So I'm a Spider, So What?, Vol. 12

So I'm a Spider, So What? Light Novel #12

by Okina Baba, Tsukasa Kiryu (Narrator)

THIS COLD WAR JUST WENT HOT!

This is a special spider field report coming to you straight from the human-demon border where a massive battle has erupted! The Demon Lord is finally launching an all-out assault on the fortresses guarding the human realm’s frontier and has committed hundreds of thousands of soldiers for the attack. On the other side, the humans are putting up a stiff resistance! All signs point to a bloody day of fighting for both forces—though that’s kinda the point, y’know? Hopefully the hero comes onto the field as planned...

Genres: Light Novel, Fantasy, Fiction, Comedy, Adventure, Action, Japanese Literature

242 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 10, 2020

Reviews

[DJay · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this still doesn’t pick up where book 10 left off.

Just like the title says. This is more back story on the events leading up to right before everyone is an adult. If you read up to the part where the youngest prince gets the scarf, this book ends right before that event.

So more filler. You can skip this if your waiting for the rest of the series to pick back up.

[Maxim Rafar · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible filler.
If you're writing a filler again, since volume 11, then at least make it interesting!
It's just a rehash of volume 11, and everything that happened since in the whole book.
I don't care about Julius and his party, I know they just die, who cares lol
Same old concerns, oh we can't win against the Demon Lord thats why we have to fight.
Oh Julius is the way he is, cuz of everything that happened to him.
Stuff about side characters that's not even relevant, I don't care what they think or what happens to them.
Hawkins? Jeskan? Who TF are those guys, I honestly don't care.
If volume 13 going to be the same I'd rather not read it.

[Jerod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book i'm looking forward to the next one

[Brent · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was easily the worst book in the series so far. It's a collection of short stories, most of which are told from the perspective of side characters, and none of which add anything in terms of story development. Everything presented is either something that could have been surmised from the main story or is just filler. It's also written rather poorly. Realistically, most light novels aren't written particularly well, but this one extensively features the characters engaging in repetitive internal monologues that don't seem to do anything other than pad the page count. This is the second book in a row that hasn't added to the story, and I'm starting to think the series is headed toward an awkward and disjointed ending that will leave everyone unsatisfied.

[Dustin · Rating 1 out of 5]

250 pages of wheel spinning.

[Eduardo Lombardi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lotta endings

[Steven Henderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a Guilty Pleasure

This series is trash. It’s junk food for the brain. It uses the LCD of the isekai genre and managed to pull a fast one with a solid twist at the beginning partially because it used the semi-unique viewpoint of the main protagonist who eventually after the series became a complete flashback was no longer able to carry the title named after her. White is absolutely a terrible protagonist and even worse character. Okina Baba has never tried to hide this fact. They don’t need to. That’s kinda the point that is staring back at you with the dismissive title.

Yet the brain rot vanished somewhat the past two volumes and the moment I’d finally been looking forward to from the beginning, dreading this entire book, was finally upon us. Julius was such an amazing PoV in the previous book as someone who doesn’t know what is at stake and isn’t caught in an isekai situation who nevertheless did what he could to help it and the world because that is what heroes do. He was great. Likable. It was a nice shift to a boots on the ground perspective.

And then this Volume rolls along. An entire book about the grunts, about the “normal” folks who worked hard, who don’t know they’re caught up in isekai drama or an energy crisis or anything. (Yes, there were technically 4 Reincarnation chapters but three of them are the only fantastic characters among them that switch things up in the genre and the 4th is Sophia who will never change). The final sequence, the 5th Battle, was nonstop top tier story telling and high octane action. It could have been a volume on its own with how much it covered and how invested it had me to the point I wished it didn’t have to race to catch up with the present. Julius’s death was so impactful. Not tarnished in the least by the fact we knew it was coming and that it would be so abrupt that despite everything he’d been through, he’d be one shotted. It hurt. And that was earned.

Unfortunately, immediately after his death, we fall right back into what makes the series trash with all part of the plan and more pointless vagueness. Julius, Agner, Yaana, and Bloe’s deaths. So strong. So impactful. All ruined with a glib White chapter that has to explain “Well that’s fine. It wasn’t a real Queen Taratect anyways.” Such BS. I’m cool with the Queen battle being a move to force the Hero to do something as part of a greater plot. I’m not okay with undermining the sacrifice of folks we came to love despite knowing they were already dead by going “Doesn’t matter. Wasn’t real.” White doesn’t need more power and to be more of an enigma. Just let the “good” characters have their win with a proper Legendary Monster. Ariel could have controlled her kin just as much and actually contributed to the story for once.

[Jason Hardman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Filler

The main plot of spider didn't move forward here. The main protagonist is barely in it. It's covering in more detail events that have already happened previously adding nothing new to the outcomes, just a bit more backstory. Possibly a bit of retcon to setup some future events. It's frustrating to see two books in a row that are just padding out the series count.

[Thilina · Rating 5 out of 5]

hero does grow on you despite being boring and weak.

[Siena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know a lot of people really hate this volume along with volume 11 for being “just filler,” and “focusing too much on side characters who we already know are gonna die” and are even suggesting that people skip them entirely to get back to the main story faster. But for me, this volume solidified what the previous one was trying to do.

Volume 11 focuses on the stories of Julius and his party members, who are very separated from the main cast most of the time. I will admit, I was immediately turned off by this idea and put off reading the book for several months. Though it wasn’t the most enjoyable out of the series, it’s not like it was hard to read and I finished it within a few hours. I could appreciate the extra information and background it gave from a world building perspective. When we’re stuck watching White and Ariel the entire time, it’s hard to remember what life is like for the humans and that Julian is actually the standard for strength, just not compared to literal gods.

In the end, the book is summarizing his motivations as compared and contrasted to Ariel’s. Julian doesn’t want to fight but is forced to for humanity’s sake while Ariel doesn’t want to fight but is forced to for the world’s sake. The hero and demon lord are two sides of the same coin, intrinsically connected by the same burden they are both assigned against their will. Maybe it took a while to make that point, but I can still appreciate that that the author made it nonetheless.

Additionally, that volume set up for the events in this one. Namely, the countless tragic deaths. Sure, we knew they were coming. It was revealed ages ago in the story but at that point we couldn’t truly appreciate them. Shun gets the devastating news that his brother is dead. Big whoop. We only ever heard about him from Shun’s short anecdotes and knew basically nothing about his party members. But because of volume 11, I felt genuine sorrow for these characters. They’re motivations, dreams, aspirations. We knew they would never come to fruition but they were a part of their individual deaths.

Regardless of what they logically had planned for their futures, they all lived and died for Shun and what he stood for: hope. It was a big theme in this book. It was the main cause for both sides. Humans hoped that the hero would save humanity, while the demons hoped to stop the demon lord from destroying demon kind.

I know stories are meant for entertainment and that this story is formatted a bit inconveniently, but stories are also meant to convey themes through motifs and parallels and such. I think we should appreciated this volume for that much, if nothing else.

[William Moses Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this volume, we get to view the first wave of the Great War from multiples perspectives. Some of those perspectives I was interested in. Others I just didn't really care about. But at least here, there were more perspectives I cared about than didn't, so this book gets 4 stars.

One spoilery note about the end of the volume: To be honest, I thought White would swoop down and save Bloe in the end. And also magically save Julius and the others. The reasoning for Bloe was that he was a character that had direct interactions with White earlier in a kind of comedic relief way, so I figured he would live and survive and join the Demon Lord's inner gang eventually. I thought his death was a fake-out early on and we'd see that he somehow lived without Balto knowing.

So watching him die was shocking and to be honest, really drove home just how much the world only seems upbeat because we view it through White's perspective with her inner voice.

But for Julius, it was more that Okina Baba spent most of the last volume giving us his inner thoughts. I held out hope that maybe this was because we'd see a fake-out in the end and we'd be able to understand why that happened. But it was not to be. And that was really frustrating because I didn't really care about his chapters in the last volume that much and this was the only hope I held out to get me invested in him and get back the boringness I'd otherwise feel. To know that my hope was false was frustrating. But on the other hand, I'm also kind of glad he died, because at least that adds weight to the world and it's not one of those stories where the author pretends to kill of a character for shock/emotional value only to later bring them back. To be honest though, maybe I'm just writing this as justification now, because to be honest, I actually liked Julius and wouldn't mind if he lived somehow, even if his rigid behavior was starting to become irksome.

[Genie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Went into this knowing it was a continuation of vol 11’s perspective from the Hero Julius’s perspective. What I didn’t expect was the numerous perspectives of literally everyone involved in the battle where he dies. The demon’s side perspectives were good and interesting, but a majority of the human perspectives were not necessary at all. I skimmed through a lot of them and there was nothing from their side of the story that brought anything new. It was just rambling from their side and they were even characters that admitted that they themselves were insignificant. I can honestly recommend that readers could easily skip vol 11 and 12 and it would have had no impact whatsoever to the rest of the story. Read it if you’re bored, but they can definitely be skipped.

[Fernando Soto · Rating 5 out of 5]

While some of the parts of this book are not that interesting, the chapters involving the Hero’s party bring a gratifying and well deserved closure to the story of Julius The Hero that we got to know in volume 11.

SPOILER
The chapters from Yanna, Hyrince and Julius make it 100% worth the reading. Julius is gone, but he died as the quintessential Hero.
Something I like is how this book let you know that as a Hero he was not weak, he was probably the strongest people after Ronandt and Kumoko’s gang and that he far surpassed the expectations everyone (including Ariel and Kumoko) had.

[Jaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite volumes! this volume delivered! Although Yaana's... Dead scene? Oh gosh, it did hurt! The wanna be hero should repent..he did. Anyways. Loving having Vampy's side of the incidents! And White's! Thank you for another great volume! Can't wait to read the next one! Hope Shiro's side win the war !
This book was really good. I enjoy seeing things with different eyes! And how each character is taking Everything and how they evolve.

[Miso · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whew finally at the close of that extended side story. Unfortunately our wishes to be back in the Kumoko POV mostly go unrequited again but at least we get more POVs that aren't just Julius. Some of these could have been trimmed back a bit in all honesty, but it was a nice change of pace from "I am the hero" and "I wish I were stronger" all day.

Now we can finally go back to the main storyline...I hope, otherwise Vol 13 is gonna be a big let down.

[Velhala · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved how the author showed us these events from so many different perspectives - it really shows how things people can be so sure of, even things as seemingly essential as good, bad, right, wrong aren’t anywhere near as absolute as we might think

We make assumptions on why people do what they do, but a story like this shows pretty clearly that chances are we most often just don’t know that

[Estefany CI Glar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Con este volumen por fin se da comienzo a la lucha entre humanos demonio, fue muy acertado ver el punto de vista de cada personaje ya que así vemos no sólo cual es su función en esta genrra si no que las motivaciones y objetivos de cada uno.

[Nicholas Garrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book.

Honestly there is little more for me to say than these books fail to disappoint. Anyone reading this should know plenty just from me saying that the quality has not dropped in this issue.

[The_Marran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok love the series in the first 10 books I fell in love with the character white but in the last one we got none of her. I thought it was just a rest bite to see from Julius pov and it was. But there was basically only two choppers that was from white this book man

[Jeremy Twitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok I suppose

Didn't enjoy this one as much. Found myself skimming a lot of it rather than properly reading it. Hope the next one is more interesting.

[Simon Thivierge · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of repeating.

Relatively weak to the rest of the series but good none the less. Just wished there weren't so many chapter that could be 3x shorter.

[Nagendra Kumar Yadav T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chaotic. Liked some parts. Some parts I didn't like. But ended on a bittersweet note. So many characters death. Too many POV'S so I was overwhelmed for most of the time.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine followup, but still a bit slow, although I enjoy the battle breakdowns more than volume 11.

[Andy Febrico Bintoro · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the main story, The war begun. It's just this volume also different, The author choose to tell the war on many point of view. Too many point of view here.

[Abel Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Time 1h56m

[Vulpes · Rating 2 out of 5]

5/10

[Tessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh book overall, the focused on the hero could have been done differently.
Story wise it made sense to explain what happened from a different angle but it felt overdone.