Recently added titles (April 2026)
Myne enters a library in the cathedral, and is amazed, saying “So many books…”Building upon the titles listed for July/August, September, October, November, and December 2021, and January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and December of 2022, and January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and December of 2023, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and December of 2024, and January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and December of this year, and January, February, and March of this year, this post notes recent titles with libraries or librarians in popular culture which I’ve come across in the past month. Each of these has been watched or read during the past month. No films, animated series, or other entries with libraries (or librarians) to add for this past month, but I did come across some in webcomics. There may be spoilers for these series, so be aware.
Animated series recently added to this page
None for this month.
Anime series recently added to this page
- Ascendance of a Bookworm, “Re: Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 1″ (s2 ep 26.5 (part 1))
- Ascendance of a Bookworm, “Re: Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 2″ (s2 ep 26.5 (part 2))
- Gals Can’t Be Kind to Otaku!?, “Do You Want to Come Over?” (s1 ep 3)
- Ghost Concert: Missing Songs, “Worlds Apart” (s1 ep 4)
- Magical Sisters LuluttoLilly, “Gazing Up at the Moon” (s1 ep 3)
- Scenes from Awajima aka A Hundred Scenes of Awajima, “Kinue and Ryoko” (s1 ep1b)
On April 9th, I watched the first episode of A Hundred Scenes of Awajima, which adapts Takako Shimura’s Scenes From Awajima manga. A few of Shimura’s series, like Sweet Blue Flowers, Wandering Son, and some others, have been adapted into anime in the past. I didn’t expect there to be a library scene! At one point, Kinue Takehara and Ryōko Ueda study in the library together in middle school, talking about their future plays with Kinue wanting to apply to Awajima Opera School, trying to convince her friend, Ryōko, to do the same. As it turns out, Ryōko is in awe of her, never thought of the same idea. They end up not going to the same school, with Ryōko never even talking to her dad about going to Awajima. She didn’t want to impacted by her, but ended being drawn to her, and now Kinue is the roommate of a protagonist, Wakana Tabata.
The Anime News Network preview for this episode (and series as a whole) does not mention the library scene. Rebecca Silverman says the series is not “explicitly yuri (based on what I’ve read of the source material), it can be viewed as such if you’re so inclined, which may be an additional draw for viewers,” and said that it is set “at a Takarazuka-style high school,” with many scenes that are “illustrated in shades of blue, white, and green, many scenes are imbued with wind.” James Beckett calls it a great slice-of-life story, with honest ad gentle writing, with a “leisurely pace and subdued visual style,” with dreamy, “watercolor expressions that elevate some of the more musical and emotional sequences.” Richard Eisenbeis said the first episode captures the energy of those who “wanted was to put on the best show possible and would do anything…to support the other actors and the performance in general,” people with an “unshakable ego,” with Kinue’s origin story handling “the clashing of pride, jealousy, self-doubt, and love perfectly,” with animation by Madhouse (known for work on series like Black Lagoon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, Nana, Paradise Kiss, A Place Further Than the Universe, and Spy x Family) and is a great coming of age story.
Kinue Takehara and Ryōko Ueda studying together in a middle school. You can see here how the room is lit, the importance of the books (giving it the impression of being scholarly) and how the room is lit from the sunlight from the outside.Caitlin Moore notes that Morio Asaka returns as director for A Hundred Scenes of Awajima, who is known for Nana, Cardcaptor Sakura, and My Love Story!!, always “treating the material with the respect and care it deserves,” and called the manga yuri or “at least yuri-ish,” covering students of Awajima Opera School, in the same kind of series as Kageki Shojo!!, saying it “thrives in a space of emotional ambiguity,” saying they excel as short stories, but said that if they “want to make it to the promised hundred, they better pick up the pace.” I have to agree with her on that.
A late entry here is the third episode of Gals Can’t Be Kind to Otaku!?. In that episode, Kotoko Ijichi helps the two other protagonists (Otaku-kun/Takuya Seo and Amane) study in the school library for midterms but Takuya admires the two gyaru gals in front of him. Some of the books in the school library are shown. Despite Kotoko saying they should keep studying, instead Takuya and Amane have an art battle over their favorite characters of Glittermon in the library.
Takuya (left), Kotoko (with the blonde hair), and Amane (with the brown hair) studying in the library during the above-described episode.Another late entry is the third episode of Magical Sisters LuluttoLilly, as mentioned above. In the episode, Rui Nonoyama goes to the school library to learn about magic in preparation for turning into a magical girl after she was inspired after watching CompatoLilly, a magical girl/idol, who is actually her sister Fuu (she doesn’t know that). The information she learns, however, is wrong, as it apparently comes from some occult books, some of which she brings home. She is unable to cast spells. Ultimately, however, she is able to transforms into a magical girl, regardless, amazing her. This series is interesting because Fuu, as a magical girl, often gets the spells wrong, which stands in contrast to how it is often portrayed, when magical girls somehow know the spells completely right. Additionally, Rui reminds me a little of Nodoka Hanadera in Healin’ Good Pretty Cure.
Known on Wikipedia as “Hon Suki no Sai Gekokujō Sono 1″ and “Hon Suki no Sai Gekokujō Sono 2,” the above-mentioned episodes of Ascendance of a Bookworm, which is also known as also known as AoaB or Honzuki, came out in late March 2022, but I just watched them this month. They are both recap episodes. However, I had missed them somehow before watching season 3 back in 2022 (it’s been a while since then!). In the first of these episodes, Myne goes into a certain room of the cathedral and follows someone inside, amazed at how many books there are. She even finds some chained books. When she learns that only church personnel can read the books, she met with the High Priest about being an apprentice priestess. So now she can access the books without an issue.
Just to pause for a second, after some social media chatter, WIT Studio revealed it had used Generative AI in “opening sequence of Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 3 Anime,” and will “replace the opening sequence with a “completed version” starting with the second episode.” The company apologized for this, and in “principle it has not allowed use of generative AI in production of all its works” and said that “this situation occurred due to inadequacies in its production management and inspection systems, and it takes full responsibility.” It will also “take this situation as an opportunity to look at its production process guidelines and management system in order to prevent recurrence.” I supposed that is good, but it is awful they did this in the first place. It says a lot about the company.
A book shown in the cathedral library, chained to a metal rod, showing it physically cannot be removed from the space, as shown in the above-describe episode.In the second of these episodes, Myne finally gets access to the library and reads some of the chained books and is overjoyed with herself. She even threatens two grey-priests, saying she does not want to go eat. One of those priests, Fran, was saved. Later, Dalia was saved too. She is later shown reading more chained books in the church library. Then there is the scene in the same episode of a blue-robbed priest making a mess in the library so she couldn’t go to the Harvest Festival. When she learned she could organize the books how she wanted she was happy, to organize them using the Japanese Decimal Classification system. The head priest is confused about this organization. There is also a scene of the high priest, Ferdinand, looking into Myne’s past, and learning she worked at a library in her previous life. He wants to use her as an asset to help Ehrenfest.
Myne is excited to read a book in the cathedral’s library, now that she is a priestess, but she is accepting the conditions of doing so, and as such, she is a willing participant in the system which keeps the books chained up in this way.I wrote about all of this before, previously on this blog, I said “Although she [Myne] is dedicated to becoming a pioneer of the printing press in this world, she becomes a priest in order to work in the library, so she can be a librarian who helps people. It was much more than she “signed up for”, just as it is with librarians who deliver Narcan but never signed up for such a task.” I also wrote about the church/cathedral library room, her push to reorganize books using the Nippon Decimal Classification System, and much more, including reviewing three fanbooks. Currently, 40 posts on this blog (41 with this post) use the tag “Ascendance of a Bookworm.” Apart from citing it in my posting for recently added titles for March, I mentioned it in a March post (bringing together all my posts about library tourism I did in the summer of 2025), saying, when talking about the soon-to-leave “Dear Library” exhibit of the National Library of Scotland branch in Edinburgh:
Even the manga Ascendance of a Bookworm, which centers on a librarian-protagonist/priest named Myne…could be seen…It is surreptitious to see the Ascendance of a Bookworm manga…because the next season of the anime adaptation, entitled…premiere[d]…this spring. That series centers on a protagonist, named Myne, who fights against religious and societal barriers to distribute free books to the masses…
I also listed all the previous episodes of the series with library scenes (those descriptions have been updated). Note, that these recap episodes show clips of scenes from “Baptism and Divine Paradises,” “Apprentice Princess” (I think), “Blue Robes and Uncommon Sense,” “Harvest Festivals and Staying Home,” and “Dreamlike World.”
- Episode: “A World Without Books” (s1 ep 1); The show’s protagonist, Myne, a school librarian crushed to death under a pile of books during an earthquake. In a later episode, Lutz and Myne exchange their dreams for the future with Lutz wanting to be a traveling merchant and Myne a librarian.
- Episode: “Baptism and Divine Paradises” (s1 ep 12); The protagonist travels to the library, tries to enter a temple library. However, she is unable to enter since only clergy are allowed. In the next episode, Lutz scolds Myne for this afterward.
- Episode: “Apprentice Princess” (s2 ep 1 [i.e. ep 15 of series]); The protagonist wants to be a librarian. One of her conditions is access to the cathedral’s library, as she is angry she can’t access this knowledge and that it is locked away.
- Episode: “Blue Robes and Uncommon Sense” (s2 ep 2 [i.e. ep 16 of series]); Again, the protagonist wants to be a librarian and comes closer to that goal. At one point, she blissfully reads the scripture the entire day while in the library.
- Episode: “Harvest Festivals and Staying Home” (s2 ep 8 [i.e. ep 23 of series]); Myne blames a priest for destroying the library. She decides to re-organize it as she wishes (based the Nippon Classification System). In the process, she learns that “special” books are not allowed in the library, with magic only for nobles who have graduated from the Royal Academy.
- Episode: “Dreamlike World” (s2 ep 11 [i.e. ep 26 of series]); A library is shown in Myne’s vision of her previous life in Japan (before she was reincarnated). It specifically shows where she worked as a librarian: at a public library!
The fourth season has begun airing, on April 4th. I’m not sure if it will have any library scenes or not, but based on the third season, I’m betting it will have no or few scenes at all, to be frank. So far, that has proven to be true, as there were certain times when Myne was going to go to the library, but she was told she couldn’t because she had other duties to attend to instead. In fact, the high priest and his trusted maid (who Myne calls “Granny”) conspire together to stop her from reading books so she doesn’t get “distracted” which is cruel. In her previous life, Myne was named Urano Motosu. She later gains the name Rozemyne, with her Wikipedia description saying:
The titular bookworm, Urano (a college student) was on the cusp of being a librarian when she was crushed to death under a pile of books during an earthquake. She reincarnated as a sickly five-year-old girl named Myne, but in a world where books are only for extremely rich nobles. Her frailty is due to a rare disease known as the “Devouring,” which consists of high fevers which flares up whenever the host is stressed or depressed. Now, Myne has to put her book knowledge to the test in order to become a librarian in her new world.
Lastly, there’s Ghost Concert: Missing Songs. In the episode “Worlds Apart”, the protagonist, Seria Aiba, is told about a library. She voraciously reads books there day in and day out. However, I wondered whether this could be described accurately as a library, or just a storehouse. The founder of the Internet Archive, Brewster Kahle, says that, as I noted back in November 2024, “libraries strive to have collections which are comprehensive, offer many types of media, [while] help[ing] readers, and power[ing] research,” in the process. In that same post, I said that libraries are “places, regardless of their faults, encourage community, togetherness, and provide programs, doing much more than just reading.” In a posting the same month, which was recently updated to fix errors, I said:
…librarianship involves those who work professionally within a library, providing either instruction on information literacy or access to information…not everyone who works in a library is a librarian. There are pages, library associates, library assistants, branch managers, cataloging staff, and so on, many of whom receive low wages. Libraries are not necessarily quiet places and each library has an organizational system for the books…[such as] the Dewey Decimal System or Library of Congress classification system, to give two examples
I also have noted that the Bureau of Labor Statistics defined librarians, and library media specialists, as those who “help people find information and conduct research for personal and professional use.” The most recently updated page from the BLS (last updated in late August of last year) says:
Librarians and library media specialists help people find information and conduct research for personal and professional use. Their job duties may change based on the type of setting they work in, such as public, school, or medical libraries…Librarians and library media specialists typically…Create and use databases of library materials…Organize library materials so they are easy to find…Help library patrons to conduct research to evaluate search results and reference materials…Research new books and materials by reading book reviews, publishers’ announcements, and catalogs…Maintain existing collections and choose new books, videos, and other materials for purchase…Plan programs for different audiences, such as story time for children…Teach classes about information resources…Research computers and other equipment for purchase, as needed…Train and supervise library technicians, assistants, other support staff, and volunteers…Prepare library budgets…In small libraries, these workers are often responsible for many or all aspects of library operations. In large libraries, they usually focus on one aspect of the library, such as user services, technical services, or administrative services. The[re are many]…types of librarians and library media specialists…[including:] academic librarians…administrative services librarians…public librarians…school librarians…special librarians [such as]…corporate librarians…law librarians…medical librarians…[and other non-special librarians like] technical services librarians…[and] user services librarians
However, none of these directly define what a librarian is, however. My trusty Webster’s New World College Dictionary (Fourth Edition, copyright 2007) defines a library, on page 826, as a “collection of books, periodicals, music scores, films, phonograph records, etc. esp. a large systematically arranged collection for reading or reference…[or] a room or building where such a collection is kept.” Apart from other definitions of a library as public or private institution in “charge of the care and circulation of such a collection,” a set / series of books issued in a certain format “by a publishing house,” there’s the broad definition of a library as “any collection of things that is organized for a particular purpose.” This is relatively similar to how the Dictionary of Archives Terminology defines a library:
A collection of published materials, including books, magazines, sound and video recordings, and other formats.
A broader term is a repository, which is defined as a “space used to store items of continuing value, particularly records; a storehouse” and/or “an institution focused on the care and storage of items of continuing value, particularly records.” In the case of this episode, the building that the protagonist Seria Aiba goes into is a repository, but can also be defined as a library as well, so, the person who told Seria it was a library was right based on the definitions above.
Comics recently added to this page
- Love and be Loved, “Loud and Proud“
- Love and be Loved, “Captivating“
- Love and be Loved, “Flirting with Danger“
- Not So Bad, “Episode 5 Part 2“
In the above-mentioned episode/issue of Not So Bad, Mayumi Santos, a supposed delinquent, studies in the school library with Paris Campbell, said to be the golden girl of Acadia High, even helping her study math and chemistry. In the process, she ends up being attracted to her.
Then there’s the episodes of Love and Be Loved. In the first of these episodes, Sam notes how he met the love of his life (Damien) at a library in California, where he was doing research, after his family was talking trash about him being gay behind is back. In the second of these episodes, he says he felt a “deep intellectual attraction” toward him and found that he was hot. He says he fell hard and fast, with Damien unsure why Sam was speaking to him, while blushing. In the third of these episodes, Sam attempted to start dating Damien multiple times, trying to come onto him, and it went on for an
“embarrassing amount of time” as he put it later.
At one point, Damien proposed to him (in the library of all places) because he thought they were together, while Sam rejected him, saying no because they weren’t even dating. Then three months later, he asked again, and this time, Sam said yes. Some commenters said the library is the best place to propose, and I have no idea why people would think that, as it is such a public place.
Love and be Loved (2020-Present)
Films recently added to this page
None for this month.
Other entries recently added to this page
None for this month. However, there is an upcoming series entitled Antiquarian Bookshop Biblia Mystery Novels, adapted from Antiquarian Bookshop Biblia’s Case Files (known as Biblia Koshodō no Jiken Techō in Japanese), a manga by En Mikami, which will be premiering sometime next year. So, it is library-adjacent, but still of interest:
Shinokawa Shioriko is the proprietor of Biblia Antiquarian Bookshop, her sidekick Goura Daisuke, her lanky gofer and protector, has trouble reading books; they make him dizzy. Shioriko is demure and introverted, an expert on vintage books, a great storyteller, and of course, a lover of books; she also has amazing powers of logical deduction, and can solve big mysteries from the smallest of clues. The unlikely pair join forces to unravel secrets and hidden meanings to help people looking for answers, and the true answers are never what they expect.
© 2024-2026 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.
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