So I'm a Spider, So What? - Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?

[Ryllharu]

Bottom line, do not watch the OP/ED closely after episodes 8 & 9.

[shinta|hikari]

Kumoko is being misspelled here more than Eren (Erin) in the Attack on Titan thread.

Kumo = Spider
Ko = Child, but in this case it's a common suffix for female Japanese names, like Hanako, etc.

[MFauli]

Kumoko is being misspelled here more than Eren (Erin) in the Attack on Titan thread.

Kumo = Spider
Ko = Child, but in this case it's a common suffix for female Japanese names, like Hanako, etc.

thank you. The "Erin" especially is driving me insane, lol.

[DarthEnderX]

...

Arin.

[neflight86]

Just caught up on 8-9. Finally, finally, this story is becoming interesting. I know it was building to something. The drop of the 15 year async was a good twist, as was Kumoko's NPC model in the flashback. I felt tipped off that she was the Demon Lord when she mentioned using 'abyss' magic- the magic we just saw her learn/use- to reign in the squabbling generals on top of spider silk. That plus the time gap made for a satisfying 'aha' moment. The following dialogue with horn-dude and I was convinced she is the demon lord- no doubt in my mind.

The language suggests she may be warring on the humans because she feels, left to their own devices, they will genocide monsters, which she has no choice but to be, so an extension of self preservation. She probably had no special love for her classmates who bullied her or turned a blind eye to the same, so becoming the demon lord isn't so far fetched.

Now I'm going to be even more checked out when she is staring at text walls of skills; knowing there is a more juicy plot further down the road.

[Buffalobiian]

If we're saying Kumoko is the demon lord, then we're saying she killed that spider back a few episodes ago because it was "getting ahead of itself" or something.

The girl who was the 10th group sounded kind of like D.

[Munsu]

If we're saying Kumoko is the demon lord, then we're saying she killed that spider back a few episodes ago because it was "getting ahead of itself" or something.

Could be a red herring, since she seemed to be far away... so she might've been talking about a totally unrelated incident.

[DarthEnderX]

Could be a red herring, since she seemed to be far away... so she might've been talking about a totally unrelated incident.

This. Since things aren't happening chronologically, it could be a misdirect to make us think they're different characters.

If the Demon Lord isn't Kumoko, the writers at least want us to think she is.

[DarthEnderX]

10

Make sure to watch after the credits.

---

So yeah, I guess current Kumo is still 15 years in the past. And the events of this episode are obviously what causes Julius to hunt down the white spider later.

It's also clear now that she can't actually speak, as she made it clear she was yelling at them, but they heard nothing. So it's not just that she doesn't know the language, it's that she can't even vocalize sounds. I wonder if there are skills for that, or if she has to evolve into a humanoid first.

I love though that the Labyrinth monsters are all trying to get away from her. She's only been alive, like, a year, and she's already a legendary monsters.

Killing all those people does feel like a bit of an overreaction though...

[David75]

Well she's a monster so killing humans...
And 15 years ago from Schlain and the other's perspective is a lot of time considering how fast Kumoko evolves.
Considering she's now a demon lord, I understand why Wakaba is labeled as dead.

[Buffalobiian]

So it's not just that she doesn't know the language, it's that she can't even vocalize sounds. I wonder if there are skills for that, or if she has to evolve into a humanoid first.

Her magic numbers are already higher than her speed.

At this rate she might as well just get Telepathy than a language skill.

I imagine these episodes would be a typesetting nightmare.

[Munsu]

Her magic numbers are already higher than her speed.

At this rate she might as well just get Telepathy than a language skill.

I imagine these episodes would be a typesetting nightmare.

Would telepathy even matter if she doesn't know the language? I guess only with people from Japan.

[Buffalobiian]

Would telepathy even matter if she doesn't know the language? I guess only with people from Japan.

Comes down to the question of "Do people think in languages", and conversely "Do people without language think?"

Telepathy would be thought projection, not just "turn my voicemail into brain SMS".

[Ryllharu]

Something sketchy as hell is going on with Schlain's brothers. They gave us no hints at what though, just loads of bad vibes.

I really love the episodes we get that are others' POVs of Kumoko. She's terrifying. She meant well, but is a much bigger threat than she gives herself credit for.

I would assume telepathy in this world would rise above language, but then again, it may not even be an option as a skill. She had literal gods visit her, and one of them who knew Japanese had to translate for her. The "smartphone" may have been doing telepathy for all we know though. I do appreciate that her reaction was basically..."Screw it! It's not worth figuring out right now."

Tying into last week's discussion...now that the ED is translated and subbed...worth mentioning that D's existence was referenced in there the whole time. I wouldn't have caught it without the subs, it is in the rapid-fire sections.

[DarthEnderX]

Well she's a monster so killing humans...

She used to be human.

In the absence of an Overlord system enforcing roleplay, you would expect someone to be a little hesitant to kill the race that they used to be.

I could understand if a couple died and she scared the rest off. But she was going for a total party wipe there. Cutting off their escape was a particularly brutal choice.

The show even treats it as sketchy because she tries to kind of talk herself into being okay with it afterwards. "I was justified there, right?"

[Kraco]

She used to be human.

In the absence of an Overlord system enforcing roleplay, you would expect someone to be a little hesitant to kill the race that they used to be.

I could understand if a couple died and she scared the rest off. But she was going for a total party wipe there. Cutting off their escape was a particularly brutal choice.

The show even treats it as sketchy because she tries to kind of talk herself into being okay with it afterwards. "I was justified there, right?"

This was entirely from the humans' point of view, which was, furthermore, underlined by the whole thing being presented as a story of the past recalled by the human wizard. If it had been shown from Kumoko's pov, you could bet your softest spider silk hammock on it looking very different, with the humans being super aggressive and leaving little choice for Kumoko. Even from this humans' pov, it did all start with the geezer wizard going all out to burn the place down.

Kumoko hesitating afterwards, what comes to the justification, is understandable as she did slay a whole bunch of humans, not just one or two. A tough Texas man might be more or less fine shooting one or two burglars invading and trashing his home in the night, but he might still feel a bit off if his home was littered with dead bodies when the sun rises, as if it was a scene straight from Syria or something.

I find the episode especially interesting because it did go into a considerable length to make the view point difference clear, even though we didn't exactly see it from Kumoko's pov, but we can always imagine it. I also imagine she didn't even realise she was cutting off their escape route. It's not like she would have ever left the dungeon, so which route is which for her?

[MFauli]

I agree with Darth here. I'm quite disappointed that she had not hesitation in killing human beings. Even if they attacked first, you'd think a citizen from our world, a child to boot, would still be hesitent to actually commit murder. Considering how overwhelmingly stronger she was than her opponents, she could have done plenty of non-lethal tactics, one being to simply use her threads to immobilize them.

And her not realizing that they cannot hear her? Kinda weak. Had she realized that, and she should have, she could have drawn pictures in the ground or used her thread for creating imagery. Either way: That was a bad first proper encounter with humans and she went full-Overlord, showing zero remorse for having murdered so many people. That disappoints me for the reason that it makes later scenes less interesting. Assuming she truly is the humanoid demon lord, she wouldnt even care about meeting her former classmates now. Just straight forward fighting.

And yes, Julius' brothers are definitely up to something. My guess: They (or at least the cruel one) cannot accept that their younger brother inherited the hero title, and will now try to murder him.

What I must explicitly praise, though: The anime didnt drag out the timeline reveal. Plenty of anime would have waited longer to make the different timelines this obvious, but this one chose the perfect moment to get rid of any pretense and just tell the audience "yeah, there are 2 timelines". Feels good.

[Buffalobiian]

I would assume telepathy in this world would rise above language, but then again, it may not even be an option as a skill. She had literal gods visit her, and one of them who knew Japanese had to translate for her. The "smartphone" may have been doing telepathy for all we know though. I do appreciate that her reaction was basically..."Screw it! It's not worth figuring out right now

I think it does. At the very least, it's not just a voice transponder.

When the phone first arrived, it simultaneously spoke Japanese and Native.

[Kraco]

I agree with Darth here. I'm quite disappointed that she had not hesitation in killing human beings. Even if they attacked first, you'd think a citizen from our world, a child to boot, would still be hesitent to actually commit murder. Considering how overwhelmingly stronger she was than her opponents, she could have done plenty of non-lethal tactics, one being to simply use her threads to immobilize them.

And her not realizing that they cannot hear her? Kinda weak. Had she realized that, and she should have, she could have drawn pictures in the ground or used her thread for creating imagery. Either way: That was a bad first proper encounter with humans and she went full-Overlord, showing zero remorse for having murdered so many people. That disappoints me for the reason that it makes later scenes less interesting. Assuming she truly is the humanoid demon lord, she wouldnt even care about meeting her former classmates now. Just straight forward fighting.

When you're pushed, killing's as easy as breathing. You reckon she has been pushed enough already?

While it's true you'd expect a stronger reaction from a regular Japanese person from a world resembling ours, there's one crucial factor here you are forgetting: If she still was like that, after everything she has been through, she would be dead and eaten already. Who can count anymore the life and death battles she has been forced to go through? The opponents might not have been humans, but neither is she a human anymore, and in the end I don't think it matters at that point any longer as much as you'd think. Whether you are fighting humans or beasts in a desperate fight mere half a step away from death, you are nonetheless on a first-name basis with Mr. Grim Reaper already. Kill or be killed. She's beyond hesitation already. She's beyond agonising about it afterwards already. If she wasn't, she would go crazy.

[Ryllharu]

I think Fei has telepathy, right? I'm too lazy to go back and check her stats, or if they've even shown her abilities. But the reincarnated kids and Oka can understand her, and nobody else seems to. The others seem to think she's just a well-behaved and precocious pet pretending that it's learning at school alongside its master.


Kumoko's justification is she tried to bitch them out about burning her 'My Home' again, and even as the wizard marveled at the fact she had rebuilt her Traditional Japanese Clanking Tripwires again, the rest of them attacked her because she was once again unable to communicate with them at all, and just loomed there super menacingly from their perspective.

She tried to communicate. She doesn't seem to even realize how badly she fails at that. Which is comedy for the audience, when you think about it. If the summoner guy hadn't punched the wizard, he might have tried some way to talk to her. He was impressed, curious, and a little bit afraid, but mostly fascinated. He wanted to learn how she had gotten the Wisdom skill.

First they assessed each other, she didn't actually attack right away. After that, she used an evil eye when the soldiers drew their weapons at her, we just don't actually know which one, or if Kumoko screwed up again and didn't realize how weak humans are compared to her now, and killed them on accident.

I think she has: Curse (loads of damage), Paralyze (damage, but should be way less than curse), and Heavy (the gravity blasts she used on the summons).

I assume she paralyzed the first soldiers, and either accidentally killed them, or the surviving ones thought she did. She actually sat there while the wizard continued to lose his shit over her impressive array of skills.

Then the summoner punched the wizard. They immediately proceeded to teleport/flee, but the summoner guy attacked her while the wizard cast. This entire incident is his fault when you look from Kumoko's perspective.

As they kept attacking her, she responded with increasingly lethal force. For all we know, she kept trying to talk to them as she paralyzed more and more soldiers, until the dude finally summoned his four beasts.

It was a lethal misunderstanding, and Kumoko is honestly too much of a ditz to realize how insanely strong she's gotten. She's really only a monster from our perspective if she wakes up hungry from her new evolution and eats their corpses, in my opinion. A lot of you are condemning Kumoko for legitimate self-defense and being an idiot who hasn't realized she can't talk (still).

She's still 15 years in the past, and has maybe double or triple the amount of skills that the asshole prince had, and he was aggressively acquiring skills, and had bonuses to get them faster.