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「 このじじい、誰？」 (Kono Jijii, Dare?)
“Who Is This, Geezer?”
This week’s Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? provides an interesting juxtaposition between Kumoko’s experiences in the labyrinth and the humans’ knowledge of what’s been happening down there with her current fights against humans.
While Shun is currently wrestling with the emotional weight of having to replace his dear brother, Julius’ mentor Ronandt is forced to reflect on the losses he’s faced in his own personal life. The flashback is easily the most fascinating part of the episode since the enemy that shatters Ronandt’s ego is a giant white spider that happens to have overwhelming stats, Height of Occultism, and Appraisal abilities.
With the timeline establishing that the human side is years after Kumoko’s labyrinth journey, it calls into question much of what we know about Kumoko’s experiences. Kumoko’s internal monologue and conflicts with her mirror selves don’t exactly make her an unreliable narrator, but it’s become abundantly clear that the cutesy visage that we have of Kumoko isn’t how others perceive her, especially other humans who can only see a fearsome giant spider.
It’s also a neat creative decision that they don’t exactly show us Kumoko’s battles against humans from the perspective of Kumoko. For all of the humans she might’ve killed, we haven’t gotten multiple Yuuki Aoi’s revelling about how exciting it is to paralyze and murder humans just yet. We get sections in-between where she’s trying to figure out who D is by combining the brain power of her inner Kumoko’s or her celebrating the new skills and ranks she’s uncovered.
But by the time we see the implication of what it means for humans that have to face Kumoko while she’s even more ravenous and freaky, we’re already seeing chibi Kumoko elated about her victory. It should be interesting to see if they ever give us Kumoko’s perspective when she’s pitted against humans, especially since it’s been established that the chibi form is merely for the audience’s sake. But for now, it’s just interesting to have this little kernel of info on-hand for future reference.
So I read the manga up to what’s been translated but noticed that the anime and manga vary quite differently….especially when it comes to who’s perspective is being shown for certain events. Has anyone read the LN for this? Wondering which adaptation is closer as they seem to have taken very different approaches on how to show this story.
Anime follows the LN. Manga skips most of the human side of things.
Adding on: for this particular instance, the fight is first shown from Buirims’s perspective, and then from Kumoko’s perspective right afterward in the LN.
“Skill: Taboo is now level 10.”
“Now installing information.”
Hoo-boy, here we go now!
can’t unhear taboo being worded as “kinky”
seems that some additional info on the world has been forcibly installed into Kumoko
this could lead to another later of her being peeved with Admin D
Kumoko has definitely crossed the moral treshold of sorts now, attacking and killing humans deliberately, on pretense of self-defence – yes the humans were pretty much out to get her, but she was obviously capable of avoiding them and ending the incident bloodlessly.
Interesting question to consider: Why didn’t you feel she had crossed that threshold when she was killing sentient monsters that came after her, like the fire dragon last week?
who says they were sentient?
I would hesitate about orcs or other similar tribes, but all creatures she encountered so far were simply animals
Fei seems to be outlier amongst dragons, being able to talk and interact with humans, probably due to reincarnation status.
and in most cases, she was outgunned and in no way to flee
this time she was way stronger, faster and stealthier
This fight is portrait in the manga in much better detail. At least in the manga, the humans made the first aggressive move.
I found this kinda somewhat spolier-ish image of the new Demon Lord (https://imgur.com/ykaTsJt) and its implications annoy me, as it could mean that it’s not Kumoko after all.
Or it could me an anime-only difference, I dunno.
It’s from the LN
If you find a picture that you think gives anoying spoilers, then why did you share it with everyone?
Well, he did say it was a spoiler…
Don’t consider anything confirmed until you see it explicitly confirmed… and even then you may be wrong.
Buddy, if you don’t like red herrings, this might not be the story for you. They didn’t really bother with it in the anime because they need to show visuals from the start, but the LN plays up Negishi Shouko (the “ghost” girl with the snaggletooth and acne in Shun’s Japan flashback) as a potential identity for Kumoko for instance.
A hint was already dropped regarding the gap in time a few episodes ago, and then confirmed during the previous episode when Julius talked about where Fei’s egg and his scarf came from.
wow!
I didn’t realise the egg humans have recovered back then was actually Fei!
so when Julius’ party defeated that big spider *was it the same type as this episode * ,what timeline was that ? old or the current one ?
also was that a random spider ?
Julius party defeated huge spider at t+15 (where t is arrival of the reincarnations) – he was just a kid at the time kumoko started her rampage
Julius’s fight was with a creature they refer to as a “Nightmare’s Vestige”, which is something that was supposedly left behind by the Nightmare of the Labyrinth, a legendary monster that terrorized the region 15 years ago from his perspective.
Ronandt’s flashback in this episode was to his encounter with that very same Nightmare of the Labyrinth, 15 years ago, which multiple pieces of evidence (most prominently, the skills shown when it’s being appraised) strongly imply was Kumoko, and the post-credit scene pretty much outright confirms.
So yes, Julius’s fight was in the “present day”, in line with the other human-side scenes.
While perhaps technically a spoiler, I don’t feel bad about noting that Julius is (err…was) only 21 in the present day, which would make him roughly 6 years old in the time frame Kumoko’s operating in.
when you put that one overpower hero character in Total war warhammer against a bunch of mobs XD
Been there on tabletop, back in the infamous “Herohammer” days of 2nd edition…
Think of hero with sword that gives +3 attacks, drinking potion of strength for +3 strength, and having magical armor giving him save of 2+, mounted on some nasty flying mount, charging bunch of commoners with spears and routing them in first round of combat.
Or mage dropping circle-of-doom on top of regiment square that kills 2/3 of them instantly.
Is it possible that the demon lord in the present is the teratect? that have gained human form? I haven’t read the novel, also didn’t search it up. I just evaluated from what I’ve seen starting from episode 1. I mean if she can progress much just from 1 year. What would happen in 15 years? However, why is it that she had grown glum (the demon lord’s character? I’m thinking it can be that . It’s not her, or a great plot happened to make her such a person.
Very possible, though as the anime hasn’t confirmed it yet, I shall rein in my vile source reader instincts and opt not to comment on whether that theory is true or not at this time.
One thing I WILL say that was already revealed in the LN but the anime hasn’t touched on is that when Kumoko acquired Wisdom, she gained the ability to see her own evolution tree, and ever since, she’s been aiming for a special “Arachne” evolution in the hopes of gaining a body that’s at least partially human.
Whether that would be the proverbial end of the road for her evolution-wise or just another stage in the journey towards her “final form”, I won’t say, but she’s come pretty far already in what’s implied to be less than a year. With another 15 years to catch up to the human side of the story, it’s not unreasonable to think that her form, as well as her goals and motivations, may have changed drastically by then.
Very possible, though as the anime hasn’t confirmed it yet, I shall rein in my vile source reader instincts and opt not to comment on whether that theory is true or not at this time.
One thing I WILL say that was already revealed in the LN but the anime hasn’t touched on is that when Kumoko acquired Wisdom, she gained the ability to see her own evolution tree, and ever since, she’s been aiming for a special “Arachne” evolution in the hopes of gaining a body that’s at least partially human.
Whether that would be the proverbial end of the road for her evolution-wise or just another stage in the journey towards her “final form”, I won’t say, but she’s come pretty far already in what’s implied to be less than a year. With another 15 years to catch up to the human side of the story, it’s not unreasonable to think that her form, as well as her goals and motivations, may have changed drastically by then.