English Dub Season Review: Ascendance of a Bookworm Season 3

Winter is approaching, and Main who’s now an apprentice/priestess must prepare for her stay at the church and the upcoming Dedication Ceremony. However, due to her immense knowledge and an extraordinary amount of mana, she has garnered the attention of many dangerous people, who are willing to do anything to get their hands on Main. To keep her safe, the Head Priest assigns Main a bodyguard and advises her to be adopted by a noble, a decision that will force her to leave her family behind.

As Main is opposed to the idea, the Head Priest gives her an ultimatum: she can be with her family until she turns 10, but if she is deemed too unstable, she will immediately be dealt with. Placed in a tough position, Main is uncertain about her future. Despite the twists that may lie ahead, she will do whatever she can to protect those that she loves—even if it means giving up on her dream…

The series is animated by Ajia-do Animation Works and directed by Mitsuru Hongo, with Mariko Kunisawa handling series composition, Yoshiaki Yanagida and Toshihisa Kaiya designing the characters, and Michiru composing the series’ music. Nao Tōyama performed the third season’s opening theme song “The word of that expense”, while Maaya Sakamoto performed the ending theme song “I can’t put it into words”.

For what this has all culminated towards, the shit hits the proverbial fan in a period where Fans couldn’t possibly exist. As Main’s existence and the ideas she has despite being relatively harmless in combination with her excessive “Mana” intake, start to get the unwanted attention of a weird magical church and higher-ups within the Era she’s stuck in. This being what’s presumably the last episode was completely unexpected for me, but it was a perfect way to end on a bittersweet note.

Aside from that suspicious magical church, the corrupt nobles have also established that both of those factions don’t give a crap about the lives of others. That point still gets across. However, for a show that tries to be lighthearted, it tends to overlook or completely remove the brutality that would usually come with living in a time period/universe like this. People die, and the audience is informed of life and death consequences multiple times, but the adaptation chooses not to show it specifically onscreen for whatever reason (Possibly to appeal to an underage audience could be the easy assumption?). I would certainly appreciate it if they chose to change that, but I don’t mind the direction they took specifically. However, I’ll withhold my judgment as to whether it works later down the line for when they make another season.

Overall, while this wasn’t the best season, the previous seasons were far better by comparison. This one didn’t feel like the pace was woven properly. Other characters were not given enough screen time (probably because it’s short), and the plot was outright a little shaky. Especially with how backwards and badly written most of the villains were. At the very least, It truly was a fitting close for both the season and possibly this Anime series as a whole, as it managed to all its emotional beats and put so much culminated conflict & emotions into the characters and dialogue and delivered in spades with how a magic battle could feel intense without a ton of special effects. And I actually felt the full weight of everything that had led up to that point. While it remains uncertain, If this is how they needed to permanently end the series, I’d be ok with it…