Myne

Myne (マイン, Main) is the protagonist of Ascendance of a Bookworm.

Myne has golden eyes and midnight blue hair, self-described as "dark blue... close to black." After her first shampooing, Tuuli described it as dark blue like the night sky. Because her hair is straight and silky, she uses a wooden hairpin to twist the upper half into a bun, while the rest falls loosely to her lower back. After Myne begins using rinsham, others often comment on how glossy her hair looks.

Because of her poor constitution, Myne spent little time outside as a child and has sickly pale skin. Her illness also stunts her growth, causing others to mistake her for a child several years younger than her true age.

Myne has a strong obsession with books, a resourceful attitude, and a deep love for her family and friends. She is straightforward and determined, continuing on with her plans in spite of countless failures and setbacks.

While Myne thinks of herself as a generally selfish person, she is very protective of her loved ones. She also shows compassion for strangers and tries to prevent unnecessary suffering when she can, in part because worrying about others makes it harder to enjoy reading with a clear conscience. She has a deep-seated dislike for pain and death and feels faint at the sight of blood.

Myne often runs into trouble by failing to consider the circumstances of those around her. Because of this tendency, Effa reflects that Myne looks like her on the outside but has her father's personality on the inside. Both often rush into plans without thinking and feel frustrated if they don't reach their goal.

Urano Motosu was a Japanese college student who loved books. She lived with her widowed mother, a caring but whimsical woman who often dragged Urano along on her latest passion project. Her father died in an accident when she was young, leaving behind his book collection. Her closest friend was Shuu, a neighborhood boy, but she also enjoyed gathering around other friends who were passionate about their niche interests, like her.

Urano died at the age of 22, when she was crushed by her own book collection during an earthquake.

Myne was born a commoner child in the city of Ehrenfest. She was the second daughter of Gunther, a soldier, and Effa, a dye worker. Her parents had tried to have children many times before, but out of their six pregnancies, only two children survived through infancy: Myne and her older sister Tuuli.

While Tuuli was healthy, strong, and big for her age, Myne was sickly, weak, and often bedridden by severe fevers. Her mother spent many days at home caring for her and telling her bedtime stories, and her father and sister often worried over her poor health.

Myne was an unhappy child, who was somewhat self-centered. Her mother Effa recalls that she used to throw tantrums out of jealousy of her sister's strong body and stamina. Because of her poor health, she didn’t participate in neighborhood social events, and the local children rarely saw her.

Shortly after turning five, Myne suffered a fever that caused memories from her past life as Urano to awaken inside her, and their personalities and memories combined. The series follows that "new" Myne from that point on.

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 * Mana Capacity: Myne has an unprecedentedly large mana capacity for a Devouring commoner, surpassing even the archduke at merely 7 years old.
 * Blessings: Myne has shown great proficiency with blessings, including successfully praying to multiple gods at the same time. She occasionally gives blessings unintentionally . At least once, she successfully improvised a blessing that did not follow the exact wording of established prayers.


 * Cooking: Myne has decent cooking skills as a commoner, albeit limited by her extremely weak physique. She is able to recreate many recipes from Earth, resulting in a variety of food that are "weird but delicious".
 * Math: Myne is very good at math and is able to calculate large numbers in her head quickly. Her method of doing written arithmetic makes her unique in the new world, where most people calculate numbers using an abacus.
 * Language: Myne has strong reading, writing, and linguistic skills. Not long after learning to read the new world’s alphabet, she rewrites the archaic language of the temple's scriptures into simpler language to create her children's bibles.
 * Education: Myne is a good teacher. She helps Otto teach apprentice soldiers, tutors Lutz, and teaches the children of the temple orphanage to read, write, and calculate at a younger age than even most nobles do.
 * Music: In her past life, Urano spent about three years studying piano . Myne's ears are also better at picking up sound than Urano's, which allows her to learn harspiel quickly under Rosina's instruction.
 * Needlework: Myne is familiar with several techniques that were previously unknown in the new world, including decorative lacework . However, she isn't particularly skilled.

Using her memories from her life as Urano, Myne recreates a wide range of products and dishes which were previously unknown in Ehrenfest.

She knows a great deal about paper, ink, and the history of printing due to her personal interest in books. She also learned how to make several home crafts, including homemade shampoo and homemade washi paper, from Urano's mother. She recalls that while her mother had a passion for trying new DIY projects, she usually gave up halfway through, leaving Urano to finish the rest of the project.

As Myne begins to make more complicated inventions, she relies on the help of Lutz, Johann, and her other craftsmen to help refine the vague details that she remembers into effective products. In recognition of their effort, she gives the honorary title Gutenberg to everyone who helps bring printing into the world.

マイン is directly translated as Main, pronounced "Mine." The light novel translation uses Myne to avoid confusion among the English readers. The official anime translation has used both Main and Myne in different episodes. In both the manga and anime, she uses the spelling "Main" when she writes her name in the new world’s alphabet for the first time.


 * "Urano Motosu (本須麗乃)," Myne's name in her previous life, is a Japanese word play that means "books must be mine." Her new name, "Myne," is a play on both "mine" (belonging to me) and "main" (main character).
 * "本" is the kanji for "book", "須" can be interpreted as "must be" in kanji, and "Urano (うらの)" means "my possession" or "mine".
 * Myne's voice actress Yuka Iguchi also voices the titular main character Index from A Certain Magical Index, a teenage nun with 103,000 grimoires (spell books) crammed into her memory -- another young clergy with her head filled with books.
 * Myne is often affectionately nicknamed "landmine" because she is called "Mine girl" in the character introduction post and used among Japanese and Chinese fans, playing on the pronunciation of her name and her tendency to cause troubles wherever she goes.
 * Myne was born in the summer, which is the season of Leidenschaft, the God of Fire. The season symbolizes strength and growth, which is ironic because Myne suffers from poor health and stunted growth.
 * Myne's final memories before being subsumed by Urano were "...It's so hot. It hurts. I hate thiiis..."
 * Myne had dreams of Urano's world, where she could run and play and eat all she wanted. She wanted to sleep forever so she could stay in the other world.
 * Judging from the fact that the original Myne survived for 5 years without magic tools despite throwing tantrums often, her original mana capacity is probably less than even Konrad, a typical laynoble child.