#(the answer is probably 'popular characters and an actually digestible summary'? which is totally fair; i just need a second to go 'WHY.')

[erstwhilesparrow]

sometimes (e.g. right now) i worry that my unedited / only very very lightly edited writing is better than or at least as good as my much more carefully edited writing, and at that point it's like. well what am i DOING here.

[soaker87]

A Spider Riders guide for beginners (mainly anime-centric)

Sort of a sequel to my guide for getting into Battle Spirits, but yes, I wrote a massive essay on a much smaller and easily digestible franchise. And it was fun.

Honestly, half of this is me ripping on things, but yes, I honestly love this show and wish it was more popular. And it’s my main interest when Battle Spirits is bad/on hiatus and I’m in denial about Code Geass.

Put it here instead of my SR blog, since established fans probably don’t need a guide. And I think it’s only fair when I don’t shut up about it.

1)The first pressing question that seems to bug people. Is Spider Riders a “real” anime? Not that it particularly matters, but the answer is yes. Spider Riders is officially a Japanese/Canadian co-production. But, based on official statements made by both the Japanese and western staff, the actual production went something like this. A book (which was meant to be the first in a series of 5) was published in English, and at the same time, the Japanese studio Bee Train was commissioned to make an anime based on the same general concept. The show was completely crafted in Japan. That is, the animation, writing and directing was done there. The English side of things got to make specific requests and got a minimal amount of creative control, but it was largely left in Bee Train’s hands. The people on the English side of things consider the series Yosuke Kuroda’s vision, and admitted to not really knowing any more about the characters and world than what the viewers know. So it’s just as much a “real” anime as The Big O season II, Bakugan, Dimension W and the like.

2)Now, the deal about those books I mentioned above, which were the “source material”. Well, as anyone who’s read them can tell you, they have almost nothing in common with the anime. There are characters with the same name and alliances, and the very basic setting is the same. Other than that, you can hardly compare the two. So while the books came first (at least the first one did) they are in no way a pre-requisite for watching the anime. But still very much recommended. Without spoiling anything, they’re certainly darker than the anime (while still remaining kid-friendly). Anyway, there are three canon books total, because the publisher never ordered the planned five. Thus, the story is never fully resolved. Additionally, an unfinished 4th book exists on Tedd Anasti, the main author’s website. This book can not be considered explicitly canon, because it’s basically a re-write of the 3rd book with some added plot points, and it mixes things from anime canon that contradict the previous books. However, it is highly recommended for Buguese and Aqune fans, as the added plot points concern them.

For the record, if you want to read the novels and can’t buy them (because they’re rare and expensive if you want to buy them new) I can point you to download links. And you can read the 4th one here: http://teenovels.webs.com/spiderriders.htm

3)A Spider Riders manga also exists. It’s interesting if you’re a fan, but really not suggested as a good starting point for the franchise. While the manga has more in common with the anime than the books, it’s also a very different take on things. The manga is probably the most comical entry in the franchise, only becoming serious on occasion. It also includes more violence and fanservice (especially panty shots)  than the very tame anime. The art style is considered rather unattractive by most people.

Like basically every other entry in this franchise, the manga is unfinished. 10 chapters exist total, but only 9 were released online, the 10th appearing exclusively in Shounen Fang magazine. Of these 9 chapters, only the first 6 were published in tankouban format, and only those 6 were scanlated, as the online releases of chapters 7-9 were not high quality.

Translated scans for chapters 1-6 here: http://spiderridersftw.tumblr.com/tagged/sr-manga

4)Getting back to the anime, another thing that trips people up in exactly how many seasons the anime has. Theoretically, it only has one season, consisting of 52 episodes. A series which yes, I’ll admit right here, ends with a heck of a lot left unresolved. I’ll get back to that point later. However, most anime encyclopedias list Spider Riders as having two series of 26 episodes each. The first is called “Spider Riders ~Oracle no Yuusha-tachi~” and the second is called “Spider Riders ~Yomigaeru Taiyou~”. Why? Because the series tanked in ratings when it aired in Japan. And this is starting from the very first episode, so very few people gave it a chance. It probably wasn’t on many people’s radars, due to the show getting virtually no publicity before airing in popular anime magazines, and due to the stigma it carried being a “co-production”. Because the series tanked, TV Tokyo, who was broadcasting it, stopped airing Spider Riders after 26 episodes. Another network, Kids Station, picked it up and re-aired the first 26 episodes. After that, they continued with episode 27. But they gave the series a new title. It was outright advertised as being a second season. This is most likely because of the reputation the first “season” carried. So there you have it. Spider Riders, a 1 season show, had two seasons when it aired in Japan, but the episodes were exactly the same.

However, the saga thickens. What I mentioned above about the ending being rather a non-ending? It’s because the staff hoped for a true second season of Spider Riders. So they went out of their way to leave questions unanswered. You see, Spider Riders originally did have a true ending. Teletoon, the channel that broadcast the series in Canada, put out a press-release about the anime on their corporate website very early into the anime’s run. This press release contained character bios and episode summaries, which essentially spoiled the entire series. It became known as “the Teletoon Corp spoilers”. For the first 24 episodes, everything these spoilers said matched up with what happened in the anime. The second half of the series, the “second season” in Japan, did not. There were some things that matched, and others which didn’t. So yes, they changed a perfectly thought out second half to the series for the sake of leaving opening for a sequel. A sequel that was never going to happen with the ratings the series got in Japan. In hindsight, Spider Riders ~Yomigaeru Taiyou~ may very well be a “second season”. Because that’s when the series starts to diverge from its intended route.

Because of the convenient break, I’ve actually suggested to people to just watch the first 26 episodes and stop there. The story won’t be resolved, but you’ll still have a lot of questions even after watching the second set of 26. And ep. 26 is actually an epic one, so it makes a pretty great ending point. Better than episode 52 anyway.

Obviously, I don’t hate the second half. I just have very mixed feelings about it. There are severe pacing issues. Plot twists that don’t really make any sense (probably due to having no basis in the first half/original plans). Beerain/Buguese/Aqune/Hunter/Corona love triangle nonsense that goes nowhere. Yes,  I spoiled it. None of them end up with anyone. (Also, I am under the impression that love triangles are a plague and rarely ever done well.) Hunter and Corona becoming black holes in terms of focus, while other characters are mis-handled in various ways, especially Magma and Aqune. And Beerain’s handling is a whole separate issue I’ll talk more about later. But probably, the biggest problem with the second half is the forced portrayal of a certain character as sympathetic when I personally did not see them that way. (And no, I’m not talking about Beerain. This could apply to her too, but she didn’t cross the line like this character did.) Also, the writers go out of their way to make sure this character gets everything they want in the end, even when the more important characters have massive unresolved plot threads. Though, considering that I occasionally go to TV Tropes to try and prune some of the leather pantsing for this character, many other fans saw them as sympathetic too. So maybe it’s just my problem, but it still bugs me.

Now, the second half has some good episodes and scattered moments that were awesome or cute or funny or whatever. It has episode 49, which was very validating for me. I love what they do with Igneous in the later episodes, because it helps flesh out his character, even if he doesn’t actually get to do anything useful. Grasshop’s subplot in the second half is well regarded by fans for a reason. Buguese gets to pilot a giant robot, which is beautiful. Stags finally gets some time to shine. Corona gets some good development. So it’s not all a lost cause. It’s just not the second half that should have happened, and the executive meddling made it suffer in quality.

4) Now, if you still want to watch the show knowing all this, should you watch it subbed or dubbed? Coming from someone who never had any problem with dubs, this is one show which really should be watched subbed. While the dub (produced by Cookie Jar Entertainment, not 4Kids, contrary to popular belief) is not the most horrible dub ever, that does not by any means make it an acceptable dub. I’m going to break it down into a few aspects. And these are not the only flaws it has.

First, translation. The dub is not a straight translation of the Japanese script. Except for when it is. But that’s the exception, not the rule. Many times, they just take the Japanese footage and make something up that might fit with it. Even if it has nothing to do with what the characters actually said. Sometimes, this doesn’t really affect much. But other times, it’s created actual plot holes. Avoiding spoilers, the most glaring case of this occurs in episode 23, which is a very important episode about the villains and their motives. And the differences in the script are outright jarring. Especially factoring in that the dub goes back to the true story later on.

Second, the cheese factor. Yes, it is a show where people ride giant spiders. But this is anime. It’s far from the most absurd premise in the medium. And it’s also a premise that the show itself takes seriously, even in the dub. It’s not meant to be a comedy anime, despite having a fair amount of humorous episodes in the first half. So that poses the question of why the people writing the dub script decided to take the cheese factor up to eleven. The dialogue is outright cringey a lot of the time because of it. You have characters constantly shouting “Arachna Power”, a phrase which is never uttered once in the Japanese version. When every other line sounds like it was written by an 8-year-old trying to be hip, it makes the show very, very hard to take seriously. And, as I said, the anime takes itself seriously, even in the dub. So that’s why you have a problem.

Third, censoring. Now, like I said earlier, the anime is pretty tame. There’s no blood and gore. Nothing sexual. There’s not much that needs to be censored at all. Tell that to the people at Cookie Jar. When they decide to censor things like characters being grabbed by the arm (which they frequently cut), all while having other kinds of violence when the characters are fighting a war, you just have to wonder. When they cut a male and female character innocently sleeping in the same room. Characters who get absolutely no ship tease, I might add, and one of them is happily married to someone else, you really have to smash your head against something hard. There are probably two things in this show that could understandably be censored for western viewers, although I personally don’t believe in censorship at all. But the dub does not stop with those two things.

Fourth, name changes. Now, most of the main characters keep their Japanese names in the dub. This is probably to keep consistent with the books. But basically any secondary character has their name changed for no reason, even though their names don’t sound “foreign”. Even if their name is Melissa. The Insectors, the main enemies of the series, were changed to Invectids in the dub. This was apparently due to legal reasons. But due to the prominence of Insectors as a whole, it’s a notable change. Brade, called Quake in the dub, is probably the most important character who underwent a name change. (He isn’t in the books, so that probably contributed to the change.) And one character’s first name is actually their last name in the dub, in a world where no one even has last names. That’s a pretty weird one.

Fifth, the dub treats viewers like morons. Very frequently, the dub will take a scene where in the Japanese version, nothing was being said (the show has a lot of dramatic silence) and make a character whose face isn’t shown on screen state something obvious. It might not be something the Japanese script outright said, but it’s something that anyone paying half-attention would have figured out. Additionally, the dub will regularly add shots of Shadow in manacle space when he talks, assuming viewers won’t be able to pick up that he’s talking despite not being on screen. It’s really kind of insulting. Even if kids are the target audience, they’re not that stupid.

Sixth, the acting is terrible. People make fun of it for a reason. The dub has frequent awkward pauses between lines. Additionally, some of the voices do not fit the characters. And I don’t mean, because they’re not sound-alikes to the Japanese cast. I mean, it was gross mis-casting. The most glaring case is Beerain. Most fans, regardless of their opinion on her character, agree about her dub voice being horrendous, which makes her sound like an old lady, and is even worse during emotional scenes. In general, the actors also tend to change the tone of some scenes, which give off the very opposite impression that the same scenes did in the Japanese version.

And, I won’t link it in this post for reasons, but there’s a torrent for the subs on Nyaa, and it also includes a link for DDLS if you prefer (or if the torrent is dead, because it probably is.) If you must watch the dub despite reading all this, look it up on your own time. It’s definitely on some streaming sites.

5) So, now that we’ve got all that out of the way, what is the show actually about? Well, the plot follows a 13-year-old boy named Hunter Steele. (11 in the dub.) He follows the notes of his deceased grandfather, in order to find a place called the Inner World that his grandfather used to tell him about. Naturally, he finds it within the first few minutes of the show, and the rest of the plot takes place in the Inner World, which is basically like some sort of pocket dimension inside of the earth itself. Hunter meets with Shadow, a spider, and the two reluctantly become partners. After Hunter joins up with the other Spider Riders, he takes part in a war to save the Inner World from the Insectors, a race of bugs with human-like qualities.

6)So what are the characters like? Okay, here goes. First, the main Riders and their spiders.

Hunter Steele- The hero. Typical shounen lead. He loves adventure, he’s a bit clueless, but he’s generally friendly and well-meaning. Which doesn’t make him perfect, either. He can be bratty and disagreeable, especially early on. And while he has a sense of justice, he’s actually incredibly self-righteous and sees everything in black and white. But he does get to develop as the series goes on. And he’s the true heart of the team, who keeps everyone in line. Unfortunately, he does get a disproportionate amount of focus, even for a main character, especially later on.

Shadow- Hunter’s spider partner. He’s cocky and prideful. He has a tendency to bicker with Hunter, and he’s usually the one who’s right. They actually become really good friends. Their bond is pretty cute and needed more focus. Out of all the spiders, he’s the only one who really gets much screentime.

Corona- The heroine. Of course she has a crush on Hunter. That’s obvious from almost the get-go. But she’s absolutely not a bland swooning cheerleader like some shounen heroines. She’s a genuine action girl. After Hunter, she’s the character who gets the most focus. Sometimes the show feels more like it’s her story than his. Corona is riddled with insecurities, but Hunter inspires her a lot, and she gets to grow and develop as well as him.

Venus- Corona’s spider. To be honest, she has the personality of a rock. Yet she will get occasional lines that are longer than one word, unlike most of the spiders.

Igneous- He’s a knight of Arachna. Very protective of his kingdom, and the royal family. At first, he comes off as very serious, but you see later on that he’s one of the biggest dorks in the show. Refreshingly, he doesn’t become Hunter’s rival, despite early episodes hinting towards that. He takes on more of a mentor role. At first. Then the writers kinda forget about that aspect.

Flame- Igneous’ spider. He doesn’t speak. Not even once.

Lumen- The prince of Arachna, but you’ll just have to take his word for it. He doesn’t act much like a prince. He’s super lazy, and he loves to flirt with girls. Every girl. Even if they’re his sister or an Insector. And did I mention he’s only 12?

Ebony- Lumen’s spider. He does speak, but only once.

Sparkle- The princess of Arachna. Yes, her name is Sparkle, but just deal with it. She’s cute. Super cute. Apparently, the writers had no idea what to do with her and changed her character like a million times in the pre-production. So at first, she seems sort of wise and mysterious, but really, her purpose is to just be really cute. Which doesn’t make her any less awesome.

Hotarla- Sparkle’s spider. Like Sparkle, her purpose is to be cute. All she can say is “kyu.”

Magma- He’s introduced as a brooding wanderer, looking for his spiders’ long-lost sister. That doesn’t last for long. He’s also a total dork. He also basically clings on all the other guys. And serves as obsessed fanboy to an old man. Like, Magma is as gay as possible without the writers actually going out and saying it.

Brutus- Magma’s spider. Because he’s a flat character, he doesn’t even seem to care about finding his long-lost sister as much as Magma does.

Now, the villains’ side. They actually get more character development than most of the good guys, for better or for worse.

Mantid- He’s the Insector emperor. The main villain. But saying much about him is spoiling.

Buguese- The leader of Mantid’s Big Four. He looks pretty human-like, despite being an Insector. Based on old information, he might be an artificially-created Insector, except that never made it into the actual show. He’s a cold and calculating person, who treats everyone around him pretty badly. He seems to think the ends justify the means, when it comes to making sure the Insectors win the war. He’s constantly brooding, also.  He absolutely hates Hunter, and is pretty much the rival character. He always uses various robots to attack the Spider Riders. He usually has Aqune accompanying him too. It’s clear that he cares about her a lot, but because she’s a human, he makes every effort to hide it, even from himself. He’s my favorite character, as you can probably tell since I don’t shut up about him. As I’ve put it before, a fascinating mess of contradictions, who flips between being a total jerk and the most sympathetic character in the show. He really needed to be in a better show.

Grasshop- Easily the most popular of the Insectors with the fandom. This is because he’s very much the butt monkey. He’s sort of like a one-man Team Rocket. Always coming up with crazy schemes to defeat the Spider Riders. Always failing epically. And even the other Insectors treat him badly. Even Aqune of all people isn’t particularly nice to him. Well, he’s actually a lot of fun, and more than that, he has a lot of depth. He might be the most well thought-out character in the show, to be honest. And his development is very satisfying.

Beerain- Another Big Four member, and the only female. She doesn’t really do much for the early part of the series. Mostly just summons flying insects to do her bidding. Kind of a flat character, to be honest. She makes a good comedy duo with Grasshop, at least. Later in the show, she gets more focus. I found what they did with her character one of the absolute worst subplots in the second half of the series, mostly because it came out of nowhere and felt like extreme character derailment based on the little we know about her, dragged out until it became a plot tumor. But saying much more counts as spoiling.

Stags- The last of the Big Four to be properly introduced. But he’s the strongest and most dangerous. Stags actually is an honorable villain. But at the same time, he’s absolutely crazy. This is the guy who bursts out into maniacal laughter for literally no reason. And later in the series, when he really gets some focus, woah. Well, his fight scenes are epic, and he’s a character who deserved more focus than he got.

Aqune- She’s a Spider Rider, but on the enemy’s side. However, she’s not a villain by any means. She’s an incredibly nice person who is willing to sacrifice her own happiness to help others, whether friend or foe. Aqune is a very tragic character, and like Grasshop, is one of the most popular characters (though Hunter is the most popular of all.) She’s a favorite not just because she’s tragic, but because she’s incredibly tough. If Corona is an action girl, Aqune is even a step above that. She’s strong enough to take on multiple armed opponents alone, and she gets the most stylish fight scenes. It’s hard to talk too much about Aqune without spoilers, but she’s my other favorite character, and one of the best written, even considering she gets screwed over in the second half.

Portia- Aqune’s spider. She also has the personality of a rock.

There are other characters too, but like, watch the show and you’ll see.

7)Anything else? I ship Buguese x Aqune like it’s my job. Honestly, I’m much more fervent about them than I am my job. I would love more fic about them. Yes, I’m shameless.

8)Anything else else? There used to be an online game. It was a dice and card battle RPG with weekly quests. It was more popular than the anime. It was fun. It doesn’t exist anymore.

9)Final notes/warning- Okay, I’m straying from the point, but I’ve wanted to get this off my chest for a long time. The Spider Riders wiki is basically toxic and should not be treated as a good source. I don’t go and edit there because I know I’m not wanted, and I think it should be allowed to exist. Freedom of speech and all. But it hurts that people use it as a go-to source.

Basically, everything you might need to know about the anime is on the very detailed Wikipedia article. Go there instead. The reasons the wikia is so bad are as follows:

It is 100% dub biased. As I said above, the dub is not always accurate to the Japanese.

It is all about the anime with very little on the other canons. Yes, the anime may be the most famous, but it’s not all there is to the franchise, and a wikia should be more thorough. I say this as the owner of the Battle Spirits wikia.

Some of the information is outright wrong, even going by the dub. It feels like whoever edited it was throwing in their headcanons and misconceptions as if they’re fact

It’s super clear what pairings one writer does and doesn’t ship by what they wrote. That’s called bias, and doesn’t belong on a wikia. Friendly reminder that a one-sided relationship is not “close to canon” or however they put it. That would be like if I edited the Battle Spirits wiki to say Gilfam and Lucretia were probably lovers. Which they are as far as I’m concerned, but according to canon they were “friends.” Ship meta is an awesome thing, I love reading it, but keep it to your blogs and off encyclopedias.

A lot of the information was outright ripped off from my old fansite, then modified to fit the writers’ opinions. They did not ask me first. I might have even said yes, but the point is, if you’re going to copy someone else’s writing, you should ask them. I put my contact information on my site. On top of that, I don’t even consider my old website a great source for SR. It was something I threw together for a school project when I took web design, and had to follow particular guidelines on. So basically, they copied my half-assed schoolwork.

The wiki contains actual bashing of me. And my writing. I’m not kidding. That’s all the more insulting when my “writing” was good enough for them to rip off. Or at least it did have this at some point. I don’t really lurk around it, so I don’t know if it’s still there. That’s called bullying. And yes, I take it personally. Even if the wikia didn’t have all the other problems above, I would still loathe it just for this point alone.