To be honest, Kumoko's warped values are the biggest appeal in the story for me, though I don't think you're far enough to fully understand what I mean.
Likely not yet, though the manga's already shown some elements - mostly her being annoyed at the humans (and killing something like thirty people because of it) and finding the sheer destructive power of creatures like Alaba beautiful.
It's been fun.
It makes for an awkward conversation when I can't really talk about what I like best about the series. Yeah, if you're just following the manga it's going to take a long, long time to get to what I'm talking about. If it ever gets there at all considering how the LN altered the narrative.
Yeah, that's very fair. Heck, I know we just now reached the end of volume 3 of the light novel (almost literally just reached it). My problem is that to read the series properly, I have to pick up either the comparatively dense LN in Japanese, or make do with whatever machine translation there is out online... how do you generally read it?
It's been fun.
It's only the middle part of the translated stuff that's difficult to read. Blastron did good work with the beginning part and later on Raising the Dead took over, but unfortunately for the middle part of the story it's really awkward. I would recommend you skip the work Turb0 put out and just read the raws for awhile.
Ah right, webnovel version. The lightnovel version annoys me and I stopped buying them. There are some plot holes, I don't like the LN original content and there are changes in characterization that greatly undermine the strengths of the story.
Edited by Arha on Nov 21st 2019 at 1:29:06 PM
Since we just got there (relatively speaking) in the manga, would you say Kumoko's reaction to Alaba's death in the manga is closer to the WN? I skimmed the Light Novel treatment of that part and I didn't like it very much. It didn't really seem to capture as much of her frustration with him, though I suppose that could be first exposure bias.
It's been fun.
The thing that stood out to me about Alaba's death is that they changed Kumoko's perception for why he died satisfied to make it less bleak. In the WN it was like 'You're okay with dying like this? You must believe that life and death have no meaning in this cursed world' whereas in the LN it's 'You don't care that I'm killing you since you'll just reincarnate anyway' which is a position that I don't think makes a great deal of sense. In the manga it's apparently not mentioned at all in favor of emphasizing that Kumoko is, on some level, ashamed of herself for being so lacking in pride when it comes to the possibility of death.
But yeah, she was pretty angry.
Yeah, I read it as her basically being angry with him for, essentially, being a graceful loser and not letting her gloat over her victory over him and over her trauma. Which isn't a bad thing, nor would I count it against her personality or anything. The goals we build up for ourselves don't always feel as satisfying as we'd hoped.
It's been fun.
Kumoko is a very, very flawed person. And I don't know if anything she does gives her lasting satisfaction.
Edited by Arha on Nov 22nd 2019 at 4:06:57 AM
Well, I'm decently into the webnovel at this point. I see what you mean by noting that the manga adaptation loses a bit of perspective from not including the scenes with Shun... but honestly, I think I kind of like it better that way. The scene in recent chapters where Kumoko ran into a group of humans and decimated them, including clowning their mage, is a lot more impactful if it comes just as much out of nowhere for you as it does for Kumoko, I feel. Same with Appraisal and Kumoko's other skills - we don't really need Shun explaining how no one can actually use it.
I think if I was writing it, I might pause at the start of volume 4, right after Kumoko escapes the Labyrinth, and then go back to Shun, from the classroom through his childhood and so on. I'm A Prince, So What?, if you will.
It's been fun.
Perhaps. Trouble is, Shun just isn't nearly as interesting as Kumoko and the people she ends up with eventually. But I think being boring and normal is really the point of his character.
He's definitely the most whitebread of whitebreads so far, which does seem to be the point - he's got the childhood friend love interest, his unhealthily interested little sister, and the fake ultimate hero of his big brother - who, if I were Julius, I wouldn't go reserving any games that come out more than a few months in the future. I'll give the series a bit of a pass since A) it's one of the older ones, and B) even then it's already clearly putting Shun in as the world "expecting" a reincarnated hero to act a certain way.
That said, according to Oka, there's another reincarnated student out there who's still missing, aside from Kumoko. I feel like leaving two students is clearly setting up the other one as a future ally for Kumoko - either Dyudewhat'shisname or possibly the Demon Lord.
It's been fun.
He's supposed to be super generic, yes. I suppose I shouldn't get into why right now.
I've just finished LN volume 9. I agree that the characterization of Kumoko has changed from the original WN and I'm really annoyed at where the WN has gone into indefinite hiatus, but I'm pretty happy with where the LN is going at this point. There's a lot more to the interactions between Kumoko and D in this volume than there was in the WN and D comes across as more evil and creepier in general. The stories have definitely diverged, I wish the light novels contained more content. That said, Kumoko is way less of a monster, there's a lot of atrocities she didn't commit and far fewer traumas inflicted on Vampy than the WN which I won't mention though everybody who has read the WN will know what I'm talking about.
Mistakes Were Made
So it looks likely that they'll adapt up to the end of the first book (the fight with the lava dragon and D's first phone call), at least. Possibly further. It also seems likely they'll be adapting more of the other side perspectives, since I think that line about "eleven kids reincarnating" is not from Kumoko, but from the Hero's teacher?
It's been fun.
So manga is less edgy than wn or less dark then wn?
In this case definition of edgy I'm using is "for sake of shocking reader because you are still supposed to like the main character even despite shit they get up to ;P"
Edited by SpookyMask on Nov 19th 2020 at 7:17:17 PM
From what Arha has said, the anime is an adaptation of the light novel, which is Lighter and Softer in terms of how it portrays Kumoko. I think the manga kind of does its own thing?
It's been fun.
The LN is wayyyy lighter and softer and feels more, I dunno, pulpy. Mass produced. The gist of it is that in the WN Kumoko is supposed to be sympathetic but morally ambiguous at best and at worst the final boss of the deuteragonist's plot. But Kumoko doesn't really do anything wrong or amoral in the LN. The worst you can say is that she doesn't mind resorting to lethal force.
As for being pulpier, that has to do with Kumoko being nerfed and also having a filler arc to make Mother's defeat more satisfying, which was kind of an issue, but not one that needed an entire boring volume to cover. Also Shun gets a lot more screentime and has his own pet dragon girl. Nobody cares about Shun, okay?
CHADhan Player.
I didn't know this had a thread
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
Mistakes Were Made
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Dragon girl was LN addition, was therea reason why?
Was there a reason why what? Why the light novel added her? To pad out Shun's sections and give him more girls to hang out with, I assume. The light novel seems to be trying to make Shun almost or equally important to Kumoko which is not really a good idea.
Oh, right. The WN seems to be off hiatus. A chapter just came out.
Goddamnit D. She pretty much has to be the true final boss, right?
That's true. It is a really interesting part of the story, how much her thought processes have been changed by what she's been through - and that's not even counting things like Mother's control or any possible influence from D, which are both introduced into the writing many chapters before either are even mentioned as a possibility.
And yeah, it really fits in with Kumoko, as well. She's essentially the Crazy-Prepared version of a hoarder, and it's working out for her. She may be a giant fish compared to humans, but she's still in a much bigger pond than she thought she was, and it's only being Weak, but Skilled, smart and creative, and kind of bloody-minded that she's survived this long.
I like this manga.
It's been fun.