Is the KumoDesu anime good? No. Is the KumoDesu anime bad? Yes. Very much so. I believe the core ambition of KumoDesu lies with how it tries to presents two different timelines and frequently switches between them. While the switching made the story more engaging there wasnt really a bar to cross over. It was a minor highlight to a largely disappointing experience.
Story
Despite its shortcomings the storyline could be chalked upto being sort of entertaining. We start off with Kumoko a high school student reincarnated into a spider who is in a labyrinth and her classmates reincarnated as normal humans with the exception of a few. The first half of the anime gets pretty repetitive as it follows the same cycle of Kumoko finding a strong monster killing it eating it and finding a stronger monster. Although it does get better in the second half as we begin to learn more about the world through Kumokos perspective. The world building when it was finally touched upon was appealing enough to make me want to continue the anime. Then theres the human side that serves almost no purpose other than boring the viewer to death with its dullness.
Characters
Meh. Kumokos jokes and witty comments get stale very quickly but she manages to remain more entertaining than any other character. The main human characters follow every classic cliche there is. Shun a brocon who is obsessed with justice as much as he is with his brother. Then theres Hugo the villain whose motives are almost non existent because of how stupid they are. Even after 24 episodes of this Im barely able to recollect major character names from the human side.
Animation
Yeah this sucks massive balls. The action direction is so crazy that it turns into a slideshow. Its just so half assed at points. Imagine any kind of fighting scene and that would still be better than what we got in KumoDesu. The action sequences were so well done that I would rather skip to the end than torture my eyes. Atleast we got a scene where the camera went under Hugos clothes in the final episodes. Truly the peak of this series.
Soundtrack
Besides the second opening I wasnt a big fan of the rest. The first ending was kind of cute I guess?
Conclusion
This is the same studio that did the critically acclaimed adaptation of Berserk so I dont want to judge the whole series just by the adaption. I can see the potential this series has but this adaptation is not it. The shows high moments were quickly overshadowed by the lows. However if theres something to take away from this review itd be that the plot in concept was interesting but the anime did its part in squandering it.
50
/100