I just wrote about portal fiction and isekai anime, stories about people from one world (usually ours) transposed into a second world. All the stuff I said about loving this genre is still true. And, having just inhaled So I’m A Spider, So What? (an isekai anime about a schoolgirl reincarnated as a spider in a fantasy world), I’ve got some more thoughts for you about the show.

I inhaled the show, and…

…my thoughts are mixed.

On balance, I liked the show. I inhaled it after all.

The biggest problem for me, honestly, was the shockingly bad CGI that took over ever more of the animation. Given the rumors I’ve read, I feel for the artists who were involved.

According to reddit scuttlebutt, the awful animation allegedly resulted from outsourcing the initial animation work to a studio that produced the garbage CGI instead of something better—after which, the studio didn’t have the budget or time to fix all the episodes. Some of the show was reanimated, with the artists apparently going through hell to fix what they could, but there’s a thick streak of clunky, dull, generally shitty cel-shaded CGI that runs through the second half of the show, with bits of that sneaking in elsewhere. While the allegedly-outsourced bad CGI was blended into something better for most of the show’s first half and for some of the last episode, the animation quality really craters from around episode 13 or 14 until episode 24.

That’s too bad, because the show pulls several big twists during that time. I find it easier to stick with a show that’s going all over the place when the show has the art-chops to keep me invested. That wasn’t the case here.

I did keep watching though!

I had fun with it. I won’t call it excellent, but I enjoyed it. I would be far more enthusiastic if the art hadn’t shat the bed for so many episodes. Like I said last week, I’m a sucker for portal fiction. There’s just something fun for me about how these stories shape up, how they feel. Spider has that, whatever it is.

What does So I’m A Spider, So What? do well?

This show plays with questions about who the good guys are, splitting the main reincarnated characters across various factions and toying with our sympathies. I loved that. I hadn’t seen it done in isekai any time recently, so it was extra fun for me. The show does seem to answer who the baddies are by the end of the season despite clearly planning for a second season, which was less fun for me but still fine. I get it, sometimes people want more resolution.

Spider also digs into the background of its second world without going so overboard in exposition that I felt exhausted by its exploration. That’s a sweet spot that I’ve seen other anime miss, honestly. Sometimes they dig too deeply into their second world’s details without a care for whether those details support their narrative. Sometimes the details feel so superficial and improvised that they constantly scream deus ex machina. Spider gives enough detail to set up cool things down the line, without overburdening viewers with more details than we need.

Perhaps most importantly, this show is an isekai with shonen-ish vibes that doesn’t fall into cringe or feel like someone was a little too hungry to see their harem fantasy erotica turned into anime. Maybe that’s because there are both male and female characters who mostly feel like they have interior worlds that don’t revolve around a central character. Maybe it’s because our central protagonist was a schoolgirl prior to being reborn as a spider, and so this show is aiming for a different audience. Hell, maybe it’s because there’s a character who’s reincarnated in a body of the opposite sex, with occasional moments of confusion about social roles or expectations that aren’t played for cheap transphobic laughs.

What I’m trying to say is that Spider is fun. It’s dramatic, cute, funny, and it does cool things I haven’t seen other isekai do in a while. Plus, it doesn’t feature most of the pitfalls that usually make me nope out of isekai anime.

That said, there’s some stuff Spider does poorly, or which is just so out of left field that I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

First, there’s the art. The miserable animation quality for a hefty chunk of the show is just… bad. It’s actively painful for me at times. Your mileage may vary, but be ready for the visuals to sometimes be dull, lifeless, and uninspiring.

Second, big sections of the story hew closely to the extremely grindy battle-episode shonen genre conventions. Some folks love that. It’s not what excites me about a show. There is exciting physical and emotional plot, stuff I love, it just has to wait for some fights. Repeatedly. I’m so used to this trope in anime that I didn’t think much of it—but if you aren’t used to that genre convention you might be nonplussed.

Third… I don’t know how much of a genre purist you are. Some folks feel very strongly about not mixing their genre peas with their genre mashed potatoes, like people who got mad about Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books being science-fiction and fantasy. If that’s you, you might not enjoy this show.

Fourth, I said it above and it must be repeated: this show takes some big turns in the second half of the season, and they’re not all well-signaled. One less-spoilery example: two segments of the storyline are happening roughly fifteen years apart, and this is only clear if you’re paying close attention. Unfortunately, the show reveals multiple twists almost exactly when the animation is at its worst. I was still reeling from the drop in animation quality when the show pulled the rug out from under my expectations, and—well, I can imagine other folks quitting at that point. Just know that it gets weird, and it leaves resolving that weirdness for a future season.

Anyway.

I really hope there’s a second season with better animation. I’ve had enough fun with the show that I want more, and I want to know where this show’s weirdness goes. If the animation doesn’t improve, however, I might struggle to get through it… which is why I’ve requested the manga from the library. I’ll let you know how that goes.