Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 1 Volume 7 (Manga Review)
Ascendance of a Bookworm: I’ll do anything to become a librarian! Part 1 (If there aren’t any books, I’ll just have to make some!!)
Honzuki no Gekokujou: Part 1
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～ 第一部 「本がないなら作ればいい！」

Ah. Here comes the volume where Myne does what many folks have fantasized about at some point in their life. 😅 And it concludes the first part of the manga series.

–> Buy Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 1 Volume 7 from Amazon.com

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

Freida and Myne meet again, where Freida makes another attempt to get her to Freida’s family’s company. Myne has her baptism at the temple. She gets excited when the High Bishop has a book to read the story of the gods. He also teaches them methods to praise the gods, which amuses Myne’s Motosu self. Unfortunately, Myne’s weak condition causes her to collapse and get sent to rest.

Myne gets up and discovers there’s a book room in the temple. As such, she decides she has to join the temple. Her family is against the idea. However, Myne is summoned back to the temple. When the priest learn she has the Devouring, they test her and discover that she has massive amounts of mana. Benno explains to her that the Temple will be after her, since she has so much mana. As such, he gets her to agree to a new contract, whereby products from Myne’s workshop get sold exclusively by Lutz.

Myne and her family are invited to the Temple. They come up with a plan to help protect Myne. However, the High Bishop despises them and their requests. He demands Myne be imprisoned for the Temple’s use. Myne’s father fights some of the priest. When the High Bishop summons more, Myne snaps. In her anger, she instinctively channels her mana to start crushing the fat, High Bishop.

The High Priest gets Myne to calm down and think rationally before she kills the High Bishop. He agrees to the conditions for Myne becoming an apprentice Blue Miko.

Myne Goes Off!

To date, Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 1 Volume 7 is probably my favorite volume, just because Myne snaps. As a petulant teen, there were times where I fantasized about crushing fools who spoke ill of me or my family. So when Myne actually carries out this fantasy, I was thinking, “You go, girl!” Were I in Myne’s situation, I’ve no doubt I would have done the same thing. And I’ll be honest, at a young age, I may have been more tempted to go ahead and kill the High Bishop.

I gather that the ability to do this crushing technique is not common. Or rather, commoners are not able to do it. Heck, most commoners would already be dead. It is only the fact that Myne reached out to her Motosu self as Myne died kept her body alive. And then when Freida provided a magic tool for Myne to dump her excess mana into furthered her lifespan. And yet, Myne still has so much mana, she could easily kill folks if she wanted. As I look back on things, I think it is clear that Myne’s mana stores are why the trombe plant spouted when she touched a fruit.

I don’t get the sense that there are mages in this world. Since Myne is getting sent to a temple, I don’t guess she’ll get a combat roll. (There was a war referenced, the results of which are why in part Myne is getting a sweetheart deal with the temple.) I would have enjoyed Myne becoming another Lina Inverse from The Slayers. I suppose she’ll charge that chalice with mana for others to use. Not exactly sure how all that will work, but I suppose we’ll find out.

Regardless, this whole class system sucks. Having nobility isn’t a problem for me. However, the “know your place” mentality does (and always has). So it will be interesting to see if Myne upsets the apple cart with her entry into the temple.

Omake

The omake content of Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 1 Volume 7 starts with the usual extra manga chapter. This tells a story of Myne with Freida and her cook. As expected it is about desserts. Though this time, Benno gets involved in the story. The short story is from Corrina’s perspective. Suzuka-sensei has her note, confirming she’ll draw the Part 2 story. Kazuki-sensei has a note as well. And then there are a couple of art images.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap up my review of Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 1 Volume 7 with some final thoughts.

• I really like the puppy love stuff between Lutz and Myne. I know that mentally, Myne is older. But she is in a child’s body, and she does rely on Lutz a lot. It is so adorable when she runs to him. And I got a chuckle out of the baptism, where seeing Lutz and Myne together was seen like a mini-wedding.
• Myne and Freida’s friendship is also a nice element I like since it gives Myne a girl chum outside her family.
• Another moment I loved in the manga was when Myne’s father beat up some low-level priests while defending Myne. Of course Myne had the last say in the matter, but total respect to her dad.
• I know I don’t speak often of the adaptation. But recently, I’ve learned that as I suspected, Japanese honorifics are heavily used in the Japanese. I know the setting here is supposed to be European fantasy. However, I’d rather keep things the way the Japanese put out. On the other hand, if something is not set in Japan, I’d love for Japanese writers and such not use Japanese honorifics. Oh well.

In the end, I really enjoyed this final volume in the Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 1 series. I’ll probably do a review of the entire part 1.