July 14th, 2024 
AstroNerdBoy Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 2 Volume 1 (Manga Review)
Ascendance of a Bookworm: I’ll do anything to become a librarian! Part 2 (I’ll even join the temple to read books!)
Honzuki no Gekokujou: Part 2
本好きの下剋上~司書になるためには手段を選んでいられません~ 第二部 「本のためなら巫女になる! 」
Welp, it is time to shift to the next part of this wonderful series. I did find it amusing that the subtitle for part 2 seems to indicate what that part is going to be about. In this case, it is Myne joining a temple to read books.
–> Buy Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 2 Volume 1 from Amazon.com
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis
Myne gets inducted into the temple as a blue priestess (shrine maiden/miko). She’s given three attendants as well. Fran is a 17 year old male, reassigned from the high priest. Gil is a 10 year old brat. And Delia is an 8 year old girl, hoping to be the mistress of the High Bishop. As such, she’s supposed to spy on Myne, whom the High Bishop has a grudge against.
Myne relishes getting to read. But when she heads out into the city with Lutz in her blue robes, Benno freaks out at Myne’s nativity. And when he learns that Myne has to make her donation, he has them return to the temple in a carriage. Benno and the High Priest have a lengthy discussion about Myne. She collapses and is rushed to Benno’s place. Benno and Lutz get angry when they learn Myne skipped eating in order to spend more time reading. As such, they decide to work with Fran to keep a tighter eye on Myne.
Later, Myne works with Tuuli, Lutz, and Benno on civilian clothing for herself and her attendants. Back at the temple, Myne still has to deal with the troublesome Gil and Delia. When Myne is given the chambers for the orphanage director, she gives Gil a chance to prove himself by making him clean the room.
Honorific Usage
Before I get into the story of Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 2 Volume 1, I want to discuss some adaptation choices made by J-Novel Club. Obviously, J-Novel Club were going to strip out all Japanese honorifics. And as I stated previously, I would prefer they be left in to retain the Japanese perspective on a Western European-Germanic fantasy world. But they don’t, and I’ve let it slide.
For Myne’s entry into the temple, she’s addressed as “Myne-sama” by her attendants. This is mostly changed to “Sister Myne”, and that sorta works. The “-sama” honorific elevates the person addressed as such whereas “Sister” does not. It just is a religious title of sorts. Not only that, but while Lutz finding Myne getting addressed as “Sister Myne” kinda works, when you know it was originally “Myne-sama”, it makes more sense. After all, there’s a massive irony in a weak, sickly girl getting elevated in status like that.
That aside, where my biggest problem occurs is that J-Novel Club doesn’t know how to deal with all the folks using the -sama honorific. For example, when Myne introduces Benno to the High Priest, she calls him “Benno-sama”. J-Novel Club decides to ignore it. And there are TONS of instances like this. Its part of the, “Ignoring Japanese honorifics when we can’t come up with an alternative is not lazy awesomeness, but leaving Japanese honorifics in is lazy disgusting crap.”
“But we used ‘Dear friend of mine’ instead of ‘Benno-sama’ in some cases. That works for us!” When I read this originally, without knowing the honorifics replacement, I thought it read weird. And I was curious to know what the Japanese was. Now I know. If “-sama” had to be replaced, I would have gone with “Master Benno”, considering he’s the head of a business.
Where’s the Shrine?
Honorifics in Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 2 Volume 1 aside, I know in the Japanese, Myne is called a “miko”. A miko is literally a “shrine maiden.” But in Japanese literature, the Japanese use “miko” as a priestess/cleric (fantasy)/holy mage. And since J-Novel Club isn’t using the term “miko”, and there are no shrines, why are they calling Myne a “shrine maiden?” I know that I’m a stickler for “accurate but readable” adaptations. And that still remains true. However, in this case, “priestess” would have been the more accurate translation.
In the story, there are priests/priestess who where blue robes. And there are the lower-class priests/priestesses who wear gray robes. There is a temple. There are no shrines. Delia isn’t called a “shrine maiden”. So I’m not sure why the literal translation was used instead of “priestess”. And the use of the term “shrine maiden” just stood out to me because it is clear J-Novel Club were covering the term “miko”.
Onto the Story
Now onto the story elements of Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 2 Volume 1. I continue to love Myne and Lutz’s relationship. He’s always been there to support Myne. That also includes scolding her when she does dumb things that could harm her fragile health. And Myne often runs to Lutz for emotional support. I also got a kick out of Lutz beating up Gil for yanking Myne to the floor.
Still, at least Gil’s anger is understandable. This temple has a completely jacked up food situation. I guess the orphans at the temple just get scraps after everyone else has had their fill. And since Gil got a promotion to be Myne’s attendant, but still has to live in the orphanage, he gets scraps rather than better food. Myne offers to pay him to work. I’m not sure how money helps Gil’s situation in the temple, unless he’s able to go out and buy his own food.
Delia only gets an introduction and a reveal to be a spy for the High Bishop, whom Myne previously attacked. She’s only eight, but wants to be the High Bishop’s mistress. Wow. I have to believe she doesn’t truly understand the full scope of what that entails. Then again, in this world, maybe she does have some sense. I don’t get the sense that the High Bishop has had sex with her yet. I’m guessing that would happen once she hit puberty. Still, it is a jacked up situation.
Finally, it will be interesting to see how Myne balances temple life with her business life. She’s apparently getting a unique situation that allows both. But that mainly seems to be from the High Bishop wanting access to Myne’s money.
Omake
The manga chapter deals with discussions of Myne’s Workshop. Part of this is the High Priest dealing with the issue with the High Bishop. The other is an expansion of the conversation between the High Priest and Benno. The short story is told from the perspective of Zahm, an attendant of the High Priest. The story is about Fran getting reassigned to Myne. We also get the notes from Suzuka-sensei and Kazuki-sensei. Then there’s a 2-page spread featuring Myne’s “Game of Life”. The rest of the pages are J-Novel Club ads.
There is a missing omake though. It seems Suzuka-sensei and Kazuki-sensei did a special, exclusive omake chapter featuring Tuuli dealing with an apparent farmer wanting to meet with Myne. Exclusivity walls suck. However, sometimes, American publishers can still gain access to said content. But I guess not in this case. This exclusive chapter for TO Books, Inc. does have a fan translation that one can find.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
In the end, while I take some issues with J-Novel Clubs adaptation, the story of Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 2 Volume 1 is quite good.
Posted in 
Tags: 
Yes, the temple is “all jacked up”. You can see that there might have been a little bit more to why Gunther lost his temper when Myne talked about entering the temple that he wasn’t going to explain to his little girl. But in the end, well, “status-based societies suck”.
As far as priestess vs shrine maiden, ironically this was not something quof, the translator, had to struggle with since in the novels Myne is quickly corrected that they are shrine maidens not priestesses. Perhaps he could have used a different word for them, like nuns (certainly would have helped shorten people’s titles..). However it might have been an intentional bit of language drift in the worldbuilding; there’s another example much later on of wet nurse (nyuubo) being used for nannies that do not ever nurse their charges. I.e. once upon a time “shrine maiden” might have been more descriptive of their role.
What he did struggle with was that just like how in Japanese “karera” can be “those men and women” and “kyoudai” is both “brothers” and “brothers and sisters”, “shinkan” in the Bookworm setting can include “miko”… to the point that at one point Myne says she would be the only blue priest present. This ended up as “blue robe” in the published translation.
Incidentally Delia is an apprentice grey shrine maiden, it’s just being abbreviated down to apprentice.
As for honorifics… while quof has his own opinions when it comes to the common reader’s understanding of Japanese honorifics (i.e. they don’t, or they only know the surface-level san=Mr/Mrs stuff), for JNC itself it’s a business decision to target a larger audience. “It’s much more likely for a newcomer/visitor to be turned off by untranslated honorifics than it is for an anime/manga/LN fan to boycott the company because honorifics aren’t retained” to quote their project manager. But Bookworm in particular is very loose with how it translates names and honorifics. For instance much later on a character that’s referred to as “youfu” is never addressed in the translation as “adoptive father” but instead by name.
Though the “dear friend of mine” is actually an invention of the translation, not translation of Benno-sama. The original is just “watakushi no negai o kokoroyoku kikiire gosokurou itadakimashita koto kokoro yori ureshiku zonjimasu”, which is just the “i thank you for your kind assistance from the bottom of my heart” with “dear friend of mine” I guess tacked on to fill the second speech bubble in both instances. In the novel it’s just “I thank you for your noble assistance from the bottom of my heart.”
That’s rubbish. It is the same argument companies used to make back before unflipped manga became acceptable. Further, the Nibley Twins, who are champions of “accurate but readable” translations did Fruits Basket for Tokyo Pop. They not only left in the standard honorifics, but they also had the brother/sister ones left in too. That became TP’s best selling manga.
I figured that’s what they did to cover the fact that Myne changed how she addressed Benno (from Benno-san to Benno-sama).
Anyway, I guess you have access to the raws. Awesome! I was pointed to fan translations, which is why I had a deeper discussion of things in this review.
As always, thanks for you great information!
Sounds awesome, will check it out.