Hello and thanks for visiting Anime Rants. The Ascendance of a Bookworm Season 4 (Adopted Daughter of an Archduke) continues into Summer 2026 with episodes 13, 14, and 15. Overall, though I was mostly entertained, these episodes didn’t strike me as high-quality. The structure of the season hasn’t been great, either. I am starting to think that Bookworm went downhill after the third season, especially considering the embarrassing shit Wit studio pulled with this season initially (using AI art in the opening song before being called out and removing it). Despite some reservations – mainly about the visuals – I will continue covering Bookworm here on Anime Rants.
Contents
Episode 13: Winter Material Gathering
It was winter, which meant it was time to gather the next ingredient for the potion Rosemyne needed. The necessary item was a powerful feystone that could only be obtained by killing the Lord of Winter. A huge beast with blizzard magic, the Lord of Winter was the strongest feybeast that would appear all season long. It resembled a gigantic white tiger and was called a Schnesturm. Together, Ferdinand, Rosemyne, and many knights set out to defeat the Lord of Winter.
The fight was difficult but manageable. Rosemyne put a huge amount of mana into a holy spear and threw it with Ferdinand’s help at the giant monster. The Schnesturm was defeated and the feystone was retrieved. Note: I liked the part where Damuel came to supervise and protect Rosemyne in her Highbeast. Damuel is such a sweet and handsome knight that it’s impossible not to feel reassured by his presence.
After the successful material gathering, Rosemyne soon began a new project. She decided to create and sell educational materials to the students of the Royal Academy from Ehrenfest. Study materials could be borrowed by those who couldn’t afford the steep price of the printed books. It was cute when Rosemyne leant a study book to Philipine in exchange for original stories.
In the next scene, we focused on Angelica, who was at risk of being dismissed from her position because she flunked out of the Royal Academy. But Rosemyne wanted to show the kind of unconditional care that her family from the lower city once showed to her. So, instead of firing Angelica, Rosemyne started helping her study. If her learning improved, she would receive a reward in the form of mana that would be fed into her sword. Angelica was a wielder of a magic blade that could only grow stronger when people voluntarily give it their mana. Rosemyne said she would be happy to do this for Angelica if she made good progress by summer. The episode ends on a hopeful note.
This episode was not super interesting, but sometimes that’s how it is with this anime. Even with the action in the first half of the installment, it didn’t feel powerful and the stakes were not high enough for me to feel any excitement. Complaints aside, there were also good moments in this episode, including seeing the design for the Lord of Winter. It was good to see more attention on Angelica, who seems like an awesome character. I am continually impressed with the character of Rosemyne, as well.
Episode 14: Hasse’s Punishment
It was time to enact the punishment of Hasse, the town guilty of attacking the new cathedral of the nobles. The first half of the episode showed the preparations for the visit to Hasse. Rosemyne did her best in the time leading up to the visit to minimize the punishment in a way that would result in fewer deaths. In a random but cute scene, Rosemyne told Brigitte that she was paying Collina to design her a new dress. The popular frilly dresses did not suit her, so a custom-made one would be ideal. I’m excited to see how Brigitte will look at the next major social event.
Once they arrived in Hasse, Rosemyne addressed the townspeople. She informed them that she saved them from the punishment of having their town annihilated. The punishment her father decided on was heavier taxes and the withholding of mana needed for crops for one year. Those punishments were severe enough, but most of the townspeople were relieved rather than upset. After that point, Ferdinand stepped in and demanded the people give up the traitorous mayor. He also opened a magical Door of Judgement and made everyone in the crowd pass through it. In the end, the ones judged guilty by the Door were the mayor, his wife, and the handful of people who attacked the monastery under orders. They were bound with magical restraints, and then the execution ceremony began.
The ceremony involved the retrieval of the baptism tokens of the guilty parties by Eustachius. He would retrieve the tokens using magic and present them to Ferdinand, who would perform the execution magic. I thought I would like the character of Eustachius, but after this episode, I am less sure. I approach the character differently to say the least. He was way too thrilled to see an execution. That can’t be a good sign.
I wondered how the show would pull off an execution scene since it’s restricted to a Y12 rating. Ferdinand prayed to the God of Darkness and the traitors were turned to stone while begging for their lives. Then the stone crumbled to dust. I thought that was a creative way to have an intense execution scene without it technically being violent at all. Rosemyne felt sick after witnessing the execution and it felt bad watching her be traumatized by it.
On the brightside, Rosemyne had an encounter with her father from the lower city, Gunther. He saw her looking pale and sick shortly after the execution. So he offered his cape to the little girl, saying she seemed cold. Rosemyne thanked the man and burried her face in the cape to hide her tears. That night, she slept without nightmares, wrapped head-to-toe in her father’s cloak. It was a bittersweet ending to the episode.
Episode 15: Night of Fruhtrane
Before we get into what happened in this episode, I need to talk about the elephant in the room regarding this anime’s naming conventions. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is far from the only anime that names people and things after random German words. Many series have done this since at least the 2000s, and I suspect since anime itself became established. In The Ascendance of a Bookworm, the names of the monsters (feybeasts) are German words. Some other names may be inspired by German, such as Fruhtrane, the Water Goddess, whose name is thought to be inspired by the German word “Frühträne,” which means “early tear.” (From the Fandom Wiki)
I don’t speak German (yet), but I have several German friends who are easily irked by the naming traditions of shows like Frieren and Bookworm. I understand that it breaks their immersion. Also, nothing is actually pronounced correctly. Personally, this obsession with German doesn’t bother me much, but I do wish more creative and diverse naming would be used in anime. With that random ramble out of the way, let’s actually talk about this episode of The Ascendance of A Bookworm Season 4.
Long story short, this episode was about the material gathering done by Rosemyne and company in the Spring season. They needed to collect the nectar of a giant flower called the Rairein flower. It was known to bloom during the Night of Fruhtrane, a special night in springtime. The flowers would disappear quickly, so it was essential to harvest the nectar at daybreak. To find the flowers, Ferdinand, Rosemyne, several knights, and half a dozen attendants went to a beautiful forest spring called the Goddess’ Bath. They cleaned up an overgrown statue of the Water Goddess on their way there, which helped them get through the thick and magical woods.
Once they reached the beautiful body of water, they battled some frog-like feybeasts called Talfrosch. Brigitte and Rosemyne were disgusted by the frog monsters, while the men were unaffected. I know it’s going off a gender stereotype, but those annoy me. Someone should remind the author of this series that not all girls have an unreasonable fear of frogs. I am nonbinary, but assigned female at birth, and I’ve never had a problem handling frogs and toads. They are cute. It is not a gendered thing to have a phobia of slimy creatures.
Anyway, that night, the magical forest – or perhaps the divine magic of the Goddess of Water – saw fit to separate the women and men. The women and girls were sleeping inside Rosemyne’s Highbeast. A barrier was put up around them which Ferdinand and the men could not break. Within this barrier, Rosemyne and the other young ladies woke up to beautiful floating lights and a mystic atmosphere. They played music and sang songs dedicated to the Goddess. Then the flowers began to bloom and Rosemyne was able to collect the nectar from them.
That’s the gist of the episode, but there are a few more quick notes to make. First, the visuals in this episode were not great, especially during the battle scene. Second, there was an interesting moment near the end of the episode wherein Ferdinand seemed to have a sort of flashback to his younger self, sitting in a room of nobles and feeling isolated. It happened while he was talking to Karstedt and Eckhart about the material gathering. I wonder what that was about?
On a final note for today, the episode ended with Ferdinand admitting that he likes being around Rosemyne because she leads him to so many new discoveries. In a few weeks, I will cover the next three episodes of Bookworm. Thanks for reading.
~Thanks for Reading~
Written by 7Mononoke at Anime Rants
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