I started with the anime but that's just because I was unaware of the light novel at the time.

I've trained myself with various other stories to not compare the book version to the movie version or the TV version, and I'd like to think I was able to apply the same dissonance when I picked up the light novel.

With that in mind, my first exposure to the LN was a MT, so that probably also affected me, as I got the plot-important stuff but smaller character details were lost.

When I started with a proper translation, though, I immediately picked up on Myne being a bit of a brat. But instead of turning me away from the books, rather, it cemented the idea that Myne was not, in fact, a reincarny but instead simply had access to otherworldly knowledge. The idea that I was reading through the eyes of a really smart and knowledgeable toddler fixed the "brat" idea, and also helped me pick up on smaller details that Myne points out but that might not in fact be accurate, especially when we got to contrast some of her story with others' in the POV chapters. I really appreciated the author's use of these "blink and you'll miss it" inconsistencies or oddities that helped to portray Myne as an unreliable narrator.

In my opinion, the best way to onboard new readers is to remove references to the Isekai genre, or perhaps to call it Isekai-Adjacent. I have no wish to get into whether or not this is a story of a reincarny; the author said no, and that's how she wrote the character and story. Perhaps any one person's idea of reincarnation is, in fact, how it works in Bookworm, just not with Myne specifically. I think interpreting her as a genius child with special knowledge of how much better things could be alleviates the bitter taste that would otherwise be on the tongues of some of those who understand her to be an adult.

In addition, it might be helpful to come up with our own teaser blurb that hangs a lamp on Myne's behavior.

@derpster Actually, Freida pointed out in P1 that a devouring child being sickly pre-draining is normal - she was as well - and the abnormal part is Myne still being sick post-draining.

Thing is, there are four events we know of that could have caused mana hardening:

The devouring attack at the start of the story The devouring attack after Effa burned the Mokkan The devouring attack at the end of P1V2 The poisoning in P3V5

Now, that last one is after Ferdinand's examination of Rozemyne, so while it probably did make the clumps worse, one (or more) of the other three have to have caused them in the first place.

And since all three of them are pre-draining... There has been no point in Myne/Rozemyne's life when she was not either a)suffering from untreated devouring or b)full of semi-crystallised mana (and for P1V1 and P1V2, she might have been suffering from both). So we can't really say that Myne's body is just inherently sickly - no-one's ever seen what she's like without mana issues holding her back.

Don't forget that Season 3 starts Monday 11th April :)

One other possibility as to why she might take the knights course is coordination (although this could also be learnt in Ehrenfest).

As when fighting the big black dog (I can't be bothered trying to spell it), including her in a fight as a ranged/special weapon fighter greatly increases the possible tactics and fire power of the group. Staying at the back also keeps the archduke candidate protected.
HOWEVER, this only works if she has trained to fight in a coordinated manner. Just like she had prompted the changes in the Ehrenfest knights, she could also be pushed into the knights course for Ehrenfest's sake. Although the course would probably be highly modified.

Personally, I don't think she will be doing the knights course.

@strangeattractor said in Oswald, Explained:

The archival (Haha Rozemyne wishes, Autocorrect) archducal couple is trusting at least one person that they shouldn't. I think the most likely candidate is Oswald, but it could be Rihyarda, and possibly others.

Wow, thanks for writing that all up. You've given me some really neat ideas to keep in mind.

If he had enlightened self interest, and expected to serve Wilfried long term, he would be raising Wilfried up to a higher level. Even if he's lazy, training Wilfried and his retainers to be aware and competent would make serving him when he becomes Aub easier

This is actually the point I found most convincing. It is now harder for me to see Oswald as being merely lazy, given that he seems to be actively failing to achieve his own best interests. That said, people self-sabotage all the time. Also, lazy people are rarely so principled and motivated that they consciously aim for some optimal amount of laziness in the future. Rather, what we call "lazy" tends to really be a combination of procrastination, poor planning, and poor impulse control (incidentally, you'll never see me post on these forums more often than when I have a huge deadline looming at work...).

@gammongaming Especially true when you re-read that section carefully and notice that Cornelius was the one who saved Wilfried, not Traugott...

leave it as is - or change it to "Squee!". no other options are valid...

@zwabbit said in A Hypothetical Path to the Propagation of Mana into the General Populace:

X00 AM - Dahlia is born.

~X20 AM - The price of various alcoholic beverages and various cheeses skyrockets due to increased demand.

All in all this looks like a plenty believable timeline and I love it.

@xfbph

Hello,

Thank you for taking the the time to point this out.

Just for reference; after a volume is officially released as an ebook, the pre-pub parts become out of date, and are not the most up to date version.

As such corrections pointed out in pre-pubs may have already been corrected in the ebook.

For what it is worth, the correction you pointed out has been addressed in the published ebook.

For errors found in published books corrections can be emailed to, support@j-novel.club

Thank you

@alicecheshire said in Bookworm Part 4 Vol. 7 Discussion!:

The fanbook explicitly debunks this view and explained that Myne is actually partly mistaken about what happened. When Urano awoke in Myne's mind, her memories overwhelmed Myne's in both volume and variety, so from her point of view, it seemed like she took over Myne's body and that Myne died but that wasn't actually the case.

True. However, without the extraordinary circumstances of being a reincarnation with the willpower of an adult woman, Myne still would have died. So on some level I think we could treat the situation as if only two of their current children should be alive.

That said, Kamil still could end up with the devouring. Liz didn't die from it until significantly later, from my vague recollection. Some people make it past baptism while having it. In a world without Urano's memories, Tuuli might actually have been the only one who survived...and ended up married to Ralph.

@weasalopes oh, I'm sure there's always someone willing to buy something. It's just StB never struck as the one series that would have enough of them to make a full OVA adaptation possible. I'm guessing that the studio had some people really passionate about the project to go to these lenghts. Either that or the first OVA which was anime original sold like crazy.

@greganator said in Dunkelfelder:

@weasalopes I a game Designer/Engineer by trade, and working on my own TTRPG and writing/designing a world for a group in my free time so the book when I looked at it seemed of great interest to me and I'm surprised I haven't heard of it before. .... Now I just need to find out where I can get a copy.

I'm only halfway through, but it's already covered a lot concerning the development of RPGs (OD&D in specific) and the historical context behind the development of the resources that influenced Gygax, Arneson, Perrin, and others. I read it while monitoring stuff on the stove while cooking...

There's some amusing stuff, such as the reason they came up with things utilizing d4, d8 and d12s being that d20s initially could only be obtained in the US in a set containing a d4, d6, d8, d12, and a d20; TSR wasn't going to repackage them, so they needed to 'justify' the inclusion of the d4, d8 & d12... since they were going to be included, they might as well provide a use for them. These were the infamous low impact plastic die that I initially used back in 1977; the d20s were the worst, the edges rounded off and they pretty much turned into a marble. I still have those kicking around in my dice bag...

Anyway, in re finding a copy, I'd suggest ABE Book Search, Alibris, etc.; the usual new & used Bookstore aggregate search engines.
If you aren't located in North America, there are others that could prove of interest; there's a wonderful one focused on materials available in the Scandinavian countries that I've used to track down stuff published in that region that don't show up in US sources. There are also versions of ABE, Alibris, and such with interfaces other than English.

@rsog412 said in "But Can Magic Circles Do Math?" (Bookworm Magic Tools discussion):

I personally think the theistic explanations are the most plausible, though.

There's a halfway point which is that the gods and their powers can understand intent so if people think doing things a certain way will have a certain effect then that helps shape what actually happens.

It links in with previous theories about how Rozemyne can bring broken fey stones back together because she didn't know it was supposed to be impossible, etc.

@cooper-cummings-gk5u8qq This is just flatly not true. The merchants are all about charging market rate for their goods and services. Even when Myne was complaining about ostensibly overcharging Freida and Gustav for the decorative hairpins, Benno countered that she was undervaluing the goods, not that they were overcharging them. The whole bit about making money when you can is also very much them making sure they are properly compensated for their services. There is no free ride in the Bookverse, and the margins for survival, even for rich merchant families, is thin, because they have a much larger number of dependents they need to help provide for, that they can't afford to give out "freebies." Everything they thus do has a transactional aspect to it, even for people they genuinely like/care for.

AAUUGGHH!!!
The published version still has that "half an octave" jazz.

It's possible that is what the raws say, but since it was verified that the LN had it correct...
wrong is wrong, manga raws be damned if that's the case.

eta:
I've sent a rather testy correction report to the Support email address.

I'm getting very tired of manga pre-pub correction reports not being acted upon.
I really wish they would have dedicated correction topics for manga as well the LNs.

@raves-xaoi7v2 and assuming that her retainers stop her before someone dies, Rozemine is still probably somewhat safe because she will be backed up by 2 princes (one because he likes her and another because his soon to be wife insisted).

@bf3ubvf Although, considering the context that prayer's used for, 'unnatural fey' might refer to the mana-draining kinds specifically, since that's the prayer for the ability to fight them effectively.

But it definitely implies there's something weird about Trombes and Ternisbefallens...

@emblyon said in Sylvester should have married Rozemyne if...:

@poisonedbite turns out I used the wrong symbol for spoiler and didn't bother checking. Sorry bout that.

I mean it's only a spoiler if true, which you sort of confirmed, but it's also what I think myself and many others thought would be the eventual conclusion.

@rsog412 Actually there is another option. I would guess that a shumil-derived LoW is nothing compared to the (unknown-derived) tiger-oid LoW from Rozemyne's jureve fight. So - what is the absolute worst LoW that a dutchy has to fight each year?

Capture the base type for that worst monster. Send a travelling merchant over to Ahrensbach at the beginning of winter with it caged and a heap of Rozemyne-dyed ruelles. Dump them somewhere secluded and run like hell.

@windsagio said in Konrad enters the Royal Academy:

More generally, Konrad is too young, him entering the RA is likely outside the scope of the story (unless we get a huge time jump)

Maybe not the scope of the story at the pace it is going, but his baptism as a noble is definitely within that time frame.