- 7mononoke
Ascendance of a Bookworm Season 3 (Series Review)
This will be a very short mini-review for season 3 of Ascendance of a Bookworm. I was quite impressed with it. In case you don't know how my reviews work, there are five categories, each rated between 1 and 10. At the end, we take the average of those five numbers to arrive at the overall score for the series. Let's begin.
Visuals: 6
The visuals haven't changed from the first and second seasons. They are still brightly colored, simplistic, and resemble a children's picture-book. The young characters are tiny with huge, colorful eyes. Personally, I like this style, but it's not exactly high budget. I think the visuals deserve 6/10 like in the last review. Note: the illustrations at the end of each episode are amazing.
Story: 8
The story category is one example of where Bookworm really shines. The pacing isn't perfect, but it's great. There isn't a lot of action because this is more of a slice-of-life story, but the action in the last two episodes was pretty intense given the usual nature of the show. The story category encompasses many aspects, including whether a series was able to deliver in terms of content balance, humor, and emotional appeal. Bookworm certainly succeeded here. There were moments that made me laugh and moments that made me cry. The ending especially made me cry. World-building and fantasy/magic elements were still awesome as well. The story category clearly deserves a solid 8.
Audio: 8
The audio category covers songs, music, and voice-acting. Bookworm season 3 delivered well on all fronts. Personally, however, I was not very fond of the opening song for this season. That's why I bumped down the category from 9 in the last season to 8 in this season. The OST is still great and I love the main theme. The Japanese voice-acting is excellent, and the ED song is lovely. It's performed by Maaya Sakamoto, one of my top favorite seiyuus. This category also deserves an 8.
Characters: 7
I have grown attached to the cast of Bookworm. I love most of the characters, including the new supporting ones that get introduced each season. For season 3, the best new characters were Sylvester the knight/duke and Heidi from the ink-shop. Bookworm also continues to develop the personality of Myne by slowly adding depth. I absolutely love this character. There was a lot of good development for a few characters in this season, like Delia. However, others felt a bit neglected, such as Lutz. All in all, this category easily earns a 7.
Personal Enjoyment: 9
Personal enjoyment for this season of Bookworm was quite high. The slowly rising tension and the nobles' conspiracy really got me excited, and I became more heavily invested in Myne and her happiness than ever. The emotional ending of the series, as I mentioned, had me in flowing tears. But even though it was sad, it was so well done that it increased my enjoyment of the series overall. I love basically everything about Bookwork, from the characters, audio, and visuals to the education value, magic lore, and emotional interactions. The personal enjoyment category gets a 9.
Overall Score: 7.6/10.0
An overall score in the mid to high 7s is quite good for a little slice-of-life fantasy anime. Bookworm may seem like a childish show at first glance, but it's actually very complex and full of themes many of deal with as adults. It just goes to show that you can't judge a "book" by its cover. ... Please don't unsubscribe because of my awful book pun.
Thanks for reading