By Okina Baba and Tsukasa Kiryu. Released in Japan as “Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jenny McKeon.

(Note: This review, especially towards the end, gets more spoilery than usual as you can’t not talk about the end.)

I have to admit that “they battle a bunch of fighter jets in order to infiltrate a UFO with tanks and robots” was not really the plot I was expecting when I picked up the seventh volume of Spider So What. But, having finished the volume, I can’t say I’m too disappointed in it. We’ve seen robots and cyborgs in this series before, of course. It also helps to show off the true arrogant brokenness of Potimas, who manages to be an evil elf while at the same time being an embarrassed chuuni who can’t bear to see people using his old design specs that he made back in the day. There is not one moment in this book where you like him, and the relationship between him, White, and the Demon Lord helps to remind us that the “truce” between the later two is miles and miles ahead of the loathing and antipathy they feel for Potimas. They might even be… friends?

After accidentally freeing two world-killing pieces of tech from an underground bunker simply because of her insatiable curiosity, White and the rest of her merry band have to join forces to destroy it. Unfortunately, this means joining forces with Potimas, whose designs they’re based on, as well as the Pontiff and a group of local dragons. Most of the book is spent on the battle, with White’s chatterbox narrative voice, constantly belittling and mocking herself and showing self-doubt at every confrontation contrasting with how everyone ELSE sees her, which is to say an emotionless, morally ambiguous nightmare who is STILL GETTING STRONGER. There’s a lovely moment where White is in a fury and the Demon Lord wraps her in thread to stop her. White immediately teleports out of it, and while she’s calm again, she notes offhandedly the Demon Lord looks super surprised but doesn’t get why. This push and pull on her character is one reason this series works.

Then we get to the climax of the book, where the Demon Lord, Potimas, and White are faced with a bomb that is about to explode. There are really very few options that are available. Still, I suspect only White could come up with “swallow the bomb”, which causes a Daffy Duck-esque explosion but does not, remarkably, kill her off. Good thing too, as Vol. 8 is due in the spring. What’s more, she has now leveled up to the point where the “game system” part cannot help her anymore… she’s a god. “D” helpfully explains this, and decides to give her another name: Shiraori, which I will start using in future. (Notably, “D” does not suggest calling her “Wakaba”, supposedly her old name from Earth, and refers to her as “nameless spider”. This feels very much like ominous foreshadowing.) As a God, Shiraori as all the power she used to and more… but has to learn how to do everything without the “game world” help. Including walking on her new human legs. To her, this is very much “restarting from zero”.

So overall, a solid book of fighting, but the last fifth or so is dynamite (literally), with one revelation after the other. I can’t wait to see where things go next. (Also, when will we catch up to the other kids?)

By Okina Baba and Tsukasa Kiryu. Released in Japan as “Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?” by Fujimi Shobo. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jenny McKeon.

Alas, for those who want to know what happened after the cliffhanger on the “hero” side of these books, you’re still going to have to wait. The sixth volume takes place entirely in the “past” part of the books, showing our spider heroine, Ariel, Sophia and Merazophis mostly going from town to town and bonding, while at the same time the world recovers from the battle that happened in the fifth book. The non-Spider parts of the narrative bounce between Sophia, who may be a vampire baby but is also a reincarnation, so we get her thoughts on everything that’s going on, and Ronandt, the elder mage who honestly spends most of the book as ridiculous comic relief till he finally snaps out of it. There is one big battle near the end, featuring a much better Giant Spider Invasion than the one we saw on MST3K, but for the most part this book is far more introspective than previous volumes. There’s barely any stat listings!

I am at last allowed to talk about the spider heroine while using a name. Ariel names her White, fitting her appearance. This is in fact something of a power play, as naming something works the way it does in a lot of high fantasy, but it doesn’t have much effect on White as she’s already ridiculously powerful. Indeed, after Ariel figures out exactly HOW White is able to continue to be immortal, she reluctantly concludes that she HAS to ally with her, as not doing so could be disastrous. As for White herself, her thought processes are still “teenager with no real moral or ethical sense’, who’s able to cheerfully force a baby to march through the forest in order to build up their stats. That said, she’s definitely better off being influenced by Ariel, as we find when she has to confront her parallel minds, who have gone rogue and decided to destroy all of humanity. Thus we get the one battle of the book, as it’s spider vs. spider.

Ronandt, as I said, is still reeling from his first encounter with White, and unfortunately proceeds to learn exactly the wrong lesson from it, which is to try to study the spiders in the labyrinth to see how they grow stronger. The humor here has a dark edge to it, as while it’s somewhat amusing to see Ronandt run around nude and be treated as creepy by anyone who sees him, it also reminds the reader that White is a SPIDER, and that the ways that she gets stronger are not human ways. Nor should they be. This leads to a rare heartwarming moment in this mostly cynical book, where he realizes why he became a mage in the first place and goes out to stop the spider invasion even though he knows it will mean his death. (Fortunately, White gets there first.) I also liked him bonding with Julius, here a young and emotionally broken hero rather than the confident (and dead) older brother figure we meet later.

There’s some other good stuff here, such as the confrontation with the Pontiff who runs the world’s largest religion, or Sophia’s reflection on her past life (she was the stereotypical bullied nerd) and why she hates White so much (White was sort of like Komi in that her paralyzing inability to communicate came off as cool beauty.) It’s enough to make this volume very good indeed, even though I wish we’d checked back to the future with the other reincarnated cast.

By Okina Baba and Tsukasa Kiryu. Released in Japan as “Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?” by Fujimi Shobo. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jenny McKeon.

There are a few series where you simply have to wait a few volumes/episodes for it to get really good. In fact, that’s the cry of the obsessive fan trying to get someone to try things. “By the way, it only REALLY gets good about the 26th episode!” they say, and then cry as they watch the interest in their new friend’s eyes die. But it’s true. Take, for example, the series So I’m a Spider, So What?. The first few volumes, while entertaining, suffered from a very real problem, which is that the spider slowly making her way out of the dungeon, along with the endless leveling up and pages of stats, was not inherently interesting. There were moments of excitement in the fights, and some plot development, but having her totally separate from the rest of the main cast was annoying – especially as it turned out she was separated by time as well. But now the spider is on the surface and interacting with the world. The result? The best book in the series, by far.

As with prior volumes, the books are divided into two segments which alternate. The first deals with our spider, who has run into a fellow reincarnated student, who is a vampire baby. Her parents are human, though, “vampire” is just the role she got when reincarnated. Spider takes an interest in her, and ends up getting embroiled in a fight between two countries that is turning deadly. There’s also a very familiar elf who wants to get that vampire baby… and kill her. Oh yes, and there’s also the demon lord, who is rapidly becoming a bit… different, personality-wise, thanks to one of Spider’s other minds hacking away at her own. Now I know why I thought Ariel was our heroine when I first met her. She has the “narrative voice” in her outward personality. But the spider (who I won’t name just yet, but we do seem to find out her identity here) is actually, when we’re not in her headspace, socially awkward and mostly silent.

Meanwhile, in the future, the demon lord’s army is taking on the elf village. The elves were not exactly nice when we went into the village last time, and here we find they’re possibly worse than the so-called villains – they’re dismissive of humans, physically abusive towards Anna, the half-elf girl, and in general you are not all that troubled by the idea of them getting wiped out in this battle. Which is good, because it’s leaning that way. Sure, the kids’ teacher is the elf leader’s daughter, but there’s only so much she can do, especially as everyone doesn’t trust her. And there’s the revelation that most of the “missing” kids – and indeed, one who was presumed dead – are on the side of the demons. It’s troubling for Shun, who is still a very shiny and noble hero. That said, one of the two or three cliffhangers we get here implies that may be changing soon.

While the “spider” part of the book ends in a very satisfying place, the “hero” part of the book is riddled with “what happens neeeeeeeext?” questions. Sadly, we’ll have to wait till the summer to find out. Till then, though, enjoy a book with excellent plot and character development, less stats than previous books, and some gripping fights. Really loving this now.