Ascendance of a Bookworm - General Discussion

hopebestman

@hiroto oh, wait a sec. these premium short stories comes from these stuff? But AoaB doesnt have short stories, right? These special POVs were giving even for kindle readers(or wherever you reading)? So Next volume or so, can we see these stories?

Rahul Balaggan

@hopebestman

Yes, those are bonus short stories.

However what hiroto is referring to is a compilation book, like the Arifureta Shoet Story Compilation.

As for will we see these short stories, no one knows only time will tell...

hopebestman

@Rahul-Balaggan hahahahahah i was editing and tagging you for the question :D jhagsdjhagsdjhas

Edit: @Rahul-Balaggan just for information, did we ever get premium short story for AoaB? Or is there any special POV like these examples and we didnt read? Ofc, i am not asking for future volumes stuff but did they ever release story as for timeline fits with our volumes(except Ferdinand's info gathering. That will be release with one of the future volume) and we did or we didnt get?

hiroto

@hopebestman said in Ascendance of a Bookworm - General Discussion:

@hiroto oh, wait a sec. these premium short stories comes from these stuff? But AoaB doesnt have short stories, right? These special POVs were giving even for kindle readers(or wherever you reading)? So Next volume or so, can we see these stories?

In Japan, there are multiple way that you can receive Bookworm bonus short stories. These are all physical copies and they do not have any bonus stories in electric form.

Purchase Print Book directly from TO Book online store.
Purchase drama CD
Purchase anime Blue-ray Disk.
Purchase tea set (this is the first merchandise which comes with stories.)

So, there are quite a few new bonus stories written every year, for limited readers who purchase those items. Since J-novel doesn't distribute them, I assume they don't have license to translate those.

Last year, TO Books compiled 21 such stories into a short story collection book and published so they became available for all the readers. I really hope J-novel will license this.

Meanwhile more unpublished stories will accumulate, and I would expect there will be another compilation next year or so.

BiYao

I'm really want a ~~Spice and Wolf~~ Bookworm Anniversary Collector's Edition. Didn't have money to buy the SnW at that time.

hiroto

@hiroto said in Ascendance of a Bookworm - General Discussion:

They are going crazy on merchandizing.

https://tobooks.shop-pro.jp/?pid=150975890

18,000 yen (~$170) tea party set

Comes with You Shiina illustrations and a Miya Kazuki Short Story.

It is sold out in less than a day. Kazuki-sensei tweeted that she was chatting with the TO BOOK staff who planned the product that since it is pretty expensive, they expected to sell them off over a year or two.

pcj

@hiroto said in Ascendance of a Bookworm - General Discussion:

It is sold out in less than a day.

Well heck, they come with Bookworm side stories. It's almost worth the price just for that. :-)

Libri Liberorum

There is an essay comparing Medieval Europe with the Bookworm world, concentrating on the effects of mass printing, here.

Sekki

I recently read all released books (Kindle Amazon). I must say they are very well done. It is one of my favorite book series. I already preordered Part 3 Book 1 :)

What I want to ask is will all volumes be translated and released on English? It is also nice that you can preorder books on Amazon so you do not need to remember to buy it.

I found google translate site with all chapters and it is imposible to read it (as expected). I read here that translated books are released every 2,5 months. Would like if they come out faster but you cannot have all you want in life. At least I will have something to read for next few years :)

I really appiceate free chapters of Light novels so I can check it out to see if I like it before buying it.

Anyway I want to thank you guys for translating novells to English. Keep up good work :)

Rahul Balaggan

@Sekki said in Ascendance of a Bookworm - General Discussion:

What I want to ask is will all volumes be translated and released on English?

Yes, that is the plan

Would like if they come out faster but you cannot have all you want in life.

I know you already acknowledged that going fast is not possible, but I think you may find it interesting to read this post by the translator of the seires:

https://forums.j-novel.club/post/63357

In fact if you have time read the whole topic that post was in, it is quite detailed.

Sekki

@Rahul-Balaggan

Thanks for answers. I appriciate it. I read post and I find it very clear and informative. It makes sense that only one translator works on novel. Japanese and English are structurally different so each translator would translate it in slightly different way. Although it would be slight difference it would feel odd when reading whole book. Currently released volumes are very vell translated so I find that it is better to wait longer in order to get better product.

Chalax

I don't know anything about our glorious divine translator's life/work environment, but I have to wonder how often he breaks out in tears/busts out laughing while doing the translation, assuming he's not already read through the entire series enough to dull the impact of what he's writing.

LegitPancake

@Chalax You may be interested in reading this interview with him, at the bottom of the newsletter :) https://mailchi.mp/j-novel/j-novel-clubs-may-2020-light-novel-newsletter-translator-interview

hiroto

https://twitter.com/miyakazuki01/status/1277412300958261248

Author responded that at this point, she expect the series to conclude at Part 5 Volume 12.

hiroto

Wrote my 2nd fan letter to Kazuki-sensei. Or more like my status report upon finishing up Part 2. I promptly got a reply. A few things which would be interesting here:

I commented about the recent rapid increase in the readership, and she said she is feeling that in the increase in more Bookworm related tweets in English. She is really feeling the need to study English harder.
I gave her a few example of how reader discussion on the forum is helping me to find errors. She said she can really relate to that because she also modified her text upon learning how they were interpreted in reader comments at syosetu.com.
She asked the reader to ask j-novel for fanbook translation, so she doesn't have to answer all those questions in English herself.

Alanoud

Something's been on my mind for a long time now.

Are there black haired people in Bookworm?

So many characters gets introduced with variant hair/eye colors but not once was the color BLACK mentioned. It's strange.
I would like to think it's plot related but I don't feel like it is.

pcj

@Alanoud it has been specifically mentioned that Myne noticed that and thought it was strange, but she wrote it off as just another difference between her original world and this one at the time.

Alanoud

@pcj Oh, really? Was it in the earlier volumes? It's been years since I read them.

So, it's safe to assume it's plot related. But then, it means that their hair/eye color are actually important? But what for? Does it indicate the season they were born in or something?
The first thought that came to my mind, was magic. But then why would commoners have all those colors too. Unless they have some traces of mana within them which is causing this.

Sekki

I think this has to do with Janaese culture itself. When you see Japanese they have mainly black hair. Also in schools they have same uniforms. In order to break such uniformity most of autors would do various hair collors (if it fits story). Since this is fantasy it is easy to implement it. I think it does not have any significant meaning in story.

Also when you have various hair collor it is easier to distinguish characters. I read many western fantasy books and when you start reading new book with lots of characters it is kinda hard to distinguish charcters at tart since they are all kinda similar.

TheGrimLich

@Alanoud said in Ascendance of a Bookworm - General Discussion:

The first thought that came to my mind, was magic. But then why would commoners have all those colors too. Unless they have some traces of mana within them which is causing this.

I actually wouldn't be too surprised if commoners did have trace amounts of mana. It might be that any potential mana commoners have is entirely contained within their blood, so they need to use their blood to provide the necessary mana, as opposed to nobles who use magic tools or blue priests who use sacred tools to draw the mana out of them — those born with enough mana circulating through them can draw it out from their bodies, while those without enough mana have to use the physical medium of blood.