Manga for Bibliophiles: Ascendence of a Bookworm

Honzuki no Gekokujou; Ascendance of a Bookworm ~ Stop at nothing to be a librarian ~

There is only one thing I like more than books: books about books. If you are a bibliophile like me, then I want to point you at a manga (based on a lightnovel) named Honzuki no Gekokujou

The story starts, admittedly a bit bumpy, in good otherworld traditions. The heroine is not going through a door/portal/magic circle or playing a VMMO (as the newest variant is); instead she is dying.

Yes, she dies after just having graduated and gotten her dream job: librarian. Killed by falling books in an earthquake.

What a bad ending, right? But looks like whatever god watched her at that time found that too hard to be endurable and moved her into a different word.
Where she wakes up in the body of a small girl.
A poor, sick, small girl.

If that wasn't bad enough, there are no books!! Not even paper.

Of course the heroine then does the only reasonable thing. If she can't get her hands on books to read, she has to produce her own books.

And that is where it gets interesting.

Our heroine is still a small girl, confined because of her sickness to the home of the family she is now the "child" of. To reach her goal, she has to do a lot of work. But first of all she has to help the family.

Because in a poor family, even the smallest children have to help. First of all the family has to prepare for winter. That needs a lot of stored wood, for example. But also candles need to be made and everyone has a “winter project” to make things that can be sold on the market, like baskets. Which need a lot of material to be brought in before the winter. And so on.

With her vast knowledge of all the books she read, the heroine can make a lot of different things nobody knows about in her new world. Like shampoo made out from the oil of a certain fruit, which later becomes her entry card into the trade business.

Frankly this lack of goods is in some parts unbelievable, but still very funny.

She also starts to help at the city gate to do the bookkeeping. Not the one she likes the most, in a library, but adding up numbers for equipment and such. As a well-studied modern girl she outdoes even the former trader that is originally tasked with this.

But still the main goal is to get her hands on books, or as a substitute, something to write on at first. A lot is tried and of course a lot of tries fail, and so she has to go through different methods of making something to write with. She haggles and makes agreements. And still things fail. And so she tries again, taking another route. As a fellow bibliophile, I could really understand her frustration. So cute!

If you like slow worldbuilding, this is for you. If you are more into fast paced action, you should probably not start this series.

I especially like the details of the daily life that you can see and that get explained to you through the heroine's eyes.

If I have hooked you, there are good news for you.

The series is, at the moment, only available as manga scanlations up to chapter 20 (from a few hundred), and the novel translated to chapter 101 (and the current translater will stop next chapter). BUT

The translator stops because there will be an official translation be done by J-Novel Club. They announced it a week ago.

ALSO last week (surely no coincidence) came the announcement of the anime!

Personally I think the colors are too bright... but we will see. I definitely will!

scanlation on mangakakalot
fan translation

PS: If you wondered why I never said the heroine’s name: The one from her new life is (or could be written as) “Maine” - like in main character. Coincidence? Generally the names of things are often quite similar to ones you (could) know from this world.