Spider versus Dragon, go!
Creative Staff
Story: Okina Baba
Art: Asahiro Kakashi
Character Design: Tsukasa Kiryu
Translation/Adaptation: Jenny McKeon
What They Say
The head honcho. The last boss. The final encounter…
At long last, it’s time for the finale between me and my greatest rival, earth dragon Araba. I trained like a mad spider. I planned for every outcome. And in the end, all that’s left is-the execution. When this showdown’s over and done with, only one of us will remain…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Almost all of this volume of So I’m a Spider is focused on a single battle. It’s Kumoko against her mightiest foe, the great earth dragon Araba. After one last bout of training, she’s ready to finally confront the beast blocking her way from escaping the labyrinth. Handicapped by having the majority of her split-brain personalities engaged in a spiritual attack against the mother spider, Kumoko braces for the fight of her spider life.
The first page of the showdown is a very visual display of the problems with a video game world. It’s literally a double-page spread of stat blocks that I’m absolutely certain the reader isn’t actually supposed to wade through. It’s all basically meaningless nonsense and I feel bad for the translator.
I’m actually pleased that the majority of these chapters are this one battle because it means we’re spared montages of a spider hunting and leveling up. The actual fight isn’t shabby either, although trying to deal with a small creature fighting large creature results in some clarity issues in panel layout and framing. Where is up, where is down? It doesn’t really matter when the majority of the fight comes down to a spider slinging orbs of poison or dark matter at a dragon.
There are a few twists and turns during the battle itself, and it’s a close call for both participants. The end of the battle is a curious moment and one that leaves the protagonist angry and unsatisfied. It just left me as a reader curious about the level of intelligence of some of the monsters being squared off against.
From there we watch our heroine get her reward of getting to finally proceed to the surface and enjoy some fresh fruit. Except she forgot about her greatest adversary, Mom, who hunts down Kumoko with a strange vengeance. I have to wonder, why attack then? Why attack at all? Who is actually controlling these monsters and to what end?
The final chapter in this volume checks in with the other reincarnated humans, who come to a dark realization about their gamified world. Truly twisted is a world that operates on video game rules, especially a world based on dungeon crawlers where the numbers only go up if you kill something else.
In Summary
So I’m a Spider takes the numbers to their astronomical heights as the battle against the greatest foe begins. More of the same, but at least I can see an end to the cycle of kill, eat, repeat. Our heroine finally escaped the labyrinth and emerges into the sunlit world, but she forgot one very large and very important thing. At this point, the stats can basically be forgotten as the spectacle of two massively overpowered monsters square off. The battle itself is quite nice, but I’m tired of the cycle. I had hoped this was the end of the absurd grinding loop, but now Kumoko has to contend with the creature that birthed her into this shitty world of kill or be killed.
Content Grade: B –
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: B +
Text/Translation Grade: A –
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: August 18, 2020
MSRP: $13.00 US /$17.00 CAN
