--- The premise
This is yet again another “isekai” (or should I say, “shitsekai”), that is to say, an anime where the protagonist is transported to a parallel world. In that case it’s the whole classroom – teacher included – that are reincarnated as newborns, and the parallel world is a RPG-like fantasy world featuring elves, demons, monsters, and also tons of video games mechanics. Our protagonist is a girl who is reincarnated as a spider in a cave full of atrocious CGI creatures, and must fight them to survive and get experience, levels and skills. That’s the spider arc. Then you have the generic isekai arc which follows the boring adventures of the rest of the classroom, who got the chance not to be reincarnated as ugly monsters.
--- One of the ugliest shows
The spider arc is mostly animated in CGI, and oh boy does the CGI of this anime sucks ass. It is ugly, badly animated, and the movements are very jerky. Most of the spider arc happens in a cave, so the backgrounds you get to see are boring 3D backgrounds that look less detailed than the caves in The Battle for Middle-earth, a real time strategy video game that was released in… 2004. The spider looks very ugly, too. With her human eyes and her spider body, she looks like one of those abominations I used to make in the video game Spore when I was 10. The other CGI monsters look even uglier than the spider, and when these cursed creatures fight it is hard to understand what the heck is happening on the screen.
The animation of the generic isekai arc isn’t better. In the first half of the series or so it consists mostly of 2D animation, but as the series progresses there is more and more CGI. Just as in the spider arc, the CGI is very ugly. It is not an overstatement to say that the 3D hentai game Koikatsu Party looks better than the CGI of this anime. Some characters such as Sophia or the demon lord are made out exclusively of CGI, and you often see 2D characters and CGI characters on the same image. CGI is also used for monsters and armies, not just for background crowds. Towards the end of the series CGI is used in all fight scenes, making them look like utter shit. This is supposed to be the climax for god’s sake! Oh and did I also mention that the ground looks uglier than old video games’ textures?
The 2D animation is also very bad. Character designs are comparable to those in The Irregular at Magic High School – they are generic and soulless. 2D backgrounds look like they come from a low budget visual novel from the 2000’s. There is little actual animation, and most of the time it is jerky. 2D fight scenes don’t look good and consist for the most part of static images with movement lines. Not only this, but as the series progresses, the animation gets even worse! There are more and more face inconsistencies, with ugly faces and characters’ eyes looking in two different directions. In the second half of the series or so, there are entire scenes with absolutely no goddamn animation. Characters leave or appear on the screen with no actual animation as if it was a shitty PowerPoint presentation! There are some episodes where the animators tried very hard to spare effort by hiding the characters’ mouths when they’re talking, for example by putting a character in front of them, or by showing static images of silent characters.
In short, the animation of this show is so ugly it’s near impossible to take the story seriously.
--- The most insufferable protagonist ever created
There are three things that make the spider insufferable. First, as I mentioned earlier, she looks ugly. Second, her voice acting is extremely annoying. Third, she can’t help complaining and yelling all the time with her irritating voice. Since for most of the series she is alone in caves, she is always talking to herself, describing what’s happening to her, reading stats and skills’ description, talking to the AI, making cringe-worthy jokes and references, and so on. And this is what makes her insufferable: she is always talking. When the spider appears on the screen you should have your Paracetamol ready because her high-pitched voice is going to give you a goddamn headache. And if her dialogues aren’t enough to make your ears bleed, do not worry: she also sings the ending song!
--- The rest of the cast sucks ass
The rest of the cast on the generic isekai arc’s side is a bunch of stereotypical and soulless characters. There are too many of them to remember about and I will not waste my time describing why they suck. In a nutshell: there’s the generic anime main character who is kind, brave and whatnot, and the bad guy who is mean and pretentious. Oh, and the demon lord is a little girl with a cuteness fang, how original. With the former teacher there’s a failed attempt at character development which can be summed up in this: “I wanted my students to like me so I studied video games and light novels”… absolutely ridiculous. The only thing that’s good with these people is that they are less annoying than the spider.
--- The story is nonsense
The first thing that’s wrong in the story is that it follows two arcs – which are actually two different timelines – at the same time, making the show confusing. To my knowledge, it wasn’t the case in the light novel or the manga adaptation.
The spider arc is about accumulating experience, leveling up, getting new skills and evolving. It has everything a MMORPG has, including skill points, MP, HP and SP. There’s tons of talk about skills and other video game mechanics, lots of annoying terminology, and walls of text that are unreadable. Video-game skills play a huge role in the story, but they also make the fights unfathomable. Stuff happens on the screen (stuff meaning orgies of bad CGI), that’s all. There’s no real tension because you know that the spider is going to win any fight thanks to some skill she pulled from her ass.
The generic isekai arc is about generic isekai stuff. In the beginning of the series the characters are in a generic magic academy where they do nothing relevant to the plot. Then there is a conspiracy and they are forced to leave the academy to fight the demons in atrocious CGI battles.
As the series progresses the story gets more random and ridiculous. There is an “administrator” who talks to the spider with a smartphone and gives her overpowered skills, there are elves with mechas, there are clones, there are computers, there is future technology… And in the last episodes, which is supposed to be the climax of the series, we get to see disgusting fight scenes between ugly CGI models and mechas that have nothing to do in a medieval fantasy universe.
--- Sound
Perhaps the least failed aspect of the show, but it’s still horrible. The quality of the background music ranges from meh to alright. The voice-acting is meh, as the lip-sync is sometimes badly done, and as I said earlier, the spider’s voice is insufferable. The openings and endings are also very bad and skippable.
--- Verdict
One of the worst anime series I have seen in my life, both in terms of story / characters and technical value. The only reason I give it a 2 instead of a 1 is because Ex-Arm exists. It is absolutely not enjoyable. Avoid it at all costs, it is not worth your time or the money spent on Paracetamol.
