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Ascendance of a Bookworm: I’ll Do Anything to Become a Librarian!, Part 3: Adopted Daughter of an Archduke, Vol. 5

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By Miya Kazuki and You Shiina. Released in Japan as “Honzuki no Gekokujou: Shisho ni Naru Tame ni wa Shudan wo Erandeiraremasen” by TO Books. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by quof.

Word of warning: this review is filled with spoilers. If you do not want to be spoiled, you should only read everything above the cover image.

The final volume of this particular arc sees Rozemyne finally managing to achieve everything she needs in order to fix her mana and her body. Given that we’d previously seen the expedition to get the ruelle ingredient, and saw it fail, it should not be surprising that we see it succeed here. The main new plot point is the introduction of the Archduke’s daughter Charlotte, who adores Rozemyne and sees her as a big sister, something that absolutely fills Rozemyne (and, let’s be frank here, Myne) with delight. She is therefore determined to give Charlotte the best possible baptism before she takes her potion, which we are told will require her to sleep for about six months. Unfortunately, things are (again) sent into turmoil by Wilfried being unable to think politically. And then, well… everything turns terrible.

Even with the hint that Rozemyne would be out cold for six months as seen earlier in the volume, I don’t think any of us expected the time skip to actually be TWO YEARS. The fact that it doesn’t even fully heal her (though she is allegedly much healthier now) and also still looks like a seven-year-old makes it extremely easy to understand her stunned reaction at the “end” of the book. Except, given this is a Bookworm novel, we have a bunch of stories from other perspectives at the end, and this time they take up almost half the entire volume. The stories serve to tell us two things: first, that everything Rozemyne does and accomplishes is truly stunning and irreplaceable… and second, that she’;s also set everything up so well that it can run pretty well without her. Indeed, Benno states that this is a good thing in some ways, as having no new innovations for the next while will let the innovations she’s already come up with take hold.

While this book revolves around a serious event, it is not without its humor. Angelica manages to even inject the best joke in the volume into the middle of the tense midair rescue of Charlotte. It is also not without its romance, though surprisingly – though it shouldn’t be – the pairing its’ been teasing for the last few books is the one that doesn’t work out. Bookworm is walking a fine balancing act between showing off the problems with a very class-based system while also showing that this is not something that can be changed overnight by one girl and her books, and The non-marriage of Damuel and Brigitte is an excellent example of this, as it forces them to think harder in order to give the reader more immersion into this very political, very difficult country. On the lighter side, Tulli is suddenly becoming a hot commodity… am I the only one seeing her and Lutz as a pairing? If only as Lutz and Myne was pretty thoroughly torpedoed several books ago.

The next arc has the exhausting subtitle “Founder of the Royal Academy’s So-Called Library Committee”, and is apparently “The Great Brain at the Academy – The Rozemyne Variations”. We’ll see how she copes with her miniature Rip Van Winkle timeskip next time. Till then, this is another volume that reminds you why this series is one of the most popular light novels of the last few years.

My Alcoholic Escape from Reality

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By Nagata Kabi. Released in Japan as “Genjitsu Touhi Shitetara Boroboro ni Natta Hanashi ” by East Press, serialized in Matogrosso. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jocelyne Allen. Adapted by Lianne Sentar.

If you have read the previous volumes of Nagata Kabi’s biographical examination of her past struggles, seeing the title and the cover art for this new book probably makes you think “Oh no.” But yes, once again life is not as simple as it seems, and recovery can be a path you walk on that might just lead you to a different wrong path. After dealing with mental and emotional struggles in My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness and My Solo Exchange Diary, and resolving to stop writing memoir-style manga (as she worries it makes her family and friends upset, which it does to an extent), a combination of adjusting to a lot of new medication and a lack of inspiration for fictional manga ideas have led her to stop by the ten bars that are between her house and the nearest station. The result? After intense stomach pain, she goes to the hospital to find she has acute pancreatitis – her reading is TEN TIMES what it should be. And so… she’s admitted to the hospital.

This takes place over a more compressed period of time than the previous volumes, focused very specifically on this point in her life. As you can imagine, a lot of it makes for uncomfortable reading, and going cold turkey on alcohol and fatty foods proves to be far more challenging than anyone can imagine. There’s also some excellent examination of medications and painkillers – the side effects that they can cause, the differences between them, and the depressing realization that some of these may need to be taken for the rest of her life. The hospital staff are very nice, but also seem to be nice in that “I am not personally involved with you” way, so it can come across ass a bit callous at times. There’s also a great discussion of alcoholism just before she’s discharged, as the doctor talking to her notes “Japanese people see alcohol as alcohol” – in other words, not as a drug, or something that could lead to alcoholism.

The other great part of this book is showing us Nagata Kabi’s determination to create new work, and how this can get so frustrating that, well, she can end up drinking herself into the hospital. Good things are happening to her – while there, she finds out that My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness won the Harvey Award – but this does not necessarily translate into ongoing creativity, as she has four partially completed projects with four different publishers, none of which are nearing completion. She’s also feeling tremendous guilt over how others are seeing her memoirs – not just her family, but a manga that she enjoys reading where the protagonist is told “don’t write about our life”. The trouble is… that’s what she excels at. A manga friend of hers urges her to stop pushing her brain to do things it doesn’t want to do and continue writing autobiographical memoirs. Even if it can be painful for all involved.

This is hopefully not the last we see from the author – a new memoir was just published in Japan three months ago. As with other books by this author, it can be difficult to read. But I enjoyed its look at struggling to accept that the body can crumble just as much as the mind can, and that recovery can be just as hard.

ROLL OVER AND DIE: I Will Fight for an Ordinary Life with My Love and Cursed Sword!, Vol. 3

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By kiki and kinta. Released in Japan as “Omae Gotoki ga Maou ni Kateru to Omou na to Gachizei ni Yuusha Party wo Tsuihou Sareta node, Outo de Kimama ni Kurashitai” by GC Novels. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jason Muell. Adapted by Brock Wassman.

If anyone had “zombie apocalypse” on your Roll Over and Die bingo card, well, congratulations. I can’t really be surprised, as not only is this series far more comfortable with being a horror book than a yuri book, but it’s several different types of horror book as well. That said, the undercurrent of the entire series is “we need to fix all this so we can live a peaceful happy life”, and, especially here, we are told that getting a peaceful and happy life does not mean sticking your head in the sand. Milkit has a quote that sums it up: “This world has no shortage of people willing to drag others down to make themselves feel superior and in control,” said Milkit. “The moment you accept that you can’t get away, you let them win.” This book is about not letting them win. Not that it’s a total victory, though…

Pictured on the cover are Gadhio, formerly of the Hero’s party, and his wife Tia. If he seems a bit less than happy, it’s because Tia’s been dead for the last six years. After Milkit gets kidnapped AGAIN, Flum discovers that the culprit is Milkit’s old master, the one who damaged her face and is in general one of the worst people in this book (and that’s saying something). Unfortunately, after Flum gets her brutal revenge and takes Milkit back, they discover that the dead are returning to life. Not just Milkit’s old master, either, but Gadhio’s wife and even Eterna’s adopted family have returned from the dead. They seem real… mostly? They’re being very friendly? But how much can this be trusted, especially since it seems to be part of a plot by the Church?

As with previous books in the series, this volume features a lot of body horror, brutal killings, and bad things happening to both good and bad people. There’s graphic descriptions of torture, and while there are fewer main characters dead than I had expected when I started, in the end surviving is about all our heroes really achieved. At the same time, of course, there are a few really sugary sweet yuri scenes sprinkled throughout (primarily Flum and Milkit, though there’s also some suggestive stuff between Ink and Eterna which I am far less comfortable with.) Milkit here decides that what she’s feeling for Flum is definitely love. Flum likely feels the same, but both of them are too shy, and possibly a bit too broken, to have it be much more than “we just want to be at each other’s side”. That said, I am appreciative of these scenes, as without them this book would be too dark to even read at all.

The Hero’s Party was also in this book, and things appear to be going very badly for them, as two are evil and two are likely going to be forced into evil. The next book in the series has Cyril on the cover, so I suspect we may see even more of them next time. Till then, this is still well-written and compelling, but save it for when you have a strong stomach.