#and ascendance of a bookworm

[stariwei]

[betterbooksandthings]

Best Fantasy Anime (with mostly female leads)

Listen, I love fantasy anime. They are fun and I love a fight scene as much as the next girl. I am relatively uninterested in male leads mostly because of the *cough, cough* excessive fan service. So, without further adu, if you are interested in some fantasy with women at the helm here's what I got.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Yona of the Dawn

Inuyasha

Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss But I'm Not the Demon Lord

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!

Fluffy Paradise

Ascendance of a Bookworm

I Shall Survive Using Potions!

The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent

Tearmoon Empire

My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts

Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for my Retirement

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear

I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss

Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid

Reincarnated as a Sword

Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools

Kakuriyo -Bed & Breakfast for Spirits-

The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess

Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!

Management of Novice Alchemist

I'll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History

Nina the Starry Bride

Snow White with the Red Hair

ZENSHU

These ones I am keeping an eye on but signs point to a favorable outcome.

The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor

Promise of Wizard

The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside by My Fiancé and Sold to Another Kingdom

The Gorilla God's Go-To Girl

[amarcia]

The Saint of Ehrenfest in the middle of performing a ritual.

✨🌙 ART LOG -> @404ama

[randompenguinslide]

Thanks to automatic captions I have a new reaction pic

[aubalexandria]

My favourite character is the highly competent, intelligent, loyal, high born, some what obsessive, but highly respected right-hand man, willing to go to extremes to protect or grant the wishes of their kind, happy, overpowered but humble, blue haired isekai protagonists who accidently rose to power...

[wingedcreatorhlebushka]

It was a very funny idea.

2022

- Your headache is quite small. (Signed "Poor bastard")

- Don't underestimate her. (Signed "Idiot")

[yurgenschmidt]

[honeyjello]

The Bookworm Official Fanart book is finally out!!

This is the illustration I submitted to the contest! I'm a really big fan of Nicola and Angelica's short story; it really endeared me to them. I like to imagine that they remained friends even as their lives got more complex.

I'm so happy I can finally share it!

[likesdoodling]

Modern au~ :D

Continuation of the conversation:

Ferdinand: If I recall correctly, you said it was 'that new book series you started the evening prior' that was the problem, not medical issues.

Rozemyne: ...... I stand by my earlier point.

Ferdinand: *smugly sips coffee

Rozemyne: *muttering to herself - just you wait till I replace your coffee with decaf-

[meganedere]

Too tired to make a neat essay but I am greatly intrigued by Miya Kazuki's choice to touch on both the power possessed by and abuses towards women of all classes in her world.

Common women can own property and businesses and be acknowledged as experts in their crafts but waitresses are still expected to be prostitutes and birth and child rearing is still their burden largely seperate from men. Devouring girls in the right situations have a lot of room for social mobility but mostly risk being enslaved for power or childbearing.

Temple shrine maidens can be just as powerful and influential as men, fully capable of possessing the bishopric and commanding those beneath them, for better or worse. While grey shrine maidens are more prone to sexual abuse, a blue shrine maiden is equally capable of perpetuating the same on grey priests. That's a misuse of power, but it is unfortunately power all the same.

And noble ladies have a slew of checks and balances. Young noble women can be knights! And this is not a lesser choice for them socially compared to being a scholar or attendant, though it is a limited term for them in comparison due to the expectation of motherhood. They can be Giebes, Aubs, and Zents, though once again motherhood makes this a more difficult position for them to get, but it is something they are fully permitted to be by law. But at the same time noble wives without titles are by definition more subservient and cheaper in a sense, they are expected to do social and household management for the sake of their spouse who yet has the option to marry more wives without their consent resulting in conflict that true equality would never permit. They also are technically at the whims of their paternal figures on marriage but just as many can achieve their own choice by their strength and wit. Then comes the politics of mana, where high mana can equally promote social advancement and critical danger, lower mana and status can result in discardment, servitude, and sexual abuse.

Tl;dr: By deeply exploring the relationship of women, their agency, and power throughout class divides Ascendance of a Bookworm could be read as critical feminist spec fic, send tweet.

[salmalin]

I'd just like to take a moment to appreciate that in Ascendance of a Bookworm (spoilers obv), Myne does not descend upon Ehrenfest and the country at large with the intent of changing it. At first she wants to change things, and she tries. However, she quickly finds that she needs to do so while following the rules of the world around her. Even as the story goes on, as she rises in the ranks of the world, she does so in the context of that world. Yes, she brings technologies from Earth, but they are all modified to suit needs not being met in that world, and to suit the people there. Even more, even with the printing Industry, she quickly learns that there's no way to bring Earth stories to this new world because they're so incompatible, socially.

But what's most impressive is that, as time goes on, the focus stops being about bringing Earth technologies into their world. Instead, she spends a lot more time focusing on reviving the culture already present. She learns a dead language, translates it, and proceeds to make that knowledge more readily available than it's been in generations. Not to mention... *Points to everything in part 5.*

Myne enters the world isolated and alone, desperate for her own culture. She wants to beat Earth into everything she sees. She ends it by bringing the parts of the world dying around her back to life, for the betterment of everyone around her.

[stariwei]

[dailyfigures]

Myne ; Ascendance of a Bookworm ☆ Stronger

[stardustizuku]

NO BUT CAN YOU IMAGINE BEING TUULI like you know the high priest ONLY as “the high priest”, your only recollection of him is that one time that you all signed a contract to separate you from your sister - so in general your perception of him is vague but mostly scary and mean. Then years past, you’re aware he left and here comes your sister and you find out not only that SHE LIKES HIM (what terrible taste!) but that’s it’s apparently an impossible love. As someone who also crushed on a man who’s older and had her heart broken you’re very obviously terrified for her! Specially because unlike you, if she’s heartbroken she’ll have no one to rely on. Not to mention, fr the way her friend talks abt the whole situation, your little sister is so in love it borders on the insane.

Still it doesn’t seem like it will be too much of a problem, until one day she pops up and she’s like “oh yeah we are engaged!”

The heart attack you would have cause it looks like she more or less forced the guy into this marriage! He looks like he doesn’t wanna be here, he keeps frowning and doesn’t say much. You do catch him looking at her but still…it looks a bit like he’s just here to follow the whims of your chaotic little sister and would rather not be here if he had the chance.

You don’t really understand all noble euphemism so you don’t understand just how important that “all goddesses” talk is but you know he has never done more than say she looks “very good” to compliment her appearance. So maybe it’s as bad as you think.

You can’t help but feel bad for the guy - and a bit bad for you sister who married the one she loved but it’s very obviously a loveless one.

[amarcia]

Caipirinha Caipirinha Wooo Waaa

✨🌙 ART LOG -> @404ama

[animefeminist]

How Ascendance of a Bookworm depicts the challenges and triumphs of chronic illness

Content Warning: Chronic Illness, medical injustice, coerced child marriage

Spoilers for the entire Ascendance of a Bookworm anime to date, as well as Part 3 of the original light novel series which has an anime adaptation scheduled for 2026.

In the crowded field of fantasy isekai light novels, Kazuki Miya’s Ascendance of a Bookwormlight novel series stands out for its extensive worldbuilding, gripping character drama, and rich themes. Bookworm follows Urano Motosu, a college student studying library science who is fatally crushed under a bookshelf during an earthquake. Urano is surprised to awaken as Myne, a five-year-old commoner girl in the Duchy of Ehrenfest. Her new body is affected by a disabling chronic illness, and books are such an expensive luxury in Ehrenfest that she cannot access them. Rather than let these obstacles crush her spirit, Urano embraces her new identity as Myne and swears to spread literacy and reading throughout the kingdom by developing the same kind of printing technology she learned about on Earth. 

While Myne brings a wide variety of Earth knowledge to bear on her new life, the series puts a much greater focus on how Myne adapts to her incurable condition in a highly class-stratified society. Bookworm thoughtfully examines the interplay between disability, socioeconomic class, and community support while eschewing the shallow tropes found in some fantasy series.

Read it at Anime Feminist!