Ultimately, upon watching the entire runtime of the series, I will concede Spider consistently captures that sense of fun I am seeking from an isekai title. However, it would be dishonest for me to say I think Spider is a competent show, even within its own genre. Unfortunately, this anime is truly a clash of two visions – each constantly competing with each other.
These two competing visions of the story are mostly embodied by POV changes essentially. On one hand, we have the fun comedic misadventures of Kumoko the reincarnated Spider. On the other, we have generic fantasy isekai trash, mostly represented by humanity’s perspective.
The Plot
In essence, an entire classroom is blown up & all those who perished are reincarnated into this video game-esque world. Each student from the class is reincarnated into a being with a special skill that is tailored to mirror their personality & traits as a human. As an illustration, Kumoko, our protagonist, is reincarnated into a spider monster, unlike all her contemporaries, as she was practically a loser NEET loner in her life as a human. As a newly reincarnated Spider, Kumoko is tasked with leaving the cave she finds herself in now, defeating various monsters that challenge her survival, and exploring the greater fantasy world beyond the cave.
I would elaborate further but, practically speaking, that is all you really need to know to understand the underlying concept for this anime. It is fundamentally a shallow plot, which is not necessarily a bad thing, just different.The Setting
The fantasy world at large in which this show takes place in is exceedingly generic. There are elves, demons, monsters, humans, etc. – pretty much everything any standard generic fantasy series needs. The worldbuilding is minimal as well, but there are a few competing factions that give rise to some nuance. For instance, the elves seem to have their own autonomous lands but tend to mingle within humanity’s domain, having good relations with them. The monsters generally stick to secluded spaces like the caves and forest and are driven back from occupied towns by human forces. The demons seem to have no alliance to anyone other than their own brethren and actively seek to demolish everyone else. And, humanity is defined by a multitude of sovereign townships and some competing religious factions. Once again, I could elaborate further, but there simply is not much to the setting and plot of this franchise. Even this rudimentary map I provided below pretty much tells the whole tale – there just isn’t much going on here.
The Animation
The animation of this series is a weird ungodly concoction of full 3DCGI elements and more traditional 2D animation. Of course, the 3D elements look like shit; I don’t think any studio has figured out how to make full 3DCGI look remotely competent other than Studio Orange, who produce Land of the Lustrous & Beastars among others. Like, we are talking occasion Berserk 2016 levels of dogshit 3DCGI at the low points.
What is so odd about this is sometimes they have 2D and 3D elements in the same exact frame or scene. So, that begs the question, why not just stick to traditional 2D? The 2D stuff isn’t impressive, far from it in fact, but at least it doesn’t look horrible. As a package, it is just barely serviceable altogether. At least they generally play to 3D’s strengths, having dynamic camera angles, large amounts of entities on screen, and making it easier to portray actual movement during action sequences. As an aside, I am sure the production choice of 3D animation helped save some money budget wise as well, which is advantageous as this show seemingly had a very low overall budget production considering what we got as the final product.The Characters
As aforementioned, the setting, plot, and animation of this isekai venture is particularly weak. In fact, this series on its own does not hold up well at all against the vast landscape of its many contemporaries. However, this series does offer a saving grace – Kumoko herself. Kumoko’s character & her actions as the spider singlehandedly carry the show.
Kumoko has amazing voice acting, voiced by industry veteran Aoi Yuuki, who brings so much life into the character. Kumoko is frankly hilarious, and her comedic nature plays into itself well as she is ultimately extremely self-aware of her situation. In fact, a recurring joke is that she is a spider herself, playing the shounen protagonist character in a world seemingly against her existence from all angles. To further amplify how much Kumoko steals the show, she later adopts the Parallel Minds ability, gaining three alternative personalities in essence, which all play upon each other with perfect chemistry.
Likewise, Kumoko is very expressive and frequently monologues, directly showing us and telling us exactly how she feels, her plans moving forward, and how she plans to accomplish her immediate goals. It cannot be understated or stressed enough how much this show would be nothing without its lead protagonist.Conversely, as a aforementioned above, the show has frequent perspective shifts. Our other main protagonist here is Shun the Hero, a former classmate and reincarnated contemporary of Kumoko. This is where the title a clash of two visions comes from ultimately. Anything involving the human characters is such a damn snooze fest. These characters are the most generic fantasy characters of all time, lacking any quirks that could set them apart. For instance, these minute attributes completely summarize some of the human characters in the show:
- Shun the Hero is good & righteous because he is the hero.
- Hugo the False Hero is bad & corrupt because his the false hero.
- Filimos remains a caring mentor as she was a teacher in her past life.
- Feirune is a self-absorbed yet kind hearted bitch.
These characters don't even have distinctive physical attributes like special armor, unique clothing, or different hair colors that would set them apart from any other layman in the universe. I mean, I could go on & on -- the point being is that these character lack any depth. Directly comparing these husks of characters to someone like Kumoko, the difference is like night & day. Kumoko is morally ambiguous as she directly kills many humans and elves, sparking an entire war. She adopts the persona of an ancient divine beast to get free food from her mistaken worshippers. She tries to kill her own mother to gain independence. She kills many monsters not out of the need for survival but simply because she is gluttonous. These quirks infinitely give rise to a much more interesting, compelling, and likeable character than any of these caricatures on offer from the human faction.The Verdict & Final Thoughts
Spider is an extremely shallow experience. It has its moments of fun, but, unfortunately, they are few and far in-between. Rather than focus on what works -- the fun spider misadventures, the production team would rather dump you with generic familiar fantasy exposition. If this show simply focused entirely on Kumoko, the series itself would be an infinitely more enjoyable entertainment experience. However, as it sits now, it is very inconsistent in quality from episode to episode, switching between snooze fest to laugh-a-thon.
With that being said, alongside all the other criticisms I offered throughout this overview, I cannot recommend this series in good faith, especially at 24 episodes. But, I would be lying if I said I did not have a good time with it, albeit even if those moments were sparse.
It was entertaining but only in a surface level type of fashion. Nevertheless, I would probably give Season Two a go if they ever made it, but I would be much more prone to dropping the series or even skipping entire episodes if it continued the same trend. Ultimately, I am going to score this at a perfectly average, 50/100 points. Because, really, this show was just an exceedingly average experience in all facets.
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Anyways, I hear the light novel is good, so maybe check out that instead if this franchise interests you at all! If you made it to the end of this review, I would like to thank you for your time & reading this. Feel free to message me if you agree/disagree, whatever really, would love to discuss more.