is book-focused and obsessed, and it will take her a bit before she starts thinking about the people around her or the poor girl whose life she's now living, but she'll get there.

Myne isn't a bookworm. I'm a bookworm (though I don't really care for that term.), I read more than 17 novels in the last couple of months.

That might qualify you barely as a D-rank bookworm. Call me back once you're reading at least one book every two days, and we'll see about getting you promoted to C-rank.

[nojay]

Originally Posted by Random Wanderer

That might qualify you barely as a D-rank bookworm. Call me back once you're reading at least one book every two days[1], and we'll see about getting you promoted to C-rank.

How many times have you been locked in the local library because they closed and you didn't notice because you were busy reading? It happened to me more than once when I was younger.

[1]What takes you so long to read a book? I used to get three books out of the library in the morning (three was the limit) then take them back in the afternoon and get some more out to keep me going till the evening. After that, cold turkey time. Brrrr.

[Irenesharda]

Originally Posted by Random Wanderer

That might qualify you barely as a D-rank bookworm. Call me back once you're reading at least one book every two days, and we'll see about getting you promoted to C-rank.

Pfft, please, I was giving an average. I've been known to read 3-4 novels in a single day. It all depends on my schedule, how busy I am, and if I'm in the mood. If I get started on something that really grabs me, Trump could have resigned and apologized to the country with parades flowing through the streets and I wouldn't know about it for 2 or more days later.

Originally Posted by nojay

How many times have you been locked in the local library because they closed and you didn't notice because you were busy reading? It happened to me more than once when I was younger.

[1]What takes you so long to read a book? I used to get three books out of the library in the morning (three was the limit) then take them back in the afternoon and get some more out to keep me going till the evening. After that, cold turkey time. Brrrr.

It's actually very hard, to near impossible to be locked in the libraries in my city. The security makes very thorough checks and will throw you out. They have cameras everywhere to check and will call you on the intercom if you're still there, or send a guard or librarian after you. And the worst part is, if you were really into a library book but hadn't checked it out by the time the place closed, you would have to leave the book behind as you were being thrown out!

When I was less busy with my job or school, I could definitely do that kind of reading speed, but I would also have to be in the mood for it.

[BBOvenGuy]

Originally Posted by Random Wanderer

Our heroine is book-focused and obsessed, and it will take her a bit before she starts thinking about the people around her or the poor girl whose life she's now living, but she'll get there.

You could make the case that she's traumatized from dying and waking up in a different world and a different body, and the hyper-obsession with books is just her way of grabbing onto something solid and avoiding her feelings. That won't hold up forever, though.

[Random Wanderer]

Originally Posted by nojay

[1]What takes you so long to read a book? I used to get three books out of the library in the morning (three was the limit) then take them back in the afternoon and get some more out to keep me going till the evening. After that, cold turkey time. Brrrr.

Nothing. That's why 1 book every 2 days only gets you up to C-rank bookworm. B-rank is one book per day. A-rank is multiple books per day.

[Xical]

I was waiting for this for months, like with uchi no musume last season, and like with uchi no musume, as soon as I watched first episode I was disappointed, will watch 1 or 2 more and if it don't feel better for me will drop and just stick with the novel and manga.

[Dop]

Well, this sets itself apart from most current isekais in that the protagonist isn't a buff dude fighting monsters or some such, so it gets my interest for that.
I'm curious to see how it goes from here, as in that kind of setting it's hard to see how a little girl from a poor family is going to work her way up to building a printing press.

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Dop

Well, this sets itself apart from most current isekais in that the protagonist isn't a buff dude fighting monsters or some such, so it gets my interest for that.
I'm curious to see how it goes from here, as in that kind of setting it's hard to see how a little girl from a poor family is going to work her way up to building a printing press.

The opening scene revealed they have some form of magic in this world, that will probably help. It's still an isekai, so I have little doubt she will possess magical abilities suited to accomplishing her goals.

[Chosen_Hero]

So why is an Isekai premise needed for this kind of series?

In my opinion itt have been far more interesting if the girl had developed a love for books, maybe thanks to someone that read them to her or something. But then when she found out they weren't available to average people so she dedicated the her life to finding a way to make it so, instead of you know, just dying like that and getting bodyjacked by someone else. So again, why?

[Random Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Chosen_Hero

So why is an Isekai premise needed for this kind of series?

In my opinion itt have been far more interesting if the girl had developed a love for books, maybe thanks to someone that read them to her or something. But then when she found out they weren't available to average people so she dedicated the her life to finding a way to make it so, instead of you know, just dying like that and getting bodyjacked by someone else. So again, why?

Because that would never happen. Her family is too poor for her to ever have encountered books, and they lack the education for her to know the things she needs to do to make them herself. Her knowledge from her previous life is essential.

Don't treat a story as inferior simply because it has somone travel to another world.

[Von Himmel]

My favorite book is finally animated and I forgot to watch the premier livestream i wonder how many volumes will this cover

[Irenesharda]

Originally Posted by Random Wanderer

Because that would never happen. Her family is too poor for her to ever have encountered books, and they lack the education for her to know the things she needs to do to make them herself. Her knowledge from her previous life is essential.

Not necessarily, the poor still would have had access to people who DID have books. If we are going with pseudo-pre-Renassaince Europe, they would be going to church. They even suggest that this episode with there being a cathedral that she will be baptized in. The common peons would have had someone read the Bible and other texts to them. Monks would be one of the major groups making the books in the first place, and I'm sure commoners would have seen them work. So yes, I indeed think even a poor family like hers would have at least encountered books at one point or another.

And yes, you could have made this story work without it being an isekai. Just have the original Myne be entranced by the books of the learned men of the church (or magic users in this world) and what they tell her about in those books. Give her a thirst to learn more. Have her meet a rich nobleman's child and befriend him, which would give her access to books and either self-taught to read and write or have her friend teach her.
The more she learns the more she wants to share what she learns with others. As she grows older, she uses what she has learned as well as her own ingenuity to begin to design and create an invention that will eventually become the first printing press.

Yes, honestly any story can work as long as you work it out right and make each contrived action believable.

[nojay]

Originally Posted by Irenesharda

And yes, you could have made this story work without it being an isekai. Just have the original Myne be entranced by the books of the learned men of the church (or magic users in this world) and what they tell her about in those books.

She doesn't want to just read books, she WANTS books of her own. She's a bookworm, like me. Our battlecry is "He who dies with the most books wins."

I have friends who were buying a house a long time back. The estate agent went on about properties close to schools, shops, commuting etc. They were asking about maximum floor loadings in each room to take the weight of the eighty thousand plus books they already had. That's not any sort of a record of course, I know of one book collector who has rolling shelves in his basement (he works in the publishing industry and gets a lot of freebie copies of new books as they come out).

[Zefyris]

Why is it necessary to have an isekai? Simple. Because the original Myne died at 5 years old (you hear her give up at the beginning) after being bedridden most of that time (so much that despite having her memories, the new Myne doesn't really have clear memory of what the outside looks like so she's surprised when going out for the first time) so she can obviously NOT have a story.
Even worse, she died without even hearing about books, let alone seeing one, let alone touching one, let alone opening one, let alone having the education to be able to read one and then being allowed to read one.
BTW that wasn't really well done in the anime so I think most peoples didn't understand what happened in the anime when Myne ask Tuuri about "books". In this conversation, Myne ask about "books" while using the japanese word for "book" because she has no way of knowing the word for it in the language of that new world. So Tuuri just repeat the word "book" in japanese without understanding what Myne means at all.
And this is why when Myne finally sees a book in a case on the market, the first thing she ask is "mister, what is this". She obviously knows what this is, but, what she wants to know is how you say it in her new language.
This is how bad the original Myne had it, and how badly bedridden the new Myne is as well.
No way in hell that without her previous life experience, she would easily come in contact with anything like a book while passing most of her time in her BED and most of the remaining time in her HOUSE.

Anyway, if Motosu Urano didn't reincarnate to take the place of original Myne, while knowing what a book is, there would be no story. all of what she started to do (like putting that hairpin in her hair, or being adamant about having her body properly washed regularly) is coming from her previous life experience and custom.

You can't have the story that is about to unfold happens without the isekai component. there is literally no way at all.

[orion]

Originally Posted by Chosen_Hero

So why is an Isekai premise needed for this kind of series?

In my opinion itt have been far more interesting if the girl had developed a love for books, maybe thanks to someone that read them to her or something. But then when she found out they weren't available to average people so she dedicated the her life to finding a way to make it so, instead of you know, just dying like that and getting bodyjacked by someone else. So again, why?

Because isekai is popular and allows you to do shortcuts to get to the goal. Like creating a printing press, putting books in schools to create an interest in books. elevate the standard of living for the population to allow an interest in books to grow, opening a shop to sell books to the masses. She's prob not going to regurgitate a ton of manga as a certain slime did.

[Irenesharda]

Originally Posted by Zefyris

Why is it necessary to have an isekai? Simple. Because the original Myne died at 5 years old (you hear her give up at the beginning) after being bedridden most of that time (so much that despite having her memories, the new Myne doesn't really have clear memory of what the outside looks like so she's surprised when going out for the first time) so she can obviously NOT have a story.
Even worse, she died without even hearing about books, let alone seeing one, let alone touching one, let alone opening one, let alone having the education to be able to read one and then being allowed to read one.
BTW that wasn't really well done in the anime so I think most peoples didn't understand what happened in the anime when Myne ask Tuuri about "books". In this conversation, Myne ask about "books" while using the japanese word for "book" because she has no way of knowing the word for it in the language of that new world. So Tuuri just repeat the word "book" in japanese without understanding what Myne means at all.
And this is why when Myne finally sees a book in a case on the market, the first thing she ask is "mister, what is this". She obviously knows what this is, but, what she wants to know is how you say it in her new language.
This is how bad the original Myne had it, and how badly bedridden the new Myne is as well.
No way in hell that without her previous life experience, she would easily come in contact with anything like a book while passing most of her time in her BED and most of the remaining time in her HOUSE.

Anyway, if Motosu Urano didn't reincarnate to take the place of original Myne, while knowing what a book is, there would be no story. all of what she started to do (like putting that hairpin in her hair, or being adamant about having her body properly washed regularly) is coming from her previous life experience and custom.

You can't have the story that is about to unfold happens without the isekai component. there is literally no way at all.

Again, as I said, yes you can. Just change the story. Don't have Myne die, change the circumstances. You can even keep the basis but change how it plays out. A writer can do whatever they want as long as they are able to make it believable within the world they have created.

You could have Myne have visions of the future, you could have her and Motosu communicate and become friends across dimensions, you could get rid of the future plots entirely and just have this be the story of how a young girl in a fantastical land, creates the first printing press and changes the world.

You are saying that the very same events as we see them couldn't happen without this being an isekai. And the specific events would indeed have to change. However, the general plot and core of this story, the setting, even the characters (plus or minus a few) could all stay the same and this not be an isekai.

[Tenzen12]

Of course you could have multiple routes to write plot, but in this particular case it would be unecesary hassle do it believable.

-If she was born into enviroment where she could actually learn read and had access to many books, she wouldn't be forced to explore ways to create books cheaply

-If she wasn't born in such enviroment, then she wouldn't have relationship with books even if she got some vision of future.

Yes you could jump through several loops make it work like being born noble, then have her family fall from grace and ending on streets and then getting some vission about printing press and methods to create cheap paper, but honestly if that happen family would have much more problems to focus on creation of books anyway. There are some stories where reincarntation/isekai are unecessary (like Saihate no Paladin or Spirit of the sword mountain) but this work isn't really one of them.

[Zefyris]

Originally Posted by Irenesharda

Again, as I said, yes you can. Just change the story. Don't have Myne die, change the circumstances. You can even keep the basis but change how it plays out. A writer can do whatever they want as long as they are able to make it believable within the world they have created.

No. Stop. I've read 20 volumes. This story truly uses a lot Myne's origins throughout the story.
Like 75% of the happenings and the results of those happenings would have to be changed. If you have to change 75%+ of the content, it's no longer the same novel. What you're saying is, "the author could have written a completely different story if she wanted".
Well yes and? Your point? She wanted to write that and I'm glad she did because the result is truly enjoyable.
You're trying to judge the author's choice after seeing a partial adaptation of 20% of the first volume of a 30 volume long series (so less than 1% of the story )and argue with peoples that have read more than half of it. And in a topic where spoilers are (thankfully) prohibited, so we can't give you any details.

So yeah, you're wrong. 100% wrong. Why? Because of things you haven't seen yet. What are those? Can't tell and won't tell. Case closed as far as I'm concerned.

[Haak]

When someone questions why something has to be this particular way I always find it particularly telling when the best defence isn’t about it being important to the story’s themes/motives/messages/character development (you know the things that actually matter) but basically just “because certain meaningless things couldn’t happen in their certain meaningless ways”. It’s always a huge red flag for me that this show is probably lacking in depth.

Now I’ve read enough of the story, so I’ll just straight up let Irenesharda know that he is absolutely right. Whilst the MC does use her knowledge of her past life to advance her goals, this is something that could’ve easily been written in a way that wasn’t otherwise meaningless and cheap. And it would have been better for it.

[Anh_Minh]

I haven't read the source material, but I don't see how you can tell the same story without the isekai elements. A 5 years old commoner bookworm in a world where books are a rarity, and who will also create a bunch of inventions?

There are stories where the isekai really don't matter. Just have the MC be the Chosen One who was born there instead of isekaied, and no one would notice. This isn't one of them. You'd have to pack too many elements into a loli package.

Judging by Irenesharda's ideas, you can pretty much either write a different story, or use a plot device that's every bit as cheap as isekai, but technically isn't isekai.