So I’m a Spider, So What? First Impressions

“The last thing I remember is being in cultural literature class. The most likely scenario is that I died and was reincarnated as a spider.”

So I’m a Spider, So What? comes from the school of light novel adaptations that are clearly what they say on the tin. It wouldn’t be entirely unfair to jokingly refer to it as That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Spider, but that does sort of discount several factors this show has in its favor. First and most noticeably, its title is much shorter, and given the prominence of light novel title paragraphs these days, I’m more than thankful when a series decides to keep it short and sweet. So I’m a Spider also appears to kick off with a more fully realized world, even if it incorporates a skill system that, at least at first glance, comes across as annoyingly simplistic. There is a lot coming out this season, and I’m not entirely on board with So I’m a Spider’s universe and its rules yet, but the characters and tone are charming enough to get me to take a second look.

One detail that is still uncommon in isekai which So I’m a Spider has going for it is that its unnamed protagonist is female. Admittedly, it takes a while to confirm that detail, because while her voice is certainly feminine, the same could be argued of Rimuru from That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime and he started out as male. She mysteriously loses consciousness at school one day only to wake up in the body of a spider. With no knowledge of how or even if she actually died, she concludes that it’s better to put those details out of her mind for now and get about surviving. As a protagonist, she reminds me slightly of Catarina from My Next Life as a Villainess. Both she and Catarina have a degree of genre savviness that, at least through the course of this first episode, can just as often lead them astray as it can guide them. For example, she spends all of her skill points on a level one analytical skill assuming that, like in the light novels she’s read, it will give her tons of inside knowledge that will be useful. Instead, she merely gets back the most basic details which she could have determined from a glance. She eventually learns that she can gain experience and skills by defeating and eating enemies, and proceeds to Rimuru her way through her first encounter. Another notable twist is that our protagonist isn’t the only one transferred to this new world. A later scene in the episode reveals that a multitude of people from her class or school were reincarnated into new forms. This Log Horizon meets Reincarnated as a Slime combo could definitely be fun, assuming the show is up to the task.

The production is being handled by Millepennsee, a studio I’ve encountered in the past, but had completely forgotten about. They were the ones responsible for producing 2019’s Cop Craft which, while I remember it being an enjoyable enough premiere, I never did look into it further. I remember it featuring a decent amount of integrated CG that became distracting, and there’s a reason I consider this relevant to the topic at hand. There is a good bit of CG in this first episode of So I’m a Spider. It’s less distracting than in Cop Craft, but it’s seemingly used for animating every monster, albeit sometimes in conjunction with traditional animation for integration purposes. And when I say “every monster” this includes our protagonist. I never found it too distracting, but there is the potential for problems moving forward depending on how much the studio relies on it. The OP is pretty fun. I’m not completely sold on the method of overlaying the credits with translucent English position titles, as it seems to draw the eye away from the animation, but there are some creative transitions and the visual of a character biting down on the planet only for it to get crushed like a berry filled with blood is one that I’ll probably retain for a while. That being said, I’m perplexed by the visual of a group of spiders each in different attire in a library. I suspect that may be a visualization of our protagonist’s inner consciousness, and if I’m right, that certainly doesn’t alleviate the Catarina Klaes comparisons.

Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:

• Given the multitude of isekai variations out there, I’m surprised I don’t see gender swapping showing up as a plot point more often. Then again, in a lot of series the person is carried over in their original form or as a character they played as in a game, so I guess that makes a degree of sense. Evidently, at least some of our protagonist’s classmates have run into this issue.
• I’m put a little on edge by the protagonist’s rapid acquisition of skills, because while it’s part of the joke, the rate at which Rimuru cultivated skills in Reincarnated as a Slime was a bit too much and I wouldn’t mind seeing this series dial that back a bit.
• While I don’t like spiders, I don’t have any problem with them either. I’m curious how people who are upset by them or even outright arachnophobes would react to this series. Maybe the cutesy aesthetic used for the protagonist would help offset the discomfort?
• The card that pops up for commercial breaks displays the protagonist’s various stats which is a nice detail, but could easily become overloaded if she keeps gaining skills and it lists all of them.