MANGA| Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? (I’m A Spider, So What?) – Funny and Interesting Isekai

“‘Manga’? Minty, I thought you said you’d go back to Real People Stuffs…?” I originally did intend to do a live action post. But I was hella slammed this week, and it was an awful weekend. However, I recently stumbled upon this manga series. I found it incredibly funny and just loved it. So I just had to share~ Also I apologize for posting this so late today. I’m usually on top of my shit, but it’s been crazy as hell…  Sorry fam. Forgive me pweaaase?~

蜘蛛ですが、なにか？/Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? (I’m A Spider, So What?) is by Baba Okina. There’s a light novel and a manga. It seems like it started publication in 2015? Sorry…honestly, I didn’t find too much detailed information on this series. It’s still been a fun series nonetheless. Genre-wise, it falls under: isekai, adventure, fantasy, seinen, supernatural, and comedy. If you wish to read the light novel, it’s been fan translated on the web [HERE].

PLOT (From My Anime List):
The world where the Hero and the Demon King continue to oppose each other. The grand magic from the Hero and the Demon King cross over worlds and exploded in the classroom of a certain high school. The students who died in the explosion will be reincarnated in a different world. The protagonist, who has the lowest reputation in the class, was reincarnated into a spider. Nevertheless, she adapted quickly to the present condition with strong willpower. This is a story of she who has become a spider trying whatever she can to live.

Let me first say that I typically am not really into isekai. However, I picked this up on a whim the other day. I found it to be quite interesting. I kept reading it because it was cute, funny, and really made me think of RPG games. What made this particular series so interesting is that the main character isn’t like a hero of some adventure world or story. No. This ordinary high school girl suddenly finds herself as a low-level spider monster. Typically, monsters are seen as bad. However, the main character maintains a human side.

“Kumoko” (“Kumo” means spider) is our protagonist. It seems that she was an ordinary high school girl. We only know bits of her “past life” as a high school girl. She mentions things like she wasn’t a popular girl or someone who stood out. It seems she was a quiet girl who kept to herself. She seemed to prefer staying at home and playing video games. All she really remembers is being in the classroom and feeling pain when some sort of commotion happened.

She suddenly finds herself as a spider monster in some kind of world that resembles a RPG video game. Thanks to her wit, luck and familiarity with playing video games, she’s been able to survive this predicament so far. She’s unsure of what happened and why she’s in this situation though.

Despite being one of the monsters in a dungeon, she’s trying her best to survive. At first she’s hesitant to catch, fight, and eat other monsters. Including her “siblings”. However, she learns that she must do it to survive in this world. It’s either kill, or be killed. Even with everything tasting bad, poison, or other side effects. She sucks it up in order to survive.

She initially doesn’t really know anything about this world. Still, she has wit and her gaming experience. She’s smart enough to be cautious and think out her options. She also proves herself to be great at being strategic with her skills and surroundings. She starts to familiarize herself with her surroundings as she explores the dungeon she’s in. She also learns more and more about her situation. It is proven that it’s very  much like a video game where she can gain and increase skills, level up, evolve, and have different stats.

I’ve only read about 15 or so chapters of the manga so far. I’m really enjoying it though. Like I said, I’m not typically into isekai types of stories. Again, what really stood out to me was the approach of having the main character find themselves as one of the monsters. This story is full of action as “Kumoko” tries to adapt and survive. However, there’s plenty of comedy and cuteness. Despite being a monster, she still retains her humanity. She’s still very much a high school girl and has alot of cute and silly moments. Also, I fucking HATE spiders. One time in Thailand, I was taking a shower after island hopping. I was also blind since I didn’t have my contacts in. Saw this dark black blob on the wall near my face. Thought it was my hair for a split second. Then I realized I had a huge ass spider (tarantula??) the size of my hand in front of my face when I was taking a shower.  That thing antagonized me the whole weekend I was visiting my cousin. So yeah, you can say I was traumatized after that. Anyways, I hate spiders. I hated looking up pictures for this post because I kept stumbling upon actual fucking spiders… Still, I find Kumoko cute and interesting. I’m interested in how this story will unfold. What exactly is this world that she’s in? Will she find out what really happened? Will she stumble upon people she knew in her “past life”? I hope they one day make an anime for this!~ I’m excited to binge read this when I’m free~ Any one else read this series? What did you think?~