Review of Ascendance of a Bookworm Season 2

This review is for both season 1 and season 2, which as of the time of this writing is the entirety of the series. A third season has been announced, but it's not a thing yet. As a whole, I wanted to like this series more than I actually did. It has modern visuals, an original story, respectable world-building and character development and a few wholesome moments that'll make you feel warm and all that good stuff. However, there are two major, major issues with this series that each colossally detract from my ability to enjoy it and there is just no way around either ofthem. They are as follows-

1. Pacing

This anime is very slow and it never picks up. The beginning, middle and end are all slow, all dialogue heavy and all repetitive. There's more or less zero combat in this anime, zero subplots, zero deep development of side characters... The whole anime focuses solely on the main character and every single episode is just her talking to people. It's simply monotonous. If this anime opts to exclude content to break up the monotony it needed to trim the fat somewhere (fewer episodes, faster pacing, more conflict, etc).

2. Believability

I'm okay with the base premise- Adult woman dies and gets reincarnated into the body/mind of a child in the distant, less technologically-advanced past. Totally fine. What does not work is how nobody questions the behavior and capabilities of the main character in a remotely meaningful way. Her vocabulary, manner of speaking, knowledge, skillsets, conceptual understanding... really everything about her is far, far, far beyond the capabilities of the smartest 5, 6 or 7 year old in the world and she would stick out like a sore thumb immediately to absolutely any adult she interacts with. This is downplayed or outright ignored throughout the entire anime. The few characters that do notice these things quickly write her off as "a weird kid" or "unusual" and don't ever think anything more of it. It is completely, utterly, even with the utmost stretching of plausibility, entirely non-believable. In this regard, the plot simply fails, as the things the main character does/says/knows are wildly beyond the scope of a child and the anime wants you to outright ignore that and roll with it. I could not.

Personally, my favorite moments in this anime were the wholesome scenes between the main character and her family. They're poor, they're ordinary and they're largely underdeveloped and underutilized but if nothing else they really, really love Myne. There was an especially heartwarming scene about half way through the anime that for me was the apex of the show, but the program never quite approached that level of emotional depth any time after. I would have really, really liked more scenes like this, but by and large her day to day conversations simply aren't all that exciting or important.

At the end of the day this isn't a bad show, but if I'm being honest it's slow and it's boring and its plot isn't believable and I just can't see past those things. I'll watch season three sometime down the road, but I won't be foaming at the mouth for it by any means. This, for me, is a wonderful anime example of "mediocre".

OBJECTIVE RATING- 6.75-7
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 6.5