29 October 2019: Honzuki no Gekokujō - Shisho ni Naru Tame niwa Shudan o Erandeiramasen is okay, but mostly just okay
Nakajima Megumi and Orikasa Fumiko are both in this, incidentally, for those of you who care about that sort of thing.
I am more tired of isekai anime with male protagonists than I am of isekai just in general, so I'm willing to give Honzuki no Gekokujō - Shisho ni Naru Tame niwa Shudan o Erandeiramasen (Ascendance of a Bookworm) more chances to prove itself than I normally would. Although I liked the fourth episode quite a bit, I'm not especially impressed with the show as a whole so far. Even with regard to the fourth episode I enjoyed it mostly because Main's efforts—which were doomed from the very start—went to waste. It seems the usual tendency in these isekai jobbies is for the resurrected protagonists to use their superior knowledge to smugly dominate the simple folk around them, so it's nice to see things go tits up once in a while despite their best efforts.
This plan should have been a non-starter. It's difficult enough trying to cram a manga collection on an Ikea shelf.
I get the feeling that after these initial setbacks, Main is going to start smugly lording her knowledge of modern technology and techniques over these townsfolk more aggressively now that she's not constantly on the verge of dying. I don't know where any of this is going, since Honzuki no Gekokujō - Shisho ni Naru Tame niwa Shudan o Erandeiramasen so far seems to be genuinely about a woman's attempts to introduce books (and literacy) to this backwater where she was resurrected. Well, I say resurrected, but it's more like she hijacked this poor kid's life. Seeing as how introducing books and literacy to her new world could take more than a single lifetime to accomplish, maybe Main will still succumb to Key AIDS and this Japanese lady's spirit will move on to hijack the lives other other little girls, one after another. Not that I think Ascendance of a Bookworm will actually be some manner of bibliophile metempsychosis horror show, but I think that ought to at least be on the table.
