The Art of Worldbuilding - Ascendance of a Bookworm

A look at how Ascendance of a Bookworm builds one of the most believable fantasy worlds in anime.

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In the depths of his Mother's Basement, Geoff Thew creates videos analyzing the storytelling techniques of anime and video games. He has been named the number one Worst YouTube Anime Reviewer by The Top Tens.

[ThrottleKitty]

"what do they eat"
Me, writer weirdly obsessed with food, spice trade, and culinary culture: **giddy sounds**

[thlittlrootguy]

The fact that, even with old-Myne's memories, Urano-Myne is discovering the world from 0 like a little girl does and not like an ordinary isekai protagonist, this makes you kind of forget this is an isekai

[clacks]

One of the things I love in this anime (/ novel) is when Lutz figures out Main is a sufferer of isakeitis, and FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AN ISEKAI she ACTUALLY told him the truth! I was so glad to finally see an isekai protagonist not lie for some reason about her origins even though they're lying. Love it.

[TheRealGuywithoutaMustache]

13:54
"Heavily implies that its founder was a fellow victim of Isekaitis"


I can't help but appreciate his witty humor. He's a funny guy, honestly.

[Aphidae]

“This storytelling might not be as thrilling as an epic danger or battle” it’s not, it’s much more thrilling and fun.

[KS-puht]

The anime adaptation of Bookworm also throws in a bunch of small details into it's visual scenes; as an example, in one of the episodes after preparing for winter, when Mine's in bed, you can see one of the candles she made w/ Turi burning on the nightstand. It's never mentioned outright, but there're a tonne of visual details in the anime that show how people live.



Another example would be the shoes people wear. Mine, in the first season, at least -- haven't started on season 2 yet -- is always wearing wooden clogs. It's a small detail, but it shows the difference in class between her, &, say, Benno, or the uniform her father wears (if he's in uniform, he's always wearing boots).

[drewquitco]

The second most important character in an Isekai genre is the world itself. What are the people like, their culture, social class, religion how does it dictates its people, are there other races besides elves and dwarves, and does this world have history did it have a world war, fell in calamity etc. Most of the authors just slap a castle, guild house and a quest board and thats it. Whats the point on bringing the MC to another world if they won't even build up the world where there isn't even anything to discover.

[a_Lemming]

So Main was basically an accidental an Isekai prepper in her previous life...

Knowledge of technology, disregard for hierarchy, and her most beloved subject is literature, which, after it could be mass-produced, was one of the primary drivers behind commoners gaining more societal influence.

[Nionivek]

I should, however, state that ALL the nobles you seen are ones who have been thrown out of their families and sent to the church so their actual parents don't have to deal with them anymore... With them gaining actual political power only happening recently.

The Head Priest is the only Blue Robe (outside Main) who joined the Church under his own free will and wasn't raised by the Church.

In many ways the Blue Robes are like an intermediary between a real noble and a pretender.

[nmnlgxw]

The current anime (S1-S2/S3) is just the tip of the iceberg. Once you get past Part 3 Light Novel, things shift dramatically and you're transported in a world so much different from the world you knew. It got me questioning if I'm still reading the same LN that had a weak commoner girl who cares about nothing about books.

[ryanspruce]

What I love about this show’s worldbuilding is that I was able to piece together Myne’s illness’s true nature without ANYONE mentioning otherwise. It get really good, instilling a feeling I usually get when I guess the plot twist in a game

[jptq]

The bookworm anime is what got me to start reading light novels, and it physically hurts how much good content is left on the cutting room floor of anime production. A necessary evil, but a travesty nonetheless. The scene where Fran teaches the cooks how to make Myne's recipe's loses so much flavor because of the trimmings necessary for the anime format. Based on that scene alone, I recommend the LNs for anyone who is enjoying the anime.

[brandondavidson]

I finished all of season 1 of Bookworm in a single day.
You never know one of your favorite anime until you find it.

[vigneshs]

Worldbuilding is a key element in developing anime like these

[HenriqueErzinger]

One correction: in episode 6, WE hear about the Devouring for the first time, not Main. She only learns it's a thing much later, through the merchant girl that also has it.

[Strix]

It pains me to say that "what do they eat" didn't cross my mind with my own worldbuilding projects until just now. The minutia of fantasy settings at this scale is truly fascinating! I'll have to do some heavy thinking over the predominant settlements of my in progress D&D setting.

[justinpurdy]

Bookworm is such a great anime. I've got a 5-year-old daughter who has fallen in love with it so I've been watching the dub with her.

[poseidonson]

The thing that makes Bookworm's worldbuilding click for me is how every bit of it that we learn is either about reinforcing or developing something about the characters. Main's earliest discoveries all come through observing her family in their day-to-day lives in a way that both fleshes out the society around them and lets us naturally learn about her parents and sister's personalities. All the information dumped on Main when she becomes a merchant also fleshes out Lutz and his relationship with his family while setting up a mentor dynamic for both kids with Benno. And everything to do with Main's new role in the church is communicated through her new aides and gives us a reason to care about and want to learn more about them.


So it's not just that the world at large around Main feels well thought out and thematically salient, but that it's always delivered with the emphasis on character to makes us emotionally invested as well. I think that more than anything is why Bookworm's world feels so real, whereas other series with this much detail might just feel like reading a fanwiki.

[vlane]

Something funny about justus, is that he doesn't actually hate the lower class, but is merely curious. He's like a grown child who is willing (and authorized) to do whatever it takes to satisfy his urge for new info to gather. It shows in later volumes as well, like how he almost got an entire region erased off the map because he wanted to gather what was effectively phoenix eggs from the volcano that they were absorbing energy from.

[josemawow]

Something most of the people miss to notice but i love is how well is the magic integrated in the everyday of the people (in the first part is not that notizable though) . Most of isekai stories only feature tipycal offensive and defensive magic taken from rpg and maybe some applicattion of these spells out of combat. In bookworm it really feels like magic is an integral part of the world and society instead of being used in action segments and then immediatly lose all relevance in the slice of life sections.