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.

I’m still not quite sure about where out spider girl stands in terms of the current timeline (my current guess is that she’s the “white” girl rather than the demon lord, despite personality differences), but the two timelines are definitely starting to converge a bit. Or at least the spider is out of her dungeon… mostly… and starting to see the world. More to the point, much as I like seeing the spider’s adventures fighting things, I’ve become far more interested in the rest of the reincarnated kids, who are (mostly) all reunited at the Elf Village this volume. It’s a shame that the Demon Lord is about to annihilate all the elves. And also that the kids at the elf village feel rather strongly that they’re being used by their teacher. Which… may be true? Certainly Ms. Oka is not the pillar of goodness and light that, say, the teacher from Arifureta is.

On the spider side of things, she gets to the top of the dungeon, but the battle between both her mother and a higher spider that her mother calls in to help means that most of the time she’s shuffling back and forth between the dungeon and outside, fighting a mostly losing battle against various enemies. With a character as overpowered as our spider girl, there has to be a balance to show that she has it tough as well, and we certainly see it here – she’s decapitated twice, and is constantly at death’s door… and this is AFTER gaining the power of immortality, which she rightly assumes is not quite as great as it sounds. We also see one of her rare overconfident decisions, as she goes to fight the final battle against her mother with just better stats, not realizing that her mother is even craftier at traps.

Still, spider battles are not as interesting to me as the adventures of Shun, Katia and company, still trying to deal with the fact that Hugo has mind controlled the kingdom into making them public enemies. They go to the elf village to regroup, but that requires going through the dungeon to get there, which means running into some of our spider girl’s leftover selves. It’s not really clear how she pulls this off, but given it’s about 18 years later it wouldn’t surprise me if she’s just that powerful. In any case, there’s no battle with the heroes, but her mere presence – and announcement that she’s a reincarnation – is enough to stun everyone. Things don’t get better when Ms. Oka explains the mechanics behind this world and what the elves are doing to ensure that the gods/administrators don’t win. Honestly, their plans just sound mean. You can see why the other kids are sort of angry about being told to farm and never get strong. I don’t blame them.

We end with a bit of a cliffhanger, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I won’t have to worry about remembering most of these kids for much longer. Meanwhile, our spider has finally met another reincarnation… and she’s a vampire! Will the two plots finally converge? Well, now that we’re out of the dungeon, we can hope things move a bit faster. And hey, not NEARLY as many stats in this book! Excellent news!

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.

So yes, readers more familiar with future events in Spider So What were probably laughing at me in my previous two reviews. I admit to being completely taken in. It was easy enough to assume that the spider’s climb up through the dungeon was happening around the same time as the rest of the plot we were seeing on the surface. Except, of course, that doesn’t make sense at all, because the plot on the surface has been happening over the course of the last eighteen years or so. Whereas we’ve more or less been following the spider’s journey up the dungeon since birth, and it has… well, not been eighteen years. So yes, all of my desires for the spider to get to the top and join up with the main plot are somewhat embarrassingly for nought. She IS in the main plot… as the head villain. That said, there’s still something weird going on here.

As always, this is a book of two halves, alternating. The main plot deals with our spider doing what she’s been doing, slowly moving upward and fighting monsters. The interesting thing going on here, which the reader is only partially let in on, is that after her Taboo level reaches 10, she’s apparently given hidden insight into the nature of this entire world. Unfortunately, her hyperactive teen narration does not actually tell us much about this, presumably because spoilers. It likely has something to do with the two mystery “admin” figures we see, one of whom – D – looks to be behind a lot of what’s going on. *are* they trapped in a game? It doesn’t seem likely. The other big news here is the spider’s fight against the dragon that terrified her so long ago – this time, he’s stronger and tougher, and the fight is probably the highlight of the book. It is amusing seeing the spider’s immaturity here compared with what we see in the epilogue.

The other half of the plot involves everything going wrong for Shun. It’s not enough that his brother is dead, but Hugo, the arrogant jerk from last time, seems to have now mind controlled most of the kingdom into doing his bidding and killing the traitor. This includes, seemingly, his little sister, and also his best friend Katia, who is still dealing with a bit of gender dysphoria here. Things go very bad for our heroes, but, oddly enough, not as bad as you’d expect, as several times the villains essentially allow them to get away. They even comment on this. That said, there are a lot of genuine casualties. I wonder if it’s simply that the reincarnated folks are the ones that can’t be killed? In any case, there’s a lot going on here, and most importantly, it helps distract from spider going on about her stats in the main story, which is still happening constantly.

Unsurprisingly, firing off ta few big plot guns pays off, and this was easily the best volume of Spider So What to date. I look forward to seeing what’s happening next, both with the spider and the humans.

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.

This series continues, very deliberately, to be a book of two halves, albeit unequal halves. The main thrust of the story remains our spider heroine slowly ascending the dungeon and defeating stronger and stronger monsters while keeping up an inner monologue that sounds like she’s high on a dozen pixie stix all the time. The other half of the story is interspersed in between this, and deals with Shun and the rest of the reincarnated students having a far more normal isekai life… well, normal compared to the spider. The difficulty is that forward plot progression is entirely confined to the latter – a couple of the students have clearly gone a bit mad from the new world, Shun finds being a hero actually involves killing things, there’s a giant demon invasion happening as we speak, and oh yes, the demons are seemingly led by another reincarnated classmate. I want to know more about this. I have to be content with Spider Levels Up And Reads Her Stats.

Spider’s progress is the biggest strength of the book. She is hilarious, and it gets even better when she’s able to subdivide her brains so they can think about different things, and they start arguing with each other. She’s arrogant as heck except when she’s being attacked by killer monsters, and there’s an ongoing disturbing thread about her not realizing that she’s lost any moral or ethical sense – every time she reads about her taboo increasing and wonders why that is, you sort of smack your head. At the same time, spider’s progress is the book’s biggest weakness as well. There is endless discussion of her stats and skills, complete with charts (which are what pile up the page count), and she has to overanalyze all of them. Sometimes this is amusing, but a lot of times it can get very tedious, even with her excitable inner voice.

As for Shun and company, as I said, they’re pursuing a much more common isekai narrative. We’re introduced to Hugo, another classmate who seems to have gone completely insane and power mad, as well as Yuri, who has accepted God as her savior in a very over the top way. (Given that God in this work appears to not only exist but be the sysadmin, not too mad an idea, but she’s a pure “religious zealot” type, so will no doubt be an antagonist.) The most interesting thing going on here is Katia, who was a boy in Japan but was reincarnated as a woman here, and seems to be the ONLY one who’s not the same sex. She becomes very accepting of this, and is also clearly starting to have feelings for Shun, which everyone notices except her. It’s not, perhaps, as amusing as the author wants it to be, but it’s definitely interesting, and handled pretty well.

The book ends with a nasty cliffhanger for those on the surface, even as our spider heroine just keeps rolling along. I’m enjoying these books, but I really hope that the two plots converge soon, as I’m drawning in stats a bit too much.