Ascendance of a Bookworm

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  Bookworm Part 3 Vol. 1 Discussion!
  bookworm • • myskaros  

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  @iDarkTemplar said in Bookworm Part 3 Vol. 1 Discussion!: @CamChar I'm fairly sure that everyone who reads or watches japanese material (novels, manga, anime) for some time, sooner or later learns just tiny bit of japanese language and culture, like 'chan' and 'kun' and 'sensei' suffixes and words like 'keikaku' (which means 'plan' as you might know :). I understand that from point of view of translation leaving such bits might be undesireable, but from my point of view of a reader (somewhat biased) it's not bad. EDIT: Btw, "Lessy" is already a reduced form from name "Lesser Panda". In my native language, such reductions of names serve to display cuteness as well on their own. I guess it might be common feature of some different languages. I think the main problem is the way cultures name their cars differ from place to place. In the US, if we name the car, it can be fairly generic like "Betsy", "The Beast", or <OwnersName>Mobile. If we use this pattern, the Myne's Lesser Panda vehicle comes out to something like just "Panda", "Pandamobile", "Mynemobile", or the "RozynRacer". Though the Mynemobile does have a nice ring to it.
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  Ascendance of a Bookworm Vol. 6 (Manga) Discussion
  bookworm • • exedore  

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  @zwabbit You and me both!
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  [CORRECTIONS]-Bookworm Part 3 Vol 1
  • Rahul Balaggan  

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  @LordClockworks Good catches. Veronica was addressed as "the archduke's mother" there, as Japanese is want to do, and in writing that as "Veronica" from memory I accidentally misremembered it as "Victoria" due to their similarities (and also Victoria the Great having a subconscious effect on me probably). Thanks for the catch.
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  List of Bookworm Characters, Events, Terms, and Titles (as of the end of Part 3 Volume 1)
  • DjinnFor  

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  @DjinnFor have you been keeping up with this somewhere else like on Word or anything?
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  The Logistics of Magical Warfare
  • zwabbit  

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  By the time the nobility is somehow too exhausted to continue fighting, there wouldn't be 20,000 invading soldiers to do much of anything, especially if the nobles supporting the invaders were already routed. With the amount of firepower that we've seen nobles be capable of, the ratio of losses that a commoner force would suffer facing off against a noble force would be so lopsided that the commoner force would have completely broken as a cohesive combat element by the time the nobles were so drained of mana that the commoners could run them down. At which point the nobles get all the time they need to recuperate since the bulk of the enemy army is dead. The only way this would not be true is if the ratio of commoners vs nobles was something like five or six orders of magnitude in difference. So a commoner army attempting to invade for example Ehrenfest would need to number in the millions to go up against the full let's say 100 to 200 nobles that could actually be mobilized to fight. Even if you sent an army a hundred thousand strong, I'd still bet on the nobles. You've been arguing that the commoners can try to swarm the nobles through sheer numbers, but in a conventional military situation, that is not how it works. If a field army is actually shattered, it generally takes years to reconstitute that force if you want it to approach anywhere near the first army's level of effectiveness. And if you had the reinforcements and resources to begin with to send in another force quickly, they would have been accompanying the first army already. As far as the suggestion of them serving as the sweeping/occupying force after the battle is actually won, again, that means they are not actual participants in the actual battle. Which means they are not integrated at the unit level into the formal standing military of the nobility. After all, what need to develop doctrine, tactics, and general combined arms methods between commoners and nobles if the commoners aren't actually doing the fighting? And if they aren't integrated at that level, they're really not part of the standing military, they amount to basically a policing force for after the fact. The biggest problem with arguing for the use of a large commoner force on the actual battlefield, large enough to actually mean a thing when noble vs noble combat commences, is the fact that for a good chunk of the battle your commoner force would need to be actively protected by your nobles from attacks by the opposing nobles. And not just on the battlefield itself, but also the very long logistics train that's needed to feed your commoner army. After all, it's not like the few numbers of nobles about would be anywhere near enough to fly supplies forward even if they were willing to perform what's a pretty menial job. So you would need to spread out your noble force to cover lots of weakpoints, which decreases your active combatant force. On the other hand a noble force that did not have to babysit a commoner force could launch concentrated strikes, bringing the fullness of their strength to bear. This being the case, why bother bringing along what amounts to a handicap? They can't help during the actual battle, they need significant protection for most of the battle, and they're only useful after the battle is effectively won. The moment one side's nobles are forced to retire, any commoner force that's accompanying the losing side has the choice of either surrendering immediately or trying to retreat as well, or getting blown to bits by the winning nobles.
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  Has this title made you research anything?
  • Tiko424  

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  I'm old enough that I didn't have to look up mimeograph because I remember using the things in school to print handouts when I was in middle school (by high school they started getting these monstrous devices that took up a wall in the office called copy machines). The teachers would type up the handout on a typewriter with the wax mimeograph paper loaded in it then one of us would run it to the office and watch the secretary wrap the mimeograph paper around the drum on the machine, snap the fittings over the ends of it to hold it in place, load a stack of (what we would today call) copy paper underneath it, and turn on the machine to start spinning the drum, which would pull in a sheet of paper from one side, print on it on the way through, and spit it out into a stack on the other side. When you typed on the mimeograph paper it didn't actually poke holes in it. The back side was a thin material that was permeable to the ink, and typing would just remove the layer of wax off it where the letter was typed.
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  Miya Kazuki: "Please ask J-Novel Club to translate "Fan Book""
  • Microdynames  

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  @Sam-Pinansky Hi! Been a while since I've seen you post, but I take that as you being hard at work getting more content than one person could possibly read. We tend to forget that there's at least two sets of copyright laws and lots of other legal entanglements involved in JNC bringing us these books. Keep up the work. You guys rock.
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  How did you discover Bookworm
  • Rahul Balaggan  

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  I saw an article on Crunchyroll about Bookworm's LN (or was it the manga?) license by J-Novel Club and thought the premise looked interesting. I tried the preview for it and found a few other series I was interested in and was soon signed up and hooked. My first J-Novel series was actually Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, though. I started with the anime and then moved to the physical copies. I also think I might have found J-Novel's website somewhere along the line earlier but then didn't sign up at the time because there wasn't enough I was interested in, and I then forgot about it entirely until I rediscovered it with Bookworm. I don't really remember for sure.
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  Re Rereading while taking notes
  • Tiko424  

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  @Shiny said in Re Rereading while taking notes: Fantasy speculation - if weather impacts on the protection shield around the city then this might be detectable by those with low levels of mana who have higher levels of mana sensitivity. Supporting that is that both Rozemyne and Bezewanst have been mentioned being unable to predict the weather while Rozemyne's commoner circle can predict the weather easily.
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  Future Relationship Speculations
  • piisfun  

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  @alfonso_rd_36 said in Future Relationship Speculations: @Bookworm-0 said in Future Relationship Speculations: @alfonso_rd_36 Ascendance of the Soup Fan Non, non... Ascendance of a Bookworm: The Rise of the Soup Fan. Ascendance of a Bookworm: Consommating
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  [CORRECTIONS]-Bookworm Part 2 Vol 4
  • Rahul Balaggan  

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  In published ebook (I'll also report to support@) Challenging Wax Stencils “NOOO! We don’t have (cooking sheets)!” I was trying to make wax paper in the most simple way possible, but we didn’t have cooking sheets. Before cooking sheets were invented, people used aluminum foil and paraffin paper. All those should be changed to "cooking baking papers". Thank you!! @Tube - https://forums.j-novel.club/post/87446 and @Segoth - https://forums.j-novel.club/post/87437
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  If you could send one book across time and space to Myne, what would you pick?
  • piisfun  

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  I'd send her a book of nursery rhymes and childhood stories, and I'd send it to her shortly after Kamil was born. I'd like to see if Humpty Dumpty gets contextualized as an egg no matter which universe you drop him into.
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  Bookworm Part 2 Vol. 4 Discussion!
  bookworm • • myskaros  

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  The Premium Edition’s Table of Contents has been updated to reflect the Bonus Manga. You may have to do a hard refresh to be able to download it. Please note the Ebook Edition will still say 1.0 Once again if you bought from any other ebook platform the change may not be instantaneous, and may require more time for that company to process the update.
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  Ascendance of a Bookworm - LN vs. WN
  • Rahul Balaggan  

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  @hiroto guess I'll see in a few months. Main potential issue I see is the readers not having enough context to understand Ferdinand's reactions in front of Rozemyne. And from what you've said about the editing, the required context is likely to be missing. But on the bright side, the potential theories in the forum ought to be entertaining.
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  shipping(relationships) for myne (potential spoilers)
  relationship • • Gamegirlfangirl  

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  Hello, We actually already have a relationship speculation topic: https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/3050/future-relationship-speculations?page=1 As such I will be locking this one down, as it is a duplicate, feel free to join in on the already established topic.
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  Real World Political Parallels in Bookworm
  • zwabbit  

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  In this particular case it's not so much an issue of the "upper class" as it is that section of the petty nobility made up of laynobles that appear to be heading for a spectacular crunch, much as the samurai did during the late Edo/early Meiji period. As Damuel noted, laynoble knights like him, representative of the warrior aspect of the samurai, are in general not very rich and don't have many opportunities to earn money since they can't hunt very well the more lucrative feybeasts. Many laynobles are also apparently making money as scholar-officials, reminiscent of the samurai that did paperwork or used their education to try to fill niches in the economy. And by all indications, because of their status, laynobles aren't permitted to engage in certain types of work either, because it is officially beneath their station. Laynobles are also likely the most numerous of the nobles. So we have a bunch of petty nobles that don't have a lot of avenues for making money, who seem to be stuffing the lower levels of the duchy bureaucracy and placing a burden upon its efficient operation, and ultimately aren't that useful for the main thing nobles need to be good at, having mana to spare for the maintenance of the duchy. Kind of like how the samurai of the late Edo period were too numerous, their stipends were a massive charge on the government purse for arguably no actual work being done, and they couldn't actually engage in commerce or industry because of their official station so most ended up quite poor relative to merchants and the like. If/when the publishing guild really takes off, we're going to see yet another major source of revenue for the laynobles get lopped right off, which is almost certainly going to cause even greater economic hardship for that class. At which point some may get desperate enough to do something stupid, and even if they have less mana, that they have mana at all means they're liable to be much, much more dangerous and difficult to put down than a mere commoner rebellion. This is a problem that we know Ferdinand is already aware of, so I suspect he and Sylvester are working in the background to preemptively prepare for it. Now, if Kazuki-sensei was feeling especially bloody minded, some of that preparation may actually be to prune the number of laynobles. More probably, since despite the deaths thus far Kazuki-sensei does not appear interested in wholesale bloodbaths, Sylvester and Ferdinand are going to use this opportunity to make a few examples of the most incompetent laynobles, possibly remove the likely reserved status of certain administrative jobs that previously required a scholar-official to do them and allow for commoner attendants to do them, and redirect the laynobles to be able to engage in other endeavors. The ones that succeed may well spawn a "new" social class of working gentry instead of landed gentry/petty nobility, further enhancing Ehrenfest's wealth. Those that fail, well, Ferdinand is nothing if not pragmatic about dealing with failures.
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  Bookworm Part 2 Vol. 2 Discussion!
  bookworm • • myskaros  

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  Yeah, the name is just an actual meme/pun in Japanese, and spelling it like Shikikoza / Shicicoza /whatever would have made his name stick out enormously. Like you've got a ton of German and Swedish names then suddenly there's this Japanese as fuck name out of nowhere. Totally not worth preserving, especially when the intended joke (Shikikoza being Zakokishi backwards) is completely incomprehensible to English readers. There's a few more names that are just Japanese with their letters mixed around for memes, and I imagine that I will give all of them a similar treatment. Because, it's like, in Japanese each consonant is attached to a vowel (except "n"). When all the names are written like this (Damueru, Ferudinando, etc) it doesn't stick out, all the names are like it. But in English when you go from "Gunther" to like "Korasereru" the feel is completely off. Bookworm;s world is made in the style of ye olde European world and I have to really work double time to preserve this feel in English even when the author is able to use quirks of the Japanese language to fit in jokes and stuff that would really hurt the atmosphere if preserved literally in English.
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  A poll about a relatively unimportant topic (Myne's Hair Color)
  • db0ssman  

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  @Gus-The-Snail I think there will be many many volumes until a conversatin like that would be relevent.
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  Arno, with little spoiler.
  • hopebestman  

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  @Jon-Mitchell I kinda like the idea of Arno being sold as a worker for a salt mine. (rub salt into the wounds comes to mind)
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  Trombe, Parue & other various magical plant life
  • Rahul Balaggan  

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  @LIbri-Liberorum said in Trombe, Parue & other various magical plant life: @Isshou said in Bookworm Part 3 Vol. 1 Discussion!: We know that a seed was likely close enough that Myne's blood grew a second tree not too far from the first tree. I interpreted that as it being a new sprouting of the same tree. The tree had infiltrated through the ground in the bare region, so those roots/whatever were present when Myne bled onto the ground. In Part 2 Vol 2 near the end of the chapter "Rescue and Reprimand" Ferdinand states "... harmed who you were supposed to protect, allowed a second unnecessary trombe to appear." This leads me to believe Myne and company were far enough away that the roots or any threat from the first tree would not be present. Hence it being called a second one instead of an offshoot from the first tree. We also see the blood allow the trombe attacking Myne to recover even from the darkness blessed weapons. If it was an offshoot of the first trombe wouldn't the knights notice the main part of the plant also recovering, at least a tiny amount? They also fly back to a crater which Myne comments that it seems large enough to fit a farming village in. Which I would expect to be many acres of land. I do agree that there's likely already too many seeds present to do an effective clean up now, but we don't know how far seeds are flung from the original plant nor how large or numerous the seeds are. Logically if there was something that could be done to manage the population of trombe it seems like it would be done with the level of threat people make about trombe. If spores or small seeds are expelled when exterminating a trombe it would make sense to isolate the area. We have seen a wind shield that could be used. Though no comment on the strength of mana that would be needed to make a shield large enough for containment. We haven't really encountered too many feyplants, though was some of the odd plants Myne tried cooking really feyplants? There was a mushroom that would dance if not roasted and that weird daikon radish that was crushed like garlic and turned red. I'm hoping we'll learn more based on the ingredient collection but we'll just have to wait and see.