Ascendance of a Bookworm: Fanbook 2

本好きの下剋上ふぁんぶっく #2

by Miya Kazuki, You Shiina (Illustrator), Suzuka (Illustrator)

Here is the second official Ascendance of a Bookworm fanbook, intended to be read after finishing Part 4 Volume 1. This volume contains an abundance of supplementary content, including design sheets for a variety of new characters, an extensive family tree, and seven short stories not found in the light novels. Also included are behind-the-scenes reports on the recording of a Bookworm drama CD, and another reader Q&A with author Miya Kazuki.

Genres: Light Novel, Fantasy, Fiction

139 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 9, 2017

About the author

Japanese author (香月美夜)

Kazuki started writing novels when she was in her second year of junior high school. After taking an entrance exam, she entered into a national university before graduating and becoming busy with work, stopping her from writing. Once she was married and her child entered kindergarten, Kazuki had more free time, which she used to start writing again. From 2013 onwards, she started publishing her novel Ascendance of a Bookworm on the user-generated novel publishing website Shōsetsuka ni Narō which saw success. In 2015, she officially debuted with said series under the T.O. Books imprint.

Reviews

[Pieter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of the book are short stories, and like with most such volumes some of them were more interesting then others. The other half was a report on the the author dealing with voice actors, a Q&A, some new art (not as much as in fanbook 1) and a few manga pages. It was more or less what I expected, good for a bit of world building, but nothing vital to the plot. So I enjoyed it, but it is a short read and not exactly necessary for the main books.

[Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it!

I especially loved the short stories, and the write up about the audio novel from the authors pov. She really is soo much like Rozemyne!

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was expecting this book to be formatted roughly the same as the first fanbook, but this does not have the full color illustrations. Not that that detracted from this book at all, as there’s still plenty of content.

The first section is a bunch of short stories, they mostly flash fiction with how short they are. They’ve appeared in other places, but it’s nice to have them all collected into one place for easy reading.

Story 1: It’s nice to go back in time to when Rozemyne was Myne, and as someone who ships Myne and Lutz, I love this small moment. The illustration is a great bonus (or, rather, the illustration is super sweet and is what inspired the story in the first place).

Story 2: A story from Gunther’s POV, which is always fun. I love seeing how much he loves and appreciates Myne.

Story 3: Tuuli’s POV. Myne finally brings her first book home, and Tuuli both appreciates better what her sister has done and sees her as nothing but a clumsy fool. XD

Story 4: Tuuli’s POV again, and now she is learning to read and write. It’s nice to see some of the details of this process.

Story 5: This one is from Christel’s POV. I don’t recall who she is, but this is a jump forward in time, to when Ferdinand played at a tea party. Christel’s sister married somebody from the Veronica faction, and so the conversation is both about the tea party and the politics going on. It’s a longer story, but it’s nice to see a nuanced view of the faction politics outside of the children.

Story 6: Back to Tuuli’s POV, and it’s of her working hard to chase after Myne while missing her younger sister.

Story 7: Brunhilde’s POV. This is of the moment she is offered and accepts the position to be Rozemyne’s retainer, and it’s nice to get her insight into her decision. What this story really is about, though, is giving a detailed look at the layout of Rozemyne’s room as well as detailing everything that is expected of a retainer—kind of like with the temple tour in the first fanbook. It’s nice to get a detailed overview of everything, as much of it is never touched on in the main series. However, I believe this is where the first of the typos happen, of an entire line not containing a single space. This happens a time or two more in this book. Not the fault of the author, but it’s a mistake I’ve never seen in a printed book before.

That’s the end of the short stories, and what is next is two sections on the drama CD that was produced. It makes me really wish I knew Japanese, as this drama CD is only in Japanese, plus the experience the author records here is only about said Japanese version.

I do with these tellings had been flipped, of the text only version first followed by the manga version, as the former gave more context for the latter. Still, I enjoyed both versions of this retelling. I especially loved hearing how the process went for finding the voices of the characters. It makes me want to go search this out just to hear the various voices, even if I can’t understand any of it.

Now, more character design sheets! I’m pretty sure there’s less of them this time, but that makes sense when the first fanbook covered such a large chunk of the series with a lot of different characters. I love seeing the sketches and the little notes with them.

This is followed by the Noble Family Tree. There’s a lot of unnamed characters here, but it’s still cool to see how interconnected the nobles are. It was a little confusing at first until I realize the second page is a bunch of groupings that the first page didn’t have room for (with corresponding numbers to match them up). Though, some of those groupings are self-contained. Still, it’s really cool to see how many characters are related in some way when I had no idea that they were.

Then we have one of my favorite sections from the first book—another Q&A session with the author! I love learning more about the world, characters, and certain events from these questions. Some of them are clarifying questions that I don’t always need, while others are questions of aspects I never thought about. It was all fun to read.

There’s a comic after this teaching you how to make pound cake. I don’t have much of an interest in making it, but that doesn’t make it any less cool. It feels like you’re learning from Myne herself. It’s also fun to see Myne and Freida both too weak to stir for long. XD

I love the black and white illustration that follows, of Rozemyne and Ferdinand with their retainers (and Sylvester).

Lastly, there’s the bonus comics. They’re all pretty fun this round.

Overall, this fanbook feels like it has more unique content than the last (yes, many of the short stories had been posted elsewhere, but most don’t seem like they’re accessible to the English audience), and I certainly enjoyed it. It was nice to turn back to some of the early days with the flash fiction, and I loved hearing about the author’s experience with the drama CD. It’s always great to get to learn more about this world she’s created.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not interested in the drawings and manga formats in the fanbook. if you are, this is for you. On the other hand, I liked the short stories and especially the Q&A. Finally knowing how many hours there are in a day and months in a year soothes my anxietie. I know you felt the same when they kept saying third bell or others. I thought I would dislike the Drama CD recording story since I don’t know japanese and won’t listen to it ever, but it was okay. Sometimes I feel I am not of the expected demographic to read the books and fanbooks made in Japan. But well, the story trascends the nationality, ethnicity, culture and whatnot, I guess. Gonna keep them reading though.

[Iryna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these Fanbooks! Like in the first book, there was a Q&A were questions about the worldbuilding and characters had been answered.
The report for the drama CD recording was really fun to read. The short stories were nice, too. My favorite was the one from the retainer's pov.

[Cell · Rating 3 out of 5]

為設定集寫的全新短篇小說真的很像設定集

[Jesse Deleon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent fill-in info ebook!

I enjoyed reading this book as the stories were published in other places that I don't know how to get to. Recommended for everyone who is a fan!

[Juliana Terraza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Que precioso que es todo

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

More entertaining than informative, but still very informative.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was again a fun book; there was some overlap with other short stories I've read, but it was fun to have a slightly differing perspective.

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75/5