本好きの下剋上: Volume 4+ discussion thread

I just finished the epilogue of book 5, and my god, the last few chapters were so cool and the epilogue was very emotional. I read them all in one go, probably the longest time I spend straight reading a Japanese book!

But otherwise book 5 was quite a slog. I usually like the slice of life chapter or the let’s-create-something-new-chapter but the balance was so skewed in book 5 that I almost gave up at the nth chapter “let’s buy new clothes” or something. Now it feel like the world is opening up a bit, I hope the overall plot will keep moving forward.

I’m still not really warming up to our protagonist マイン… Mainly her lack of curiosity in anything. I guess it’s kind of a byproduct of the isekai genre, the reader has to learn bit by bit about the world along the protag, but now it’s been one year and half she has been isekaied and it looks like she still didn’t bother to ask any basic questions about the world at all. Does she even know the name of the town she is living in?

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I completely agree about book 5. It’s mostly a slog, but the final few chapters are great, especially the epilogue.

I don’t agree about マイン though. I think she’s a fun protagonist. She only had curiosity when it comes to books though, that’s true. :laughing:

For the record, this was addressed in book two. I found the relevant section, which is when she’s taking to ベンノ and finds a map.

「ベンノさん、この街ってどれですか?」

「ここだ。エーレンフェスト。領主様の家名がそのまま街の名前になっている」

初めて街の名前を知った。ついでに、領主の名前も知った。外に出る必要がなければ、街の名前なんて知る必要がないし、領主に関しても「領主様」だけで事は済んでいたのだ。

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Thanks, I forgot about that part ! And it’s a good illustration, like not a real intrinsic curiosity from her, more oooh shiny books ooooh a map :laughing:

But yes she is fun to follow around and her relentless positivity helps shining through a fairly bleak settings. It always make me smile when she learn yet another screwed up thing about the living conditions or the society, and her reaction is invariably just a mild “oh, the 常識 is quite different around here”

Anyway the events at the end of book 5 are bound to create big ripples, so I’m excited to see where the story goes. I’m also wondering what the heck happened to the 神殿長, because I thought he was set up to be a clear enemy of ベンノ but so far he disappeared completely from the picture to the point I wonder if he actually run the place at all. I guess the 神官長 is doing all the work.

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Less than a week until book 27! HYPE!

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Hopefully you don’t tell us “barely anything happened, maybe it’ll end up being 40 volumes in the end”. :upside_down_face:

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I have shitty internet and the download keeps failing why are you doing this to me.

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Sooo, now that I finally downloaded the book (and read the prologue, which was fun), I can confirm that C and D are covered in this book. Hopefully, that leaves E for the next book.
C and D are kinda boring compared to what is coming next (we are in a “calm before the storm” sort of thing, I guess), but I’m finally reaching a point where I don’t remember details anymore, so hopefully I’ll enjoy it anyway. I mean, I did enjoy it at the time I originally read it, especially D because (only a spoiler if you know what my ship is)
it makes everyone in world (except those involved) believe that my ship
is a thing which just as good as it being a thing
. It’s just that C and D are in the way of everything that come after.

Well, that was fun.
Interestingly, one “intermission” chapter from the online version got pushed to the extra stories. It felts like a good book epilogue when I read the online version, but the timing was wrong (as it happens mid-book)… Anyway, putting it at the end means that the reader gets to it later, which makes some connections harder to understand. Not that it’s bad per se…
The actual epilogue “spoils” something major from the last chapter of the series. I put spoil in quotation marks because it’s completely unrelated to the plot, so it doesn’t matter if we learn about now. I really want to talk about it though, but the first person to get here is probably going to be @seanblue, and it’s going to take a couple of years I guess?

Anyway, the extra stories were okay. They both put some groundwork for later parts of the story, (and also for the spin-off series, so maybe it will be a thing?!?) which is appreciated.

The next book preview was really clever. It’s all like “look out! F is going to happen” but I know that E is coming first (because I’ve learned my alphabet) and E is waaaaaay more major that F (as far as I am concerned; F is still a very big deal). So, people who don’t know the story are like “oh no! that’s terrible” while the rest of us are quietly laughing in the back.

In terms of structure, though, I really loved the intermission that came just at the end of E, but since it’s from the point of view of a different character, it will get pushed to the end of the volume, thus happening after F. However, when F happens you are not in the mood for those shenanigans, you want to know about G. So I feel like it will get in the way of pacing instead of being a nice chapter :frowning:

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Yeah… I finished volume 9 a few days ago. At the pace I’m going (factoring in breaks and reading other things), I may not even finish arc 3 (book 12) by the end of the year. I expect I won’t get to where you’re at until 2023. (And again, I kind of don’t want to catch up and be stuck waiting anyway, so I plan on pacing myself.)

It is possible that @catbus would reach there before me. We’re basically at the same point right now, so I guess it could go either way. And with how long it’ll take, someone new to the forums could come along and speed read it just like you. Honestly, if you really want to talk about the story, you’d be better off making a new Japanese friend who reads the series than waiting on me to catch up. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Sadly, my irl friends do not read light novels. There are people talking about it on bookmeter or twitter, but I feel weird just randomly talking to people, I guess. WK is the first forum I joined, and generally speaking I’m not really into social stuff like that :sweat_smile:

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I would love to see this scene from volume 9 in anime form. :rofl: I’m disappointed we didn’t get a piece of artwork for this scene at least.

「貴族と契約している孤児を勝手に連れて行ってしまうと、ハッセの町がとても困るのですってね。わたくし、神殿育ちですからどうしても世事に疎くて……」

困ったわ、と手を頬に当ててわずかに首を傾げて見せる。君のどこが世事に疎いのだ、と冷ややかに見下ろしているフェルディナンドは完全に無視だ。

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In the second chapter of volume 10, I was very confused by two new bookmaking terms. Details below for those curious.

Volume 10 chapter 2 bookmaking terms

I was very confused by ステッキ and インテル, even after reading the descriptions given in the book. Finally I managed to find some Wikipedia articles on the topics and now it makes more sense.

Composing stick - Wikipedia

Leading - Wikipedia

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Luckily, I knew those terms at the time :stuck_out_tongue:
Now that I think about it, though, I have no idea why I know those, though :thinking:

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I finished volume 15! Talking about things you love is always fun, so if you let me, I will join this thread (and the discussions) :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

Thoughts on the volume
  • I really want to give フィリーネ a hug
  • I really want to give ローゼマイン a hug. The goodbye to Lutz, because they can’t use the hidden room anymore was way too sad.
  • I hope ディートリンデ rests in pieces one day :slightly_smiling_face:
    I am only kidding, she’s been a cool antagonist so far

Also, the illustrations for this volume were great. エグランティーヌ and アンゲリカ are both so pretty :flushed:

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You are more than welcome!

Re: thoughts on volume 15

That’s around the end of the first year, right?
Overall, I thought that year (volumes 13-15?) was amazing. ローゼマイン just steamrolling through everything and giving people heart attacks. I loved that she basically owns the library at this point.
Also, I love that, by this point (I hope it has been officially mentioned and that’s it’s not a spoiler), she is basically one of the strongest economic power in エーレンフェスト, getting richer even while she was sleeping for two years.

That didn’t hurt me so much (if that’s the part I’m thinking about), because that was always going to be the case from waaaaay back in the 2nd arc (or maybe beginning of the 3rd arc). Basically, when フェルディナンド mentioned that it wasn’t really fine for the both of them to be alone in his hidden room once she would get older plus the fact that she will become a noble herself. At some point (I think the deadline was about getting in school or 10 year old, which is the same thing) it was bound to happen that men (especially commoners) would not be able to meet her in private. So, not exactly surprising. (Also, I have to admit, since ベンノ and the rest have become less important to the plot, I also got a bit less attached to them. It’s nice that they are still there, but there are so many other cool characters around, especially from this arc, that I didn’t feel so bad about that specific part)

During the first year, it was quite hard for me to read her intentions. While it was clear that she was antagonistic, it was hard to see if she was just annoying or a scheming monster like her mother (or anything in between). I think that it did add a lot of tension, not knowing what she was up to.

They generally are! I love the style of the series.

アンゲリカ is also one of the character I find really funny. I love all the times that she puts on a brooding, melancholic face whenever she just wants to avoid something she doesn’t like (such as thinking). I also love that ローズマイン picked up that skill (… I hope that’s not a spoiler… anyway, it’s just for comedic effect).

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more on volume 15

Yep, I love how she is the origin of all (soon to be) export goods エーレンフェスト has. Just what would they do without her?

That’s true. And they still see each other, just the same way she meets with her parents.
I think what got me so emotional was when ルッツ started to reminisce about the stuff from volume 4. They really relied on each other a lot back then.
And if less meetings with the merchants means more interactions with her new retainers, then I am all for it :relaxed:
ローゼマイン doesn’t want ハルトムート to research her and spread the legends about her… but I want that! :joy: I end up rooting for him instead of the main character!

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I finished volume 10 today. Very action packed and constantly entertaining volume. Nice change from volume 9 (which I found to be kind of lacking) and easily my favorite volume from arc 3 so far. The bonus chapters were very boring though. Honestly, I just skimmed most of the second bonus chapter. :sweat_smile:

I keep trying to guess what the next arc will be. There are so many possibilities at this point, but all of my guesses are probably wrong. The second arc was basically unguessable until the end of book three when it was revealed. The third arc title was probably unguessable until at least book 6, but even then it would be a bit hard I think. (I happened to see it by mistake, which is like gah why did you get good enough at Japanese that you could understand that at a glance!, so I spent most of my time trying to convince myself I misread it instead of trying to guess it :joy:)

My main hold up is that, short of a huge time jump, ローゼマイン will still be far too young to attend the 貴族院 by the end of book 12. Because the straightforward/logical guess ignoring the timing would be 領主候補生 or something like that. So it could be as simple as that, with just some slightly-longer-than-usual time skip or ローゼマイン starting early for some reason. But considering it’s gone in an unexpected direction every time so far, I expect something out of left field here too.

(Please don’t respond to this. I’m just putting this here for all your entertainment and so I can come back later and see how off I was.)

So anyway, I’m just gonna continue on to book 11 and then 12 with short breaks in between (no other Japanese books in between, maybe a manga) so I can just find out what arc 4 will be. :slight_smile:

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Thanks to you all posting in this thread, I end up re-reading a lot of 本好き :joy:
I really liked that volume too! I did like the bonus chapters as well, though. In particular, the first one was nice to see, from an external perspective, how much ヴィルフリート is getting reckt by ローゼマイン.

*Laughs in volume 12 knowledge*

Nice!

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I ended up seeing the covers for the volumes in the 4th arc before having reached that point, which spoiled a lot already. Really annoying how much you have to avoid, just no not get spoiled. It is not my fault the books keep getting recommended to me :pensive:
I hope you manage better.

I especially liked the contrast. From ローゼマインs perspective, she just does the things she wants to do without really caring about the reaction from others. But here, ランプレヒト was just “She is in a league of her own” :joy: Poor ヴィルフリート.

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I saw the title of act 5 when I was reading volume 10 :confounded:
The title of act 5 is so mean. Act 5 starts on volume 22 and, as of volume 27, it’s still a spoiler!!!
I have read the webnovel, and I think it will take at least 2 or 3 additional volumes to get there (although you can see it coming from what happens in volume 28 which is not even published yet)

[volume 12] And it’s just gonna get worse from there on :joy: It was so fun, at the end of volume 12, when シャルロッテ and ヴィルフリート tried to fill in the void that caused her absence, and it takes the two of them all they can muster to not even match it completely. [Volume 13]
And at the beginning of volume 13, even with 2 years head start, they just can’t even get to her level. Actually, this quote from フェルディナンド gave me shivers at the time:
「ローゼマイン、二人の意気込みだけは受け取っておいてやりなさい。まだまだこの二人が君を越えるのは無理だ。貴族院に行くまでの短期間で姉の威厳を見せつけてやると良い。器が違うところを見せてやれ」
器が違う indeed :joy:

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