I, the protagonist, was just an ordinary high school girl, but suddenly I was reincarnated as a spider
monster in a fantasy world. Not only that, but I awakened in a dungeon filled with vicious monsters.
Armed with only my human knowledge and my overwhelming positivity, I'm forced to use spiderwebs and
traps to defeat far stronger monsters just to stay alive... So begins the labyrinth survival story of
a girl with incredible mental strength living as one of the lowest-ranked beasts!
(Source: Crunchyroll)
~!The jojo's reference is "Muda muda muda". Now onto the review.!~ Is the KumoDesu anime good? No. Is the KumoDesu anime bad? Yes. Very much so. It is fairly ambitious with how it tries to presents two different timelines and frequently switches between them. This sort of made the story more engaging, easily making it the most bearable and enjoyable aspect and that's saying something considering that over 50% of the anime was mind numbingly boring. **Story** I personally enjoyed some of the story despite it's shortcomings. We start off with Kumoko, a high school student reincarnated into a spider, who is in a labyrinth and her classmates reincarnated as normal humans with the exception of a few. The first half of the anime gets pretty repetitive as it follows the same cycle of Kumoko finding a strong monster, killing it, eating it and finding a stronger monster. Although, it does get better in the second half as we begin to learn more about the world through Kumoko's perspective. The world building was appealing enough to make me want to continue the anime. Then there's the human side that serves almost no purpose other than boring the viewer to death. **Characters** Meh. Kumoko's jokes and witty comments get stale very quickly but she manages to remain more entertaining than any other character. The main human characters follow every classic cliche there is. Shun, a brocon who is obsessed with justice as much as he is with his brother. Then there's Hugo, the villain whose motives are almost non existent because of how stupid they are. I watched 24 episodes of this anime yet I'm barely able to recollect major human character names. **Animation** Yeah, this sucks massive balls. The action direction is so crazy that it turns into a slideshow. It's just so half assed at points. Imagine any kind of fighting scene and that would still be better than what we got in KumoDesu. The action sequences were so well done that I would rather skip to the end than torture my eyes. Atleast we got a scene where the camera went under Hugo's clothes in the final episodes. Truly the peak of this series. **Soundtrack** Besides the second opening, I wasn't a big fan of the rest. The first ending was kind of cute, I guess? **Conclusion** This is the same studio that did the critically acclaimed adaptation of Berserk so I don't want to judge the whole series just by the adaption. I can see the potential this series has but this adaptation ain't it. The anime's high moments were quickly overshadowed by the lows (human side of the story). If you want to watch anime just for it's story, KumoDesu is pretty solid as it sucks at every other aspect.
# __~~~Warning, this review will contain minor spoilers for the Anime.~~~__ ~~~img600(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eciJ-ercyPU/maxresdefault.jpg)~~~ I'm a Spider So What, is an anime with a very interesting story, and from what I can tell rather interesting characters, but with an anime adaptation that is so bad, that had I not been hooked to the story, I would have instantly dropped the series. Unfortunately, while the story is very interesting, the author picked studio __Millepensee __ to bring his anime to light, and for those of you who are unaware, studio Millepensee is the same studio which was responsible for Berkserk's first and second season adaptations. So from the start, I instantly feared the worst for this anime, and the worst happened. From horrendous CGI, to animation in the later half of the anime which was so poorly made, that I wouldn't even be exaggerating if I said that my dog could probably animate better than that. (And no, I know animating is hard, but trust me, you have no idea how poor the animations is in the later half of the anime. I will however, give them props for the animation at the start of the anime.) ~~~I will delve into everything in detail below:~~~ ~~~img600(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/834396154095468584/861212846230732840/unknown.png)~~~ # ~~~__Story 9/10:__~~~ The Story of this anime is quite literally the only thing that managed to keep me entertained and wanting to watch more of this anime. The story doesn't have the best start, but after a few episodes, I guarantee you that you will definitely be hooked, and want to watch more of this anime, just for the sake of exploring the story. There are many unexpected twists, all of which are explained eventually, and make sense, and the overall world building is pretty interesting. Unfortunately, I am a bit skeptical of some of the scenes that take place at the end of the end of the anime, which may or may not downgrade the story in the long run, but I will maintain a positive perspective on this series, and as such I shall not comment on what may or may not occur in the future. ~~~img600(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/834396154095468584/861216487812366356/unknown.png)~~~ # ~~~__Art 3/10:__~~~ When delving into Art, I mainly look at two aspects within an anime. The Aesthetics (i.e. how the anime looks) and the animation within the anime. In terms of overall Aesthetics. it starts off at a fairy nice light, nothing visually astounding, but not bad either, so I would say overall mediocre. However, as the anime progresses, there is less and less detail placed into the artstyle, which results in the anime being visually painful to look at. In terms of animation. This was where the studio adapting the anime mainly failed at producing. While at the start the animation was decent enough, it was absolutely horrid at the end. Furthermore, this anime frequently switches between 2D and 3D, without trying to smoothly transfer between the two, which results in pretty weird scenes. Especially considering that some scenes have both 3D and 2D characters next to each other at the same time. Adding onto this, 3D is not necessarily a bad thing, I have seen several 3D anime which manage to use 3D well. There are also western cartoons such as "The Dragon Prince", which I absolutely love, which is entirely in 3D. However, this anime fails in the 3D aspect. Fights are poorly animated, especially at the end, and the anime never takes advantage of the 3D models to make stunning camera movements or anything of the like. ~~~youtube(https://youtu.be/2hyDlt_yvv4)~~~ # ~~~__Sound 5/10:__~~~ In terms of sound, the music in this anime is okay, there aren't any really memorable soundtracks, but at the same time, there weren't any moments where I felt the music didn't fit the scene. In terms of voice acting, this really depends on you, I personally really enjoy the voice actress of the main character, so do most of my friends. However, I know that the majority of the community dislikes her voice acting, as such I shall not comment on this aspect. # ~~~__Character 6/10:__~~~ Similarly to what I mentioned inside sound, the characters in this anime are really hit or miss, meaning you either like them a lot, or else you hate them. Unfortunately though, apart from a few main characters and side characters, I feel that some of the major cast have rather bland characters. However, I didn't find any of them to be annoying, or too bland, as such I believe a score of 6 is justifiable. # ~~~__Enjoyment 6/10:__~~~ I overall enjoyed watching this anime. However, to be frankly honest, it wasn't really the anime I enjoyed, but rather the story that was portrayed within the anime. I will definitely not watch any second season. However, I do plan on grabbing the light novel and reading it through to see the story that got me hooked into this anime. # ~~~__Overall 6.3/10:__~~~ The Anime Studio honestly ruined the adaptation of the light novel. While the anime is still pretty watchable, and as long as you like the story, you should remain entertained. __I would highly recommend reading the Light Novel instead of watching this anime.__ -------- ~~~[If you enjoyed this review, please feel free to read my other reviews](https://anilist.co/user/LordReno/reviews)~~~ --------
Harder show to grade than most because there are two significant halves that don't frequently meet in any center or mix particularly well. Kumoko's half of the show is charming, enjoyable, and worth watching. Shun's half of the story and world is so lifeless and generic that I think I'd sooner recommend a supercut of the series that removes all the content centered around the humans' story. The animation is also ranging in quality, from "that's not animated" to "okay, that's kinda animated", to "hey look I'm watching a decently animated series." You can usually expect one of the better fights or animated sequences to follow in an episode after one that is noticeably, jarringly lacking in quality. They make good use of the 3D medium to put together some interesting, frenetic fights with heavier camera work than you'd see in _most_ anime (AoT notwithstanding.) But most of the time, outside of Kumoko's cute animations, everything else looks genuinely awful. In regards to the overall story, there's a neat plot gimmick that is fairly easily sussed out and I'm not certain about where things are going or how they'll conclude. So that's a positive. It feels rather rushed, like there is possibly a fair quantity of missing detail, but whatever. If you're watching this due to my recommendation, you're in it for Aoi Yuki's incredible voice acting and charm as our protagonist Kumoko. She's a very fun character to have on screen and that will be true regardless of what segment of the story is being told. That's the gist of things. But apparently I have to pad out this review in order to post it, so I'm going to go into some detail regarding some of the elements I liked in particular. I'm just going to preface at the gate: I'd personally consider this spoiler territory. Things that are extra spoilery are marked. (Sigh.) Appraisal! - I thought that Kumoko's suite of abilities presented a fairly unique approach to the overpowered reincarnation. ~!Her parallel minds ability is a fairly fresh ability that I haven't seen exhausted in anime. It services the action by making her feats seem a bit more feasible. She's essentially a party of four in one. Granted, they are all the same Aoi Yuki voiced spider girl, so the range of their creative thinking should possibly be limited. But rather than think about that, it's more fun to consider what you or other characters could get done with 4 parallel minds acting in cooperation. Ever see Pixar's Inside-Out?!~ - The way they lead you to figure out the plot gimmick is subtle but fair and thoroughly enjoyable. ~!I've long anticipated a story presented in this way, observing an innocent character as they go about their actions, but knowing that from the outside you're watching the rise of a powerful entity that has already shaped history in the "present."!~ - I'm satisfied with Kumoko's lack of hesitance to destroy NPC's or anybody trying to off her - The morality isn't immediately clear. ~!Having Kumoko begin the story accidentally delving into the taboo offers a bit more to think about. It's like if you started an RPG unaware of a morality system and your first action was sinful, leading you wandering into the dark side just trying to survive rather than seeking it or avoiding it. In addition to that, the question is raised about whether the Isekai world is real or worth protecting to begin with. Where will we go from there?!~ So there you have it. Spider story good. Human story bad, ranging from lullaby to laughingstock. Put them together and you've got a show that most people ought to skip. But if you appreciate a show that hangs on a single enjoyable character, maybe this will offer enough to you.
This isekai was one of those I figured I might check out but definitely wasn't high up in my go to- list. I was again suggested to check this out by a source and so I grabbed hold of the manga and started reading. At first the manga was a huge mixed bag. I thought it was overly detailed in it's nature but then again sometimes I thought the cave chapter definitely had clever scenes and bits. And the B plot was not getting me at all at first. It was like watching bad fantasy high school plot and then jumping to the spider smahing everybody in the cave. And whenever the spider came to the screen I was relieved (even thought it had it's ups and downs) cause something worthy is probably going to happen. Post cave/grind plot was easily the best portion of the series. Whenever I saw the spider from other people's pov I remember saying: "That's some good shit" multiple times. The little scenes from the demons were also worth while but the B- plot definitely in the anime was so unnecessarely long and painful to watch, since I couldn't really care about any of the characters. But the spider and demons popping up was always what I was waiting for. At the closing episodes I did saw some small improvement in the B- plot front and I hope that it continues in the future. And good god the CGI was bad at the battle scenes. And I thought some of the Overlord CGI was bad, nope this shit was far worse. But yes I still thought even if the B- plot made my brain melt sometimes, that the anime is worth while even if the starting cave part can be overly long and detailed. There is certainly scenes with the spider that will make up some of the worse shit you are seeing time to time. Also the world building having demons and they still being in the shadows gives little extra anticipation for the upcoming stuff. But I do have to say the elves scenes were quite odd and made me question quite bit of stuff. Like what kind of stuff is canon and what's not, it was weird to say the least, I am eagerly waiting explanations for some of the scenes (as I haven't read the LN). So in one hand I really enjoyed bunch of stuff about the world building, definitely some of the characters are really interesting (but some aren't). Quite the mixed bag where I think the good beats the bad (atleast for now). And there was definitely some aspects which I disliked just because I think some tropes are maybe overly used or they could have just not done something. (Just for example I just think the leveling systems are so unnecessary in so many isekais, they could just not do them and atleast I would be happy). The plot problems also were mostly my own dislikings and not actual plotholes. I think it's more that I have seen so many well developed plotlines that gives more clever ways to know what has happened in the past and is this thing something to be afraid of --- but here there's that sometimes and other times you might be rolling your eyes quite often.
_Kumo desu ga, nani ka?_ is a show with a peculiar premise and an engaging approach to storytelling, which however has many problems. These are mostly glaring productions issues translated into: a not so shy mix of 2D art with CGI; ugly, inconsistent character designs in several scenes throughout the show; weird camera angles and approximation; forgettable soundtrack (except for the OP and ED which are great customized pieces); a confusing storyline, occasionally so even for the keen eye; problems with meeting deadlines while the show aired etc. A quick glance and you will see that this one of those "better read the manga instead" anime. And yet, I hereby come to recommend the story itself, for despite the adaption having severe downsides, it still managed to entertain me and earn my interest, and so I plan on continuing the story in the manga. The concept of this show is rather curious, and I mean less so for the fact that the protagonist reincarnates into a spider, and more about how unexpectedly __real__ this premise turns out to be. Kumoko is the embodiment of _chaotic neutral_, and it shows. This is one of the few _isekai_ works that I've seen which really explores the consequences of the actions of a playful but indifferent Player who is inserted into a very live medieval fantasy world. The mix between comedy and silliness in the main character's parts can refresh your humor, while the actual story is subtly being weaved in the background, but not independently from her actions. We watch as mystery and conflicts unfold in the most troublesome ways while Kumoko ungracefully tries to live her generic isekai fantasy life — but ultimately, she will face palpable results of her carelessness, which may or may not cost something out of her or the others around her. In my opinion, this is the trait that makes this show a compelling and somewhat unique isekai. And while this is not part of the scope of this review, it is worth mentioning that Kumoko is not the only character to be isekai'd after her death; others will appear and navigate through the same world as her in their own way, making you curious about this uncommon relevance given to the past life of these characters, compared to other stories off the genre. Furthermore, as we progress through the plot, it becomes more and more obvious that doom is imminent due to the implicit, parallel lines forming between the various characters, and the expectations for inevitable shock and rupture between all of them becomes real. Note that this show has more than one story focus, switching to some other characters besides our MC, and this is __not__ irrelevant, as you can gather information from different sources to understand the whole picture. Yes, this kind of story has potential to be convoluted and disappointing if the ending is not carefully planned and developed, but while we don't know how it will be executed, it is a fun ride nonetheless. Still, don't be under the wrong impression; that this is a heavy and way too serious show or that it's pretentious or trying to bite more than it can chew. On the contrary, it has plenty of light-hearted and fun scenes, and Kumoko herself isn't known for taking things too seriously — unless it's a battle for survival, because then you'll watch her working at full force to save her arachnid ass in this not-so-kind world. Certainly, being reincarnated as a spider is not all fun and games.