Reply to Vol 4 与えるべきもの + orphanage
The orphanage situation is absolutely horrendous. How do they produce functional 側仕え from that mess??
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re: orphanage
This continues to be a place where I can’t suspend my disbelief.
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Orphanage
The short answer is that they don’t produce functional 側仕え. (I don’t remember when that’s mentioned, so I’ll spoiler it) They are supposed to be taught/trained by their blue-robed priest/priestess and seniors.
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Orphanage
To add to what Naphthalene said, it wasn’t like this back when there were enough 青色神官 to support the system properly.
It sounds like Fran’s cohort has very different memories of growing up in the orphanage than Delia and Gil’s generation, and even Delia and Gil got out before things had completely collapsed. Not to say that the orphanage was ever a wonderful place. But it wasn’t supposed to be this total disaster. The temple wanted blank slate kids to train, not starved and traumatized ferals.
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orphanage
Yeah this is my issue, but you also raise a good point that this is a recent collapse of the system, and didn’t used to be this way that long ago..
Ok, I take back most of my complaints.
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I agree with shitsurei; those are all very good points @Naphthalene and @basilsauce.
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Vol. 5, 外に出るということ＆インク作りの下準備
Just to check myself, the 神官長 didn’t really give a reason for refusing to visit the restaurant other than “I know you’re up to something”, right?
Myne breaking into a new industry again without even thinking about it; Benno’s either going to be filthy stinking rich by the end of this series or deathly afraid of Myne suggesting anything else. Also, dang Myne, again, why do you know so much about ink preparation methods? I think I’d be more willing to accept “she’s got a fantastic memory” if she hadn’t complained several books ago about how bad her memory was and how much she needed a notepad.
Otherwise it’s business as usual.
…I’m coming to enjoy these material-gathering sessions. I’m, dare I say it, somewhat looking forward to her attempts with ink. Is the 本好き-好き virus finally emerging??
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Vol 4. 初めてのお外
Well, we knew ギル doesn’t know what money is but I was shocked too when he just grabbed a fruit from a stall. Poor ルッツ, he was holding his hand to avoid exactly this kind of stuff.
And hey, 80-90 kids in orphanage and we have just confirmed that the food situation became worse as there are (1) less blue robed priests and (2) more kids back in the orphanage because of that (so we have less food divided among more people)
Aside from that, all I can say for this chapter is: that I stan ベンノ, I love ベンノ, I respect and adore ベンノ. ベンノ is the best!
Vol 4. 料理人教育
I’m dying 
マイン is pretending to be an actual noble teaching through フラン the Italian recipes as if they were noble’s recipes. And this play pretend is so serious the poor cooks are horrified of getting any attention including praise. Poor guy! Poor apprentice girl!
Lmao
Pizza making vocab is a bit hard with the fantasy names mixed with “this is X in real world”, but I appreciate it as world-building regardless. Also I am in a dire need for pizza now, thanks マイン.
And finally, when マイン mentioned forgetting something I thought she forgot making lots of pizzas for the orphans, not デリア’s entire existence. Haha.
And I see this wasn’t answered straight away so for the record:
The soup making process in-series includes getting rid of the vegetable water once and using “fresh” water with the boiled vegetables. So マイン has been complaining in Part 1 about how soups don’t have much taste to them.
I thought that it’s all about traditions, and our equivalent would be boiling rice like pasta and removing the excess water? Cos that IS so wrong.
But according to the wiki people there believe that vegetable water can cause illnesses and miscarriages probably because veggies from soil → soil is dirty → boiled water is like washing, you remove the dirty water and then make your food.
@eefara and @shitsurei seemed to really not want any cooking chapters when they were reading this. But… why?
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Vol 4. デリアの仕事 - a.k.a. ew nobles/temple, ew.
I’m so uncomfortable with デリア in the of this chapter words can’t describe it. THIS is what she meant a couple of chapters ago when she said that without her マイン couldn’t properly welcome guests as there was no-one to 花を捧げる…
I can’t. At least it’s not sexual, right??? Pretty girls sitting on your lap and smiling at you but at least you don’t touch them, right?? Right??? I can’t with the temple and the nobles. I am starting to hope 下剋上 part in the name includes destroying the gross reality of the noble world at some point of the story.
Re: taking clothes off (even if it a robe on top of other clothes, even of she’s a child) still means “seducing men”
「殿方の前で何ですか!? はしたないっ！」
Wow this really adds nuance to 神官長’s freak out to when マイン was putting the blue robe on in front of him and his army of 側仕え.
It is useful to have someone who knows all the gender-related things, gross as they are, and can scold マイン for not following local customs. Gross as they are.
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re: guests at the temple
It 100% can be (and is one of the main reasons for nobles to visit the temple), but I sure hope it never was yet in her case. (My memory is a bit unclear on that point)
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Re: guests - oh no…
I think the story is striking a lovely balance thanks to マイン being very modern person, obsessed with books.
She’s obsessed enough not to think too deeply about things that are not touching her directly and she’s enjoying small modern things she gets to do/have there so her POV is making the story light; while the reality of the world without her is… not.
Seems like a pretty dark world to me?
I don’t know where we would be if she stopped and thought of what we know of the world by now:
- the whole security around the possibility of kids being kidnapped in general (mentioned when she fainted at the market in the first book)
- rich kids being kidnapped specifically (now with all the noble clothes) (and just “scary to walk outside with money” in general)
- (I feel like we mentioned the idea of being followed home for the money, right?) But even if we didn’t - Benno’s father was killed outside the city walls just to get the money so that counts for being followed imo
- the fears (and consequences) kids here face for not following their parent’s footsteps (we’re seeing it with Lutz more, but the way all those wives were bullying him into giving up on his ideas… would have worse consequences over time, especially if Lutz ended up failing on his way)
- on the subject of Lutz - just not being able to feed all kids in the household (???)
- the idea that a family can go hungry (I think we mean “to starve”) if there is no-one/not enough family members that can go to the forest
- the contractual “being used to death” for the Devouring by the nobles
- the idea that for telling “no” to the nobles you & your family can get executed
- the whole gray robe eternal servitude concept for orphans
- and now small girl being more in the whole “lover” thing than just abstractly thinking about it as a thing she’ll do when she grows up…
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Reply to Vol 4. 料理人教育
Aaah, that’s probably the magic bit I was missing. Thanks!
Dang, you’re brave, checking the wiki. I’m way too afraid of spoilers to even think about looking in its general direction.
Personally, I find them boring. There’s nothing interesting for me to have “how to make basic food recipe” explained in extreme detail over 3-5 pages, and while I might be okay with them if we’re focusing on the moments between the characters interacting as they cook the food (as opposed to the cooking being the focus itself), none of the character combinations who have cooked so far have really offered the pre-existing camaraderie I would normally look for. Myne’s either cooking with NPCs or using cooking as an easy “look at how skilled I am, future friend” icebreaker, so I don’t have much opinion on her cooking partners yet.
That’s just me, though. Honestly, I really enjoy reading your happy reactions to the cooking bits; just because they’re not my favorite doesn’t mean I don’t get happiness out of seeing other people enjoy them. 
Reply to Vol 4. デリアの仕事 - a.k.a. ew nobles/temple, ew.
It’s things like this that make me think 本好き would be a great re-read series; you get the extra punch of being a reader who’s already aware of local customs and can empathize with Benno as Myne just runs around doing her own thing. XD
Re: a pretty dark world
I don’t remember if they’ve mentioned this at the point you’re at or not yet, so I’ll spoil this just in case (though it’s really minor): at some point is it mentioned that nobles don’t visit commoner areas and vice-versa, so I presume noble children walk around on their own on their side of the “fence”, as it were.
As for the rest of your point, it’s a lot of fun seeing them all in conglomerate like that. Honestly a bunch of those feel pretty reasonable for a society that appears to be either in its medieval or just-post-medieval stages, and it’s all good material to show Myne how alien her new world is to her and her pre-conceived notions without making up completely ridiculous stuff, imo (like from 今日からマ王, where [early book spoiler] throwing/slapping a glove at someone signifies a marriage proposal [instead of a challenge to duel]). Not enough isekais have much of an interesting world, I feel, because they’re too scared to really commit to anything dark.
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@shitsurei I noticed it looks like you’ve had to put 本好き to the side for a bit; I figured I’d do the same until you caught up (let’s me catch up with my TV shows, so no worries there). Is your reading schedule looking pretty crazy for a while?
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Yeah I’ve been a little frazzled lately with life stuff and when I’ve had an hour to sit down and read I’ve been picking manga instead 
I’m thinking I’ll try and catch up a chapter at a time which would hopefully catch me back up in a few days.
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For me, it’s about pacing. Most of the chapters are the same length. So you either get a chapter with interactions between the characters that gives you more information about their relationships (best case), you get a chapter with new information about the world (good, often has a lot of show not tell), or you get a chapter where Myne narrates in excruciating detail about a thing she’s doing, and compares it to our world things (worst case). Cooking is even worse than other things Myne has done throughout the series because I know a lot about cooking, so it always feels like being explained for 20 pages about how to make a grilled cheese sandwich.
There’s also an undertone in a lot of fantasy novels that I think this sometimes falls into the trap of, of, “wow these dumb dumbs don’t know anything. I, modern person, will come in and save them from their stupidity.” It’s definitely not as bad in this series as I’ve seen it in other books, but when she’s cooking or crafting there’s usually someone going “omg Myne, you’re so amazing for this thing” in a way that often rubs me the wrong way.
That all said, it’s been nice to read your comments lately because it feels like you’re a lot more invested in this series than I/we are, so it’s been fun to see someone who is really excited with the world and the story engage in a way I didn’t when I was reading.
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Sounds good. I’ll continue watching TV until then. 
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It’s funny because I recently watched a video by Arkada about how he, as a big fan of the light novels and also of the manga adaptation, is really worried about the season 3 adaptation. One of his big concerns was that the season 2 anime had already cut a lot of the cooking/restaurant stuff! And he felt part 3 had a lot of stuff that would be similarly cut to get to some of the more politics stuff later on.
I was just thinking “Well, this is the opposite opinion to what I’m used to seeing” 
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The chapter lottery makes so much sense! If I’m in the mood for banter with Benno, but I know the next parts are temple I definitely procrastinate the read (my next chapters are orphanage and I’m trying to lure myself in with the knowledge we’ll be seeing 神官長 about it)
Thoughts on the trope of MCs being amazing and how Honzuki handles it
Just finished season 2 of the 7th prince and I’m very aware of what you mean here lol
In Honzuki there is a caveat - at a later point you get the POV chapter of this character and they are basically going “wow this useless luggage of a child that has no future no matter how you look at her actually managed to succeed at something 
“.
I don’t mind the whole “everyone is wowed by MC” let-my-brain-rest stories, but it’s constantly surprising me when wow-ed people turn around and reflect on Myne as that “weird child that is doing weird stuff but she still needs job/to cook/to sew and marry sooner rather than later to probably another soldier (or whatever is socially expected), but I’m glad she didn’t die yet as we all thought she would”. I was weirded out in Part One with how consistently no-one believed Myne could accomplish anything at all. In the epilogue of Part 1 we see her family still not really believing that she’s any good at… anything. Amazing.
I think Lutz is the only good baby that doesn’t do that, but he’s also that kid that was saved from starvation with bird food, which is objectively a genious idea lmao. (Ok, ok, getting him a chance to get a job was a thing that’d have never happened without Myne)
TLDR: all detours are building the life our characters want, so if we cut out day to day money making we'll have another unbelievable 'commoner just made it with no background and wasn’t burned as witch because author didn't even consider that' story and Honzuki is really doing the background work on why that wouldn't fly
I barely remember the second part of season 2 and I wonder if that’s the reason…
My favorite part as of now is how the characters are fully set on a course (say becoming merchants) and all they do is in one way or another moving them towards that (or towards not dying) and it’s all coming together.
I think all of us can’t wait to see nobles (well, I dread that now, but that’s beside the point), but the more you cut from the day to day building of a life they are earnestly aiming for now, the more the whole thing (most likely even the temple, not only part one) feels like a filler before we get to “the good stuff”. Just commit to it! Making tasty food as a business is just as important as making paper for the books because we need (1) money (2) (Benno’s) influence and (3) quality of life. It’s part of the full immersion experience!
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Vol. 4, 孤児院の実情 & 神官長の言い分とわたしの決意
This is where 本好きの下剋上 第二部 神殿の巫女見習い1 | L30 ends so it’s kind of mentally hard to “finish the book” while it’s not finished in terms of “Vol 4” in this book club.
So the timeline:
Gil (10 years old; left the orphanage 3 years ago) didn’t know it’s so bad while Delia (8 years old; left it a year ago) says it got bad about half a year before her 洗礼式, when the number of caregivers (mostly woman that were pregnant or gave birth and are not as pretty anymore) decreased drastically (and I guess it’s the same timeline for less food with the decreasing overall number of blue priests).
For 10 blue robes leaving, there are 50-70 側仕え without work and food/money from nobles and we’ve lost half of the overall amount of these nobles.
About 30 gray robes were SOLD to work for nobles but with the number of nobles decreasing outside of the temple, we can’t sell more.
With current resources we can feed ~40 kids, which is a bit less than half. But hey, good research on author’s point to be like “not (insert procedure) in a religion, not yet a human recognized by religious institution”.
Annndddd we have also explicitly said that gray robed priestesses get pregnant and have kids so yeah 花を捧げる is… That. Half of the kids in the orphanage are kids of the nobles (blue robed priests with low mana). Sorry but 
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(starting the next Junior Bunko volume) There are other books I want to finish this month, but reading the chapter titles for this half of og!vol4 I’m looking forward to the chapters in the end~
Vol. 4, 神官長との密談 and 孤児院の大掃除
It’s good to see how マイン is getting an opportunity to learn how to do things the way nobles do and at the same time how 神官長 realizes he absolutely cannot wait for her to learn the proper (lol) ways to communicate and he needs to be able to talk to her secretly at all times. Good man.
It’s hilarious how he confirmed ベンノ’s assessment of マイン as well.
Considering it’s illegal to hire kids before the baptism ceremony, we are probably addressing this work in the same way 冬の手仕事 was done?
Reminder: as エーファ works in a factory, it’s the factory that is doing official business (= no need for a guild registration for her) and then the “outsourcing” can be done by kids in the household too - like baskets were done by トゥーリ and マイン in the first winter. So all of them get money but none of them are registered with the guild separately and it doesn’t count as a job (I think?)
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