@fatalystic
I guess that the contents of Taboo being shown much earlier after maxing it is going to take out a lot of confusion.
Having only read the WN, I remember wondering if I was skipping chapters without noticing because I didn't know what was happening and I got a little lost then.
@fatalystic Somehow I'm actually kinda sad to hear that. I guess I'm weird but I actually really enjoyed how much the WN withheld from us. I liked being able to guess at what Taboo might have revealed, what had happened with the parallel wills, and generally just what Kumoko was even planning. Hell I even enjoyed the one chapter of pissed off edgelord Kumoko right after Taboo was maxed. It made Taboo seem like something really nasty and dangerous, something that would break even a lovable cheerful airhead like Kumoko. You know, like what you'd expect of such an ominous taboo. There was a real tense, and kind of exciting, moment of "is she going to come back to normal?", and while I would have hated it if she hadn't, the fact that she does lets it end as just a nice little temporary rush. Even then though, it was clear she had changed. I'm assuming there's still that sense of having changed in the LN, but idk, I just feel like it wouldn't be the same without that one surprise chapter. But hey, that's just me speculating. From what I've heard the LN is overall tighter and of a higher quality than the WN, so if the manga is mostly taking after it, then I'm still excited to see what the manga will do with it.
@ConstantErasing Did you just say 'what happened with the parallel wills? The author decided to erase them? Thank you for that wonderful spoiler. Been asking spoilers here, but none so far exceeded my expectations. That skill is just too annoyingly powerful, how does a spider even be able to learn that OP shitt at a very early stage of the 'game'. I call it game since it is wonderfully enjoying to watch like you are playing an MMORPG, but only as an NPC or observer who watches our eccentrically cute MC.
@jm08910: Everyone can learn it for a relatively low cost, but people don't usually use it because it's literally forcing DID on yourself. Most people will at some point lose track of which personality is the "real" one, and I can see potential problems with conflicts between personalities if the person is particularly strong-willed and such. So it's not really "OP" in the sense that it's some special unbalanced skill that only the protagonist has, she's just the only one who's stupid enough to keep it on 24/7. And there isn't really much of a problem on her end anyway because she doesn't really give a shit which personality's "in charge" = the other personalities don't really give a shit either (because according to her, they're all "her").
@fatalystic Hmmm, gonna have to contradict you on this one, cause I think most people actually aren't capable of reaching it. Only other person I remember for sure who had it was
Sophia
, and hers was at a pretty low level. Plus, given her mentor, she was likely specifically trained since infancy to unlock it. I think
Ariel
might have it as well, but she's pretty much the world's biggest outlier. Although parallel wills is revealed to
have potentially dangerous repercussions for the soul if overused
, I think that's not what is actually stopping people from getting it. In fact the only reason Kumo managed to get it so easily is because of Pride, a skill with some very nasty side effects of its own, and
the fragment of D's soul
(but mostly Pride. Remember the pride skill itself increases skill proficiency gain, and then the Ruler of Pride title on top of that greatly increases gain on mental type skills, that's why she was able to get it so quickly.
@jm08910 I am loathe to actually spoil what happens with the parallel wills (because I personally enjoyed the mystery quite a bit), but yeah they are gonna vanish for a while quite soon. Hell, in the WN I think this is the last fight they are actually in. That being said, with arguably one exception, they aren't exactly erased. That being said, it is pretty OP though. Honestly
the only close fight she's gonna have for quite a while is with Alaba. Every other encounter is one she has no chance of winning, or one she wins easily (though again this is just going off the WN, there are probably more fights in the LN).
Really, each major fight up until this point was supposed to be a desperate struggle she only wins by the skin of her teeth, but honestly, for me at least, the manga hasn't been doing a great job convincing me of that. That being said, one thing the series does better than any other Isekai I know of is establishing potential threats. She's about to run into 2 characters who can wipe her off the face of the earth on a whim, and down the road a bit she's gonna very nearly escape death from someone who is virtually impossible to defeat from within the confines of the system. So far the WN has made a point of establishing that, no matter how strong she gets, there is at least 1 character that is linked to her that she will never stand even the smallest chance against, so if you are feeling like there isn't enough tension then you have a bit of relief coming your way. The addition of side characters also helps with that.
Oh and it's kinda funny you mentioned it being a game,
because that is part of the point. The current scenario, and even the way the world operates, was created for the sake of amusing an outside observer that also happens to be a big MMORPG enthusiast.
@ConstantErasing That last comment is the best spoiler for me. My expectations for this manga just went over the hills. Yeah, the concept is not unique, but so far they executed it almost perfectly well. The only reason I attempted to read this manga was because of isekai genre with a unique twist of having an mc being a spider and also a GIRL. But the reason I continued reading was because how "game-y" it felt reading it. But sadly at the current chapters, my enjoyment just became lesser and lesser. Hopefully it would redeem itself and become a great isekai manga like Slime or even a better one.
@ConstantErasing: I was thinking of it more from a skill point standpoint rather than grinding for it normally like Kumoko did. If we're talking about grinding then yeah Kumoko earned it way faster than anyone else would because of Pride + Ruler of Pride. Come to think of it, regular people don't really have all that many skill points anyway, so I suppose grinding's their only real option...also I don't think there are any monsters with it
aside from outliers like Ariel
so Kumoko's got a leg up in that department.
Incidentally,
Shun
has the skill too, but he only uses it during combat for simultaneous melee and magic attacks because it's too confusing for him. And the way he puts it makes it sound like he's asked around about the skill and everyone with it does the same.
I read the whole thing recently, the thing that stands out is why do hordes of insanely powerful monsters go out of their way to kill a spider? They should have better things to do, right? I suppose she does pick her battles, doesn’t affect the reading experience at all anyway.
Since nobody seems to have explicitly said it: She’s so cuuuuuuute!!! What’s with that cutenessssssss!!! It’s so silly.
@penrosecat Well some of them, especially in the middle layer, are just really territorial. For the monkeys it was because anyone who kills one of them is marked and gets swarmed by the rest. However it's also later revealed, in passing, that it's because
she uses appraisal on them, which is considered an act of aggression, so she's basically picking a fight with them.
@jm08910 I mean I love kumo to death (I'd put slime at probably an 8/10 overall where as i'd give kumo a solid 10/10 by the later portions) but of course a lot of it comes down to personal taste. For me slime peaked after the Birth of a Demon Lord Arc, where as kumo just keeps getting better the more I read (going off of the WNs for both as usual. Also still only about 1/3 of the way into The Empire Invades Arc in slime cause I got bored). That being said the WN of kumo had a pretty boring period after s
he leaves the labyrinth
that is only broken up by a few exciting moments, like
finding a fellow reincarnator and getting nearly erased by Ariel
and otherwise has a bit too much nature appreciation and fishing for my tastes. Heard the LN does a better job though so I'm really hoping the manga does as well. Still I can confirm that, at least for my tastes, kumo gets much better later down the road. Some excellent, complex, and interesting characters get introduced and developed, the plot thiccens, there are some pretty heart-wrenching scenes, and it actually gets pretty morally grey too. Also has
D
, who I would call the most unnerving antagonist out there.
@ConstantErasing I was comparing the manga versions only since it is the only medium I have read. If you compare both objectively, Kumo started as 10 and reached 8 while Slime started 8 and reached 10 at the current chapters, so... Reason for that is because of Slime's better and early world-building, complex and not bland fights, and Kumo's slow pacing.
@penrosecat: It was supposed to have been mentioned by now, but it's been cut out because it's mentioned in a chapter told from a different character's perspective, and the manga's cut every single one of those out. It's my only gripe with the manga, because there's lots of world-building in those chapters, but I can see why the mangaka's done it.
@ConstantErasing: There's a hell of a lot more stuff. I'll spoiler tag them in case people don't want to see them, but they're mostly stuff literally printed on the back cover of the books:
Mother's counterattack in an attempt to destroy Kumoko when the latter leaves the labyrinth, Ariel's dogged hunt for Kumoko, Kumoko's Parallel Wills running amok after being shoved into separate eggs, Ronandt gets a lot more screentime with his training period under Kumoko changed and expanded, and in volume 7 (just started on it) Potimas is apparently sending out a small armada of his mechs to kill Kumoko and co. on their journey to the Demon Kingdom.
@fatalystic Hey, most of that sounds pretty fun, looking forward to it. One of my least favorite parts of the WN was the down period in that zone, so just having more going on should make it a lot more interesting.
@jm08910 Ah, makes sense. I actually kinda enjoyed the slower pacing in Kumo (up until the middle layer at least when it gets too slow), but yeah the lack of the side stories in the manga leaves very little world building remaining. The next chapter should introduce a couple new characters that will give us at least a bit more world building, but most of the good stuff comes much farther down the line (assuming the side stories never get added in (I really hope they do though, cause otherwise some stuff later won't make as much sense or be as impactful)).
As for Slime, the manga still hasn't gotten to my favorite arc in the series so there's a lot to look forward to, but I got really tired of it because the characters tended to just stop developing and became flat and uninteresting, which meant there was nothing to carry me through the large amounts of nothing interesting happening in some of the later arcs. That's why I rate kumo as being head and shoulders above slime in the long run, but honestly here's hoping the manga version of slime does something to fix those issues. I was really enjoying for a while, but it just couldn't keep me invested long enough to get to the juicy stuff that was being teased at, or even make me excited enough for said juicy bits to push through.
Ultimately I think Kumo has the better world, characters, plot, and themes, but that's purely from comparing the WNs.
@ConstantErasing: I'm probably coming across as a little annoying at this point, but a small correction to what I said before.
I made an assumption as to the plot of vol 7 without reading the blurb in full. What actually happens is an ancient planet-destroying weapon reactivates along with a giant killer robot army, and since the planet actually being destroyed in a couple days will be kind of a problem, Gyurie, Dustin, Ariel and even Potimas are forced to form a temporary truce to get rid of the thing. Curiously, said weapon resembles a giant flying saucer...and I get the feeling we WN readers may have seen one before...
@fatalystic Huh, that sounds...actually like a bit much. I'm having trouble judging based off just that but I have a few questions.
Like given the level of the pre-system world, why is there a weapon of any sort that is something Gyurie couldn't deal with easily enough on his own? Why did that thing even exist? Can't see much of a reason for it to have been built. Did this happen before Kumo's apotheosis, and if so does that mean Potimas knows about her in advance of the elf village in the LN?
Well this does explain the picture of the flying saucer I saw when I looked up the illustrations
But yeah, can't really judge it without reading it, but the scenario itself just sounds kinda over the top. Where in the plot line do they even fit it in?
Before. Kumoko, Ariel, baby Sophia and Mera are still on their way to the demon kingdom. As the designer of the weapon, Potimas claims that since it was built as an anti-dragon weapon, Gyurie would set it off if he were to engage it, causing the thing to immediately drop a bomb that could destroy an entire continent. So he has Gyurie deal with a different craft that has launched into outer space instead. I'm halfway through the book, and it's not yet clear if he's lying about that functionality (and no one wants to take that risk). In any case, even Ariel acknowledges the flying saucer is beyond her ability to handle alone. Why was it built? Because the organisation Potimas handed the blueprints to as part of a business transaction was full of idiots; even Potimas himself acknowledges that building the thing isn't feasible - possible, but generally a terrible idea.
Going by the blurb of vol 8,
apotheosis
will happen at the end of vol 7. I'm not sure how this will affect
Things get... kind of polarizing from here on out. How they end up covering the side chapters might make or break some people's goodwill. I hope it's done right, even if it's already kind of late to be doing it.
