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New Ascendance of a Bookworm Anime Reveals TV Format, 2026 Debut

TO Books announced on Thursday that the new anime from Wit Studio of Miya Kazuki's Ascendance of a Bookworm (Honzuki no Gekokujō - Shisho ni Naru Tame niwa Shudan o Erandeiramasen) "biblia fantasy" light novel series, adapting Part 3: Adopted Daughter of an Archduke, will premiere in 2026. TO Books also revealed the new anime's television series format. Along with the announcement, the light novels' third volume of short story collection (featured in posted image below) will release on December 10.

Kazuki began the original novels on the "Shōsetsuka ni Narō" website in 2013, and ended the web novel in 2017. You Shiina illustrates the print edition. The main series ended with its 33rd volume (volume 12 of part 5) in December 2023. The novel series now has over 11 million copies in circulation (including digital copies).

The Hannelore no Kizokuin Gonensei spinoff story launched on the same website in 2017 and is still ongoing.

J-Novel Club is releasing both the light novels and some of the various manga adaptations in English. J-Novel Club describes the story:

A certain college girl who's loved books ever since she was a little girl dies in an accident and is reborn in another world she knows nothing about. She is now Myne, the sickly five-year-old daughter of a poor soldier. To make things worse, the world she's been reborn in has a very low literacy rate and books mostly don't exist. She'd have to pay an enormous amounts of money to buy one. Myne resolves herself: If there aren't any books, she'll just have to make them! Her goal is to become a librarian. This story begins with her quest to make books so she can live surrounded by them! Dive into this biblio-fantasy written for book lovers and bookworms!

Suzuka drew the art for the manga adaptations of Part 1 and 2, and Ryō Namino is drawing the adaptation of Part 3. Hikaru Katsuki is drawing the adaptation of Part 4. J-Novel Club is releasing the manga adaptations of Parts 1-4.

The light novels inspired a television anime adaptation with three seasons by Ajia-do. The first anime season premiered in October 2019, and ended in December 2019 with 14 episodes. The second season premiered in Japan in April 2020. Crunchyroll streamed the first and second seasons as they aired in Japan, and it also streamed an English dub. Two original video anime (OVA) installments debuted with a limited edition of the first novel of the series' fifth part in March 2020.

The anime's third season premiered in April 2022. Crunchyroll streamed the third season as it aired, and started streaming an English dub in May 2022.

The light novel also inspired a musical stage play that ran from October 4-14 in Tokyo, and from November 2-3 in Osaka.

Source: TO Books imprint's X/Twitter account