蜘蛛(くも)ですが、なにか？(So I’m a Spider, so what?) is a light novel series originally written by Okina Baba. It has since been adapted into a (bad) anime and a manga.
While I found the series via the manga, I started reading the light novel because I got impatient and…oh boy. We can add this to the list of favorites…
My initial attraction to Kumoka was because it was about a spider and, well, I like spiders.

The Light Novel is, honestly, a really damn good isekai. The worldbuilding here is very well-thought-out, it honestly took me by surprise the first time I read it. The game-y elements that have gotten tiresome in other isekai are actually properly justified and integrated into this one.
Further, even the ‘over-powered protagonist’ aspect of the story isn’t that bad in this story…because we literally see Kumoko struggle from the bottom all the way to the top. Her will of steel is incredible to behold.
Kumoko’s early life is so hard that seeing her as an over-powered monster is, honestly, satisfying…though it can get tiresome later on. ‘Later’ being within the last few volumes.
Also, this is secretly a sci-fi story.

I think the manga is the second-best way to experience Kumoko. If you like pictures…well, probably the first then. It’s a great introduction.
The art quality is serviceable, though the cover art and the spider art is better than the character art. Though, I imagine it will eventually get better.
The manga adapts the LN in an interesting way, in that it focuses only on Kumoko’s side of the story. There are a few cases where the story flash-forwards but, otherwise, it’s all spider action.
It adapts the story very faithfully…it’s like the same story, basically. However, the manga aesthetic is different from the aesthetic of the LN and some outfits are radically different (Demon Lord).

It’s actually kinda sad to think that people will watch this and assume Kumoka is bad as a whole, despite it being pretty great.
The anime is quite flawed for several reasons. The main issues, as I see them are:

1. Obvious bad animation near the end.
2. Compressing events.
3. Focusing too much on Shun’s side of the story…while excluding the parts that are actually kinda important and relevant.

The way it goes about compressing events is kinda weird. Basically, it excludes Shun’s entire childhood and skips straight to his adulthood. This has the quirky side-effect of possibly creating a twist that didn’t originally exist, which is the whole ‘Kumoko’s side of the story is actually not concurrent with Shun’s’. That ‘twist’ also technically exists in the manga, but isn’t a thing in the Light Novel, where it’s obvious that Shun’s story takes place in the future in relation to Kumoko.
Now, what I mean with the third point is something that is commented on in the first Volume. Shun notices that all the skills are combat-related. There are no skills that are not related to combat at all. That isn’t mentioned in the anime at all which is bad because it’s good setup for later twists. There are several of these details as well, like the egg, which Kumoko tried to eat which just isn’t linked to Kumoko directly because they left that out.
Honestly, they should have probably gone about this the same way the manga did.

This spider with the mind of a Japanese highschool girl and a will of steel. Kumoko’s entire life has been a struggle…her mom tried to eat her, she was hunted, the very environment she lived in was not great…and yet, she pushed through, got stronger…and strong enough that she became the most terrifying monster in the world. It’s enough to make a man cry.
Kumoko is also a great example for the truth that it’s more interesting watching characters going through immense struggle than just…not.

• LN
• Manga
• Anime
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• Just to be clear. Kumoko is the spider protagonist while Kumoka is the nickname of the series.