「 次回、決戦?」 (Jikai, Kessen?)
“Next Time, Is the Big Battle?”

Kumoko is ready to get Slothful in Episode 11 of Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? as she accrues enough experience to fight Arabas, the Earth Dragon, and circumvent the world’s eventual deterioration. But during Kumoko’s journey, we get vital information from Hyrince on the conditions that lead to Julius’ demise.

With Julius dying, the stakes keep rising for Shun as he has to cut ties with much of the past that he’s cultivated up to this point. Yuri might join him, but because she’s kooky, the only person that has his back is Fei. But because they agree to a pact, now she’ll likely become a summon and give up the normalcy that she had the privilege of living in during her academy days. This episode actually makes Julius into something more than just an idea of the perfect brother so it makes matters even worse for giving us an easier way of knowing why Shun held him to such high regards.

Shun’s isolation isn’t made entirely better when Hyrince tries to make amends by protecting Shun because he received a phoenix feather from Julius that made him the sole survivor of the party’s fatal encounter. He comes to him as a friend, but with so many characters that surround these characters being questionable in their morals, I’m skeptical as to whether Hyrince has any ulterior motives for having Shun under his wing.

The Rot attack definitely raises some questions considering that Julius’ Rot-related death is being tied to the Rot skill that Kumoko is looking to master at some point soon. At the same time, she has to contend with the knowledge she’s accrued since she reached Level 10 of Taboo, including the fact that if things remain the same in the universe, the world as she and others know it will be destroyed. One of the actions to help prevent this end would be fighting the Earth Dragon, but before all else, she’d have to get the experience to have a chance.

One detail about Kumoko that can be easy to overlook is how much of her psyche we get in the anime. With her motives for keeping the world around be centered around her inherent hedonistic hunger on top of her admiration of the Earth Dragon for its raw brute strength, it’s interesting to see how she tries to gather each part of her mind to make sense of what she’s going through. If I didn’t know any better, the anime could easily be a nice character study on coaching yourself to endure a harsh, scary world.

19 Comments

  1. Literal info dump at the beginning of the episode that’s really, really important. With the current anime pacing, the series should cover volumes 1 through 5 of the light novel, out of 11 translated to English and 14 released so far in Japan. The info dump includes a lot of information that wasn’t told in the light novels until vol. 10, and even information that hasn’t been in any of the English-translated novels yet.

    Also, go back to both the hero smiting scene and the scene where Hynrice tells Shun what happened and pay attention to the little details.

    1. From what I managed to read, the world is going to bad end, and “the system” was implemented to save it but it failed…
      We have now 2 main contestants for the “future form of Kumoko”, namely that “white” girl and demon lord herself.
      I hope we get some answers in next season, because I dont think we will get much more than titanic battle with biggest, baddest, meanest dragon in the dungeon in finale of this season.

      ewok40k
  2. That woman dressed in white that killed Julius and Hyrince used Evil Eye abilities to do so. I wonder whether the Demon Lord can also use Evil Eye abilities given that’s who I believe to be Kumoko.

    Vance
  3. Someday in the future they need to miniaturized their version of phoenix down no wonder they cant revive that thing can barely even fit a pocket . should have gone the tales routes and go life bottle instead XD

    FVA
    1. while not precisely something like that, there have been postulated technical solutions to that problem… imagine interface recording state of human mind in real-time, that can be transmitted to, and recorded by some sort of supercomputer and then downloaded back into new, cloned body…
      “Sufficiently advanced science is impossible to tell from magic for less advanced people”

      ewok40k
  4. Putting my money on the White Girl being Kumoko, just because of the colour scheme and the fact that her VA is listed as “? ? ? ?” in episode 9. Still can’t see her leading an army though. Unless she meant a one woman army like we see here. Still don’t see how it might fit in the whole scheme of things. They did say it’ll be cruel to Yamada.

    theirs
    1. We only saw one side of the encounter, so we can not be sure what actually happened. I also got the impression that the telling of that fight might not have been 100% accurate.

      Random
  5. Probably, but we won’t see it in the anime. Vol 11 of the novel (just released in English today) appears to be about Julius (and Sophia, only had time to skim the first few pages)

    ed
    1. This 2-cour season will probably cover light novel volumes 1-5 (more or less) and will end at a point that will make most watchers ask “new season when?” A second season would probably cover volume 6-10. There are 14 volumes out in Japan so far.

      1. I remember this series being announced and it taking like a 100 years for the anime to actually appear. It made me think they were planning back to back seasons(Maybe a few months inbetween) and they just wanted to stockpile material to adapt.

        Lyfe

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