Recent reading: Honzuki volumes 1-9

In the last month I’ve read nine volumes of 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～ (Honzuki, or Ascendance of a Bookworm), which has been a comfy ride. This post spoils them. I also haven’t read the rest of Honzuki, so this is just my judgment of these arcs so far, with the understanding that anything and everything could change. This is, after all, not even 33% of the series. If you haven’t seen or read it, I’d say to give it a try—it’s pretty addictive. The developments in these volumes have been pretty crazy, considering the first book featured a meagre little girl feebly trying to reproduce ancient writing technologies in a medieval fantasy world.

I really enjoyed Honzuki so far. It feels really unique. The series is extremely cosy slice of life, with a mission that really makes you root for its oddball protagonist. I’ve never read an isekai series before this (a proper isekai, not just fantasy novels)—but, honestly, I’m having more fun with it way than I thought possible. As someone who is equally book-crazed, I instantly related to the heroine and wanted to see her succeed, and her enterprising ways in her isekai world are a delight.

• The first volumes feel detailed and rich, rather than merely long.
• Watching Myne warm up to her family is genuinely heartwarming! There are many sincere interactions between the characters that made me smile.
• There’s a lot of great humour derived from her inventions and reactions to her new life. Oh, and the back and forths between some of the characters—I’m a fan of squabbling, what can I say?
• The end-of-book alt PoVs flesh out the world really well and help minimise the damage done to the worldbuilding by Myne’s reclusiveness.
• The use of Earth tech for comfort in the setting feels gratifying. I’m not great with crafts, but it’s fun to learn about all the DIY paper-making etc.
• It’s nice that, to compensate for her overpowered knowledge, Myne is relatively hindered in her environment.
• The plot moves super duper fast, so it doesn’t feel too long at all… at the start, anyway.

But, as Myne gradually loses her connection to Earth and starts habituating to her new environment—a necessary development—it feels like something interesting recedes in the process. A lot of the special things from the start, like the new products, go on the backburner, and the same things get recycled over and over again, which makes it feel a bit repetitive. The situational comedy derived from taking a rather ditzy Earth girl and putting her in a different world also kind of disappears, although there are still highs like the panda bus.

My problem largely starts with the third arc (領主の養女), where a lot of the most well-developed characters start to take a backseat, especially characters who aren’t Rosamyne’s inferiors in the feudal food chain. They start to feel like soldiers she’s deploying, and they get trotted out every month or so for a fairly samey set of interactions, ones where Rosamyne has very little connection to what is happening directly—in particular, overseeing the orphanages is very repetitive. Rosamyne is an increasingly powerful character in many senses, and she does push some of my power fantasy buttons, but I feel like some of the tension went away as a result, and this series was never high on that to begin with.

As those characters disappear, a host of new, noble names are introduced with almost no fleshing out, making them forgettable compared to the characters they replaced (for example, Freida, Otto, and Myne’s family—Benno, Gil, and Lutz are thankfully still present, but on the bench). As a comparison, the neighbourhood Myne grew up in was pretty well-developed outside of her and really benefited from the alternate PoV chapters at the ends of the volumes, but there haven’t really been many good vignettes for the other nobles yet (except Wilfried).

As a result, this arc has started to feel really one-dimensional and long-winded, with the highlights being Rosamyne’s pre-existing relationships with Ferdinand and Sylvester (exceptions which demonstrate that it’s not good to throw the baby out with the bathwater). Normally I would be permissive or even welcoming of the slow maximalism these volumes exhibit, but my reading speed in Japanese is very, very poor, which of course means I’m not really equipped to judge it the same way. Nevertheless, it feels excruciating, especially because a lot of the extra content is redundant and non-descriptive, often consisting of restated dialogue or having her attendants change her clothes again.

I’m really hoping this arc improves and that this is just a lull while things get rearranged, rather than a long-term nosedive. After all, I really liked the first five two arcs, although I also thought the second arc took a few books to get good. And there are a lot of things that needed changing as a result of Rosamyne’s promotion, things that will take a while to shake out. And I do think part of the problem is that life in the temple is starting to get boring, and that’s definitely not going to last forever.

Also, I think I may have misread this section because I really struggle with the chapters that are about manufacturing, but I… think Rosamyne discovered leverage in this world??? That seems like an awfully big deal.

Anyway, thanks for reading my little rant about Honzuki. I’m sure I’ll post again when I’ve read more, assuming I don’t drop it. It’d be a huge shame if I dropped it, but it might take me 3-4 months to finish all of it, so we’ll see—reading time is precious. I might just need a break from it, who knows? You see, I straight up cannot put it down, even when I’m annoyed with it, haha. You see, I really do like it. :D