(CR) Kumo desu ga, Nani ka? (So I'm a Spider, So What?)

[kari-no-sugata II]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

I wonder why the animators chose to do the “Kumoko vs. Potimas” fight using some handdrawn animation when the Terminator-timas could've been better-realized as CGI. I mean, they get A for effort since drawing Kumoko battling using a humanoid upper-body on top of the arachnid lower-body is a pretty gutsy decision, so I'll give them that. Still, the result left a lot to be desired.

I suspect this is more side-effect of having to redo some scenes at the last minute after the outsourcers screwed up, apparently.

In a kind weird way the janky animation and the quirky humor kinda meshed well for me (like in the Konosuba anime). I didn't mind it too much and was reasonably happy about the episode. Given all the pacing mistakes etc they've been making recently, I feared it could have been a lot worse. Unfortunately quite a few important details got missed but I was generally okay with it.

At least they kept the "Maou Shoujo" (pun on Mahou Shoujo) joke, though they could have done it better.

Now that most of the mystery of what Kumoko is doing during the future time of the human characters has been answered, I wonder if we’re still gonna follow two different time periods or not going forward.

Well... I dunno if we'll ever get more anime but here's a little FAQ to help explain some things that the anime skipped over and to give a bit more context. I'll put it in spoiler tags just in case...

Spoiler for mini FAQ:

Q) So what's the actual setting of this series?
A) Simplest description would be "post-post-apocalypse", like in Laputa. The world used to be much more advanced (a bit ahead of Earth) but a certain crisis occurred which nearly resulted in the destruction of the world. The current situation is that almost nobody knows about the past and the world resembles a fantasy setting with RPG elements.

Q) Where did these RPG elements come from? Or were they there from the start?
A) Though a certain course of events, a god from another planet, D, got involved and set up the "System" as a long term solution to the problems. This and the sacrifice of Sariel (a local god) is what saved the world, and Sariel became the voice of the System as a side-effect. The System is basically a rare example of "sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology". Prior to this the world was very similar to Earth in most respects.

Q) Why did D implement the System this way?
A) She's a self-styled evil god who is only motivated by what she finds interesting.

Q) If the System was supposed to save the world why is it in a crisis again?
A) It's a side-effect of the dimensional attack done by the previous Demon King and Hero.

Q) The timeline is so confusing. Is there a better explanation?
A) Here's some entries from an in-world timeline using an in-world calendar from LN4:
Year 834: Julius is born
Year 840: Julius becomes the Hero. An unusual taratect (ie Kumoko) is spotted in the Great Elroe Labyrinth and spider thread and a wyrm egg are collected from its nest. The demons become more active.
Year 841: Birth of Schlain, Suresia (Sue), Karnatia (Katia), Hugo etc. In the Labyrinth, Ronandt and co encounter the "Nightmare of the Labyrinth". It and a Queen Taratect are both spotted outside the Labyrinth.
Year 842: The "Nightmare of the Labyrinth" appears in Sariella. War occurs between Sariella and Ohts. Across the world, wide-scale kidnapping and slave trading occurs.
Year 843: The "Nightmare's Vestiges" are identified in the Labyrinth.
Year 846: Schlain, Suresia and Karnatia undergo the Appraisal ceremony.
Year 848: Feirune hatches from the earth wyrm egg.
Year 850: Potimas visits the Kingdom (where Shun is) and his daughter Filimos comes to study abroad in the Kingdom.
Year 851: Schlain, Suresia, Karnatia and Filimos enter the royal academy. Hugo attempts to assassinate Schlain.
Year 856: The Great Human-Demon War breaks out. All the other events from Shun's perspective occur in this year.

Q) How should we as readers/viewers interpret the split timeline?
A) Kumoko (or Shiro/White as she's usually referred to in-world) is the MC so you should view her timeline as "main" one. In many ways, Shun's timeline is to help with world-building and to set up future mysteries (where is the MC now, what is she doing and why?) and to give a different perspective to the major events in the world.

Q) Will there be a lot more from Shun's perspective in the series?
A) He won't get any more perspectives until Kumoko's timeline catches up with his - if we consider the whole series, he's actually near the end already. If there's a second anime season, he won't show up at all even if it's 2 cour again. From here on out, events mostly occur on the same timeline.

Q) What's Shun's point as a character?
A) This is subjective but Kumoko is a very unusual and unconventional character in all sorts of ways. Shun is much more conventional as a character archetype but he's also set himself up in opposition to Kumoko and her side. Since Kumoko is the protagonist this arguably makes Shun a very unconventional antagonist.

Q) What happened to Kumoko by Shun's timeline? How strong is she? What is she doing? Is she really who we think she is?
A) The anime ends at the end on LN5. If you want to understand Kumoko's background and motivations you'll need to read up to LN10. If there's ever a second season with 2 cours it would probably cover that much. Unfortunately, the anime skipped over a lot of foreshadowing of just what Kumoko will become in future. If you decide to read the LNs, it will make more sense if you start from the beginning.

Q) Is Potimas the main villain?
A) Yep and the elves in general could be seen as the bad guys.

Q) Are Ariel and Kumoko/Shiro really trying to save the world? What are their true motivations? What's going on?
A) It's safe to say that there's no easy solutions in this series. Don't expect to be able to have your cake and eat it either. In short, there's quite a bit of "grey on grey morality".

[tsunade666]

rushed.... the last episode is too rushed. I wont add fuel to the fire(animation) but it's just plain bad.

the initial cg battles is okay but the battle of the elf and kumo is just bad.

[Fnights]

Yes, read elsewhere that they leave out a lots of details and monologues, they rushed it, compressing 4 whole chapters into 19 minutes, simply awfull.
This epic fantasy serie deserve a much better adaption. The extra week was pointless, action scenes were the same crap as before.

At least they do not screw the arachne design, after the "ant" manga i was scary about the result.

Overall i give it 8/10 but i'm trying really hard to forget about the awfull animations of the second half, they ruin the whole experience. Cross fingers that the next season will be handle by a different animation studio and director.

[SuitUp]

so, considering the later half went to shit and what that will do to sales, what are the chances we get another season down the line lol

[grecefar]

Ariel still fits better with out heroine personality as we saw, I don't know about white girl but well I just need to get used to it.

[scififan]

Shun revives the half elf, and the level up gains the access to the forbidden knowledge.

Kumoko survied Ariel's abysal magic. She is reborn in the eggs she hatched previously, so are her parallel minds. The remaining eggs are hatched and become Kumoko's children, but Kumoko denies it. Kumoko also abandons her parallel minds, because she is annoyed by them? Anyway, she somehow gains the acceleration thought ability, so she can still catch up to Potimas' speed during fighting.

Kumoko gains an upper part body of Wakaba, and the human part also has a parallel mind. Kumoko's original mind is inside in this LADY SPIDER's womb. It makes Shiro the monster of Japanese folklore(女郎蜘蛛).

Spoiler:

Ariel says her goal is to save the plaent, but is it really her goal? Shiro agrees to help Ariel. Maybe she feels Ariel can be trusted, due to they share same thought as parallel minds.

Shiro learns that the attackers have breached the city defense. She immediately goes to rescue Sophia.

So, Potimas is a Terminator, and the elf village is defended by metal slug and metal gear. It makes Potmas a mad scientist. Potimas sees Sophia as too powerful for his own interest, so he decides that she must die. Sophia is about to share the same fate as one of her classmates.

Shiro interferes and fights Potimas. She can only use evil eyes in the limited scope. Somehow, Shiro cannot use poison and web. The body parallel mind comes to the rescue.

The ending scene leaves additional questions than answers.

Spoiler:

The girl and boy standing in the middle hardly play any role in the show. The girl only appeared breifly to assist Sophia to make Shun flee.

[Estzero1]

Damn, Waifu with Scythefu looks pretty naisu.

[Anh_Minh]

Bit of a departure from their usual tree huggers role. Here the elves are the Captain Planet villains who'd rather destroy the planet than abandon their environmentally unfriendly tech.

[Gerard07]

Seen the last chapter, finally Kumo de Aracne, the design was good, and well, from what I have read it seems that they rushed a lot in the last chapter, but hey, to me that I have not read the NL it was good.
In general I liked the anime a lot, although I would have preferred that they cut the parts of Shun and his group and focus on other characters (such as Sophia and Kyouya) I suppose it will be for a hypothetical second season, to see what else comes out of the anime.
Questions: I have read that the anime has been highly criticized, will it be enough for them not to make a 2nd season?.

[Thor's Hammer]

Spoiler for Episode 13:

Well this episode confirms that the woman in white is Kumoko.

Potimas survived having his head ripped off because he puts his soul into one of his clone bodies. It's clear the demon army is here because Ariel wants to eliminate Potimas for good.

The animation was horrible as usual.

Overall, I give the show a 5/10 for how badly those involved dropped the ball since the second half of the show started.

[moridin84]

The ending wasn't so bad. It ended in a better place than I thought. It wouldn't have made sense to end it earlier or later. The start of a hypothetical season 2 would also be the start of Kumoko's journey with Ariel.

For light novel adaptions, the normal rate is 3-4 episodes per volume. For 5 volumes that would be 15-20 episodes. So I wonder if they padded out the human side so the end could end at volume 5? It is also possible that they weren't sure how the viewers would take a spider protagonist so they increased the screentime of the human side as secondary protagonists.

Hmm....

Compared to cutting down 5 volumes to 15 episodes, I think I still prefer what we got.

[X207]

they seriously missed a good chance of humor as she was trying to evolve into arachne. it wouldve included having another character intefere/help her...

[FlareKnight]

Can't say I expected the story to turn into one group of villains (Kumoko's side) trying to take down another group of villains (Terminator Elves), with the helpless 'heroes' stuck in the middle of all this.

This show was an interesting ride. There were some highs, some lows, and some questionable animation. But overall it was enjoyable.

[scififan]

Originally Posted by X207

they seriously missed a good chance of humor as she was trying to evolve into arachne. it wouldve included having another character intefere/help her...

No, he does not have any clue about anime jokes, such as Echidna and Dragon Ball bosses.

[Liddo-kun]

episode 24:

Arachne Kumo vs. T-800 Potimas. Enjoyed this fight so much, made me laugh so much (in a good way). Watched it 3 or 4 times in the morning, then watched it twice again before making this post (lol). When Kumo arrived and bgm started playing, knew things are gonna get trashed! But then Kumo found herself in desperate battle with T-800 Potimas. The fear in the face of the spider made me laugh, and when Potimas is saying "I will end you here" - it made me laugh so much again. ahaha.. damn you Kumo-chan... I had already blown July anime budget on Love Live Superstar and Shadows House... but now you want me to spend more!! Ok you got it... I'm gonna buy a kumo cd or some other item from your anime, just because of this episode.

score is 4/10 - because of all the Yuusha desu ga that I was forced to watch. But 4/10 is improved to a generous 8/10 by Kumo action of this episode alone.

[kagato3]

Originally Posted by moridin84

The ending wasn't so bad. It ended in a better place than I thought. It wouldn't have made sense to end it earlier or later. The start of a hypothetical season 2 would also be the start of Kumoko's journey with Ariel.

For light novel adaptions, the normal rate is 3-4 episodes per volume. For 5 volumes that would be 15-20 episodes. So I wonder if they padded out the human side so the end could end at volume 5? It is also possible that they weren't sure how the viewers would take a spider protagonist so they increased the screentime of the human side as secondary protagonists.

Hmm....

Compared to cutting down 5 volumes to 15 episodes, I think I still prefer what we got.

They didn't increase the screen time of the humans from the novel and just like what they did with Kumoko's side a little bit on their side was cut too. One of the things is that there is a lot going on there are 6 different factions that are all interacting with each other (kumoko, Shun, the demons, the elves, the church, Hugo's empire, Kuro's dragons)

[kari-no-sugata II]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Bit of a departure from their usual tree huggers role. Here the elves are the Captain Planet villains who'd rather destroy the planet than abandon their environmentally unfriendly tech.

Well, cartoon villains don't normally position themselves as actual tree huggers - in-world, most people think the elves are very pro-peace which is why Potimas can get around so easily. Another thing the anime glossed over is that it's actually far from fun being born as an elf - Potimas treats them like disposable pawns in general.

On a completely different note, here's a wonderful fan-art of Arachne Kumoko from many years ago:

Images

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

PS The evolution conditions for Arachne were as follows: level 50 small/medium sized spider monster with Pride skill. If you remember the story of Arachne, you'll understand why Pride is a condition.

[SuitUp]

after reflecting a bit, I can confidently day this show was 100% carried by Kumoko's VA, they did a wonderful job and singlehandedly made me want a second season, in spite of how low quality the last few episodes were

[X207]

Originally Posted by scififan

No, he does not have any clue about anime jokes, such as Echidna and Dragon Ball bosses.

that was not a DBZ joke or anything.

when she emerged from the egg, she was a level 1 spider with 5 in all stats. she still had the skills and top end stats noted ie 5/20,000 but she was in no position to evolve into arachne despite being lvl50 and being elligible. she didnt have enough energy reserves as a level 1 spider monster with single digit stats to survive the evolution without a bit of help from another person.

[scififan]

Originally Posted by X207

that was not a DBZ joke or anything.

when she emerged from the egg, she was a level 1 spider with 5 in all stats. she still had the skills and top end stats noted ie 5/20,000 but she was in no position to evolve into arachne despite being lvl50 and being elligible. she didnt have enough energy reserves as a level 1 spider monster with single digit stats to survive the evolution without a bit of help from another person.

Then, no humor is missed from that part. The supposed requirement are pride level, experience point and SP. The only possible humor is her commenting about the changes. She already has a conversation which she is not suppose to have on a tree.