#giant spider & me a post-apocalyptic tale

[quirkycatsfatstacks]

Manga Monday: Giant Spider & Me Vol. 1

Giant Spider & Me: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale Vol. 1Series: Giant Spider & MeWriter/Artist: Kikori MorinoPublisher: Seven SeasReleased: February 20, 2018Received: Library Summary: Nagi tends to spend most of her time alone, and it isn’t entirely by choice. She and her father live in an isolated home, far into the mountains. It’s safe, which is important during these post-apocalyptic…

[cerinelle-stellarium]

Seinen Stories with Impact

Magical girls

Suicide Girl

We Are Magical Boys

Others

Giant Spider & Me: A Post Apocalyptic Tale

Kinokoinu

One Punch Man

Poco's Udon World

Restaurant to Another World

Sweetness and Lightning

[ugh-leigh-nb]

May 19th 2024 haul:

Originally went back to see if they had the second volumes of Black Rose Alice and A Devil and Her Love Song. They had 3 & 4 of Alice but none (that I could see) of Devil. :( Oh well.

Listed Alphabetically:

"Aggretsuko: Down the Rabbit Hole"

"A Certain Magical Index" vol 1 by Chuya Kogino, Kazuma Kamachi, & Kiyotaka Haimura

"Demon Love Spell" vol 1 by Mayu Shinjo

"Devil's Candy" by REM and Bikkuri

"First Year Out: A Transition Story" by Sabrina Symington

"Giant Spider & Me: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale" by Kikori Morino, vol 1, 2, & 3 [I grabbed what I saw they had]

"The Girl that Can't Get a Girlfriend"by Mieri Hiranishi [Recommend]

"Madame Frankenstein" by Megan Levens and Jamie S. Rich

"A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School!" vol 1 by Mai Tamaka

Mostly manga/graphic novels because I was looking for those two.

Sorry for the delay in posting this; adult life.

[jamesdavisnicoll]

Giant Spider & Me: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale, volume 1 by Kikori Morino 

A lonely 12-year-old finds post-apocalyptic companionship in a bear-sized arachnoid.

[offbeat-manga-ships]

raise your hands, the clowns who read owari nochi, asanagi kurashi (giant spider & me) and actually thought they were gonna read a romance between a girl and a giant spider

[nano-chi]

~Manga to Read~

Go read Giant Spider and Me!

It's about a girl named Nagi who meets a (baby) giant spider which she names Asa!

They bond over food and become the most unlikely of friends!

^^^ (Asa gets drunk off coffee!)

You also get recipes of what Nagi and others make!

Asa can get pretty scary sometimes but they are still adorable.

There are 3 volumes in this series so it's definitely worth it to give this a read!

^^^(Photo from @nerdify.reviews on Instagram)

[sevenseasentertainment]

GIANT SPIDER & ME: A POST-APOCALYPTIC TALE, Vol. 3

Story and art by: Kikori Morino MSRP: $12.99 Release date: December 24, 2018

THE BIG, FRIENDLY SPIDER

Oleg the hunter has dragged Nagi out into the woods in hopes of capturing Asa! Can the giant spider make it past Oleg’s ambush and save the day? The dangers of this post-apocalyptic world might be many, but when you’ve got a friendly, eight-legged companion at your side, things don’t seem so bad!

FINAL VOLUME

[random-bookquotes]

As predators, the least we can do to honor the lives we take…is to eat every possible part of the animal, with minimal waste. Besides, a sea bream carcass is delicious.

Kikori Morino, Giant Spider & Me: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale Vol 2

[hot-scotch]

Fun fact

Belle is a protective lesbian over Nagi and I love all of them (except Oleg currently I feel a little indifferent to him)

[see-arcane]

me: There’s literally no possible setup that could unearth even an ounce of the weeaboo of yesteryear, no shounens no shoujos, nothing, not a single--

Giant Spider & Me, A Post-Apocalyptic Tale, starring a little girl who lives on her own in the woods after the end of the world with her only friend, a giant lovable mutant spider, while they cook rustic meals and bond, swaddled inside a beautiful watercolor cover and a wrapping of unapologetic, angst-free wholesomeness:

me: ...

Giant Spider & Me: you wanna say that to our adorable face, bitch

me, physically punching money into the local Barnes and Noble’s register: no

[mangacapsaicin]

Hello Z-san. When you were asked about Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou, you contrasted it in passing with Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou; I have read and loved both deeply. My question for you is (if this is not too much trouble) — are there any manga with a similar setting, motifs, or a general vibe, that come to mind? Specifically, what I am looking for is characters making the best of their unfortunate or “hopeless”, as it were, world. Thank you very much! And you needn't answer this, if you cannot. ^^

sure, i can think of a few! not all necessarily post-apocalyptic per se, or at least not all in the same way, but all about characters in dark existential circumstances making happiness and joy wherever they can.

giant spider & me: a post-apocalyptic tale by kikori morino

for immortal children in the galaxy by yuuki shikawa

town of evening calm by fumiyo kouno

saturn apartments by hisae iwaoka

bernie's drawing diary by mineko

[cerinelle-stellarium]

New tag game just dropped! List off your top 5 (or 10) comfort anime/manga and/or animated series then tag as many peeps as you want!

1. ArtisWitch

2. Poco's Udon World

3. Tokyo Mew Mew

4. We Are Magical Boys

5. Powerpuff Girls Z

6. Hanayome wa Motodanshi

7. Classicaloid

8. Giant Spider & Me: A Post Apocalyptic Tale

9. Restaurant to Another World

10. How to Keep a Mummy

Tagging:

@shiramoonshadow

@nail-bat-butch

@yogabigabba123

@industrial-tools-and-screaming

@portalcartoon

@pix-pres-wuz-here

@amphibialove

@ninjacattail

@strakkin-0

@marcyhasaswordthroughherchest

@crazydisneynerd123

@multifandoms13

@marcywoot

@wormautopsy

@ohyoumeanher

@galaxina-the-pyro

@ama-kitkat123

@thechaoticgoddess

@keiko-kat

@kennycantdecide

@candydos

[lantur]

okay i tried very hard to write a secret message but they were either too long and self serving (pls don't finish delicate) or too spicy to be voiced publicly so instead here is a smattering of large aquatic creatures instead: giant squid 🦑, narwhal, orca, and shark 🦈🦈🦈

I love large aquatic creatures!! The larger the better! 

giant squid: did you like fairy tales as a kid? which children story is still your favourite one?

My childhood love of The Little Mermaid is probably a contributing factor to my ongoing love of sea animals. :’) Other favorite children’s stories include Rainbow Fish, Curious George, and - I can’t believe I forgot to mention this before - Clifford the Big Red Dog. I LOVE Clifford!!! 

narwhal: what is your favourite literary genre? why?

Aside from horror and post-apocalyptic books, I also love fantasy. There are endless different permutations of fantasy and so much potential for amazing, creative world-building. Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive books encapsulate some of my favorite fantasy world-building I’ve ever read. I’m also very interested in trying The Broken Earth by NK Jemisin. 

orca: are you an easy-to-scare person? what scares you the most?

I am so easy to scare!! Everything scares me! From the straightforward fears like zombies, plagues, etc., to other things like brain aneurysms, rabies, strokes, dementia, cancer, car accidents, plane crashes, stalkers, murderers, home invasions, bears, spiders, etc. With that being said, being in the line of work I am, the thing that scares me most personally is Alzheimer’s disease. 

shark: do you have any best friends? how would you describe your friendship?

I do have best friends! Derek (my husband) and Westin (my cat) as well as other wonderful friends that I all met on tumblr. I wish we lived closer to one another and could see each other in person, but I am lucky we found one another at all. I was (and still am) so geographically distant from them that our paths would literally never have crossed if not for tumblr. My relationship with all of my best friends, including Derek and Westin, can be summed up in four words. “mutual love and support.” ❤️

[ninja-muse]

i’m trying to branch out and read outside my genre (fantasy) do you have any book recs for someone whose heart is in fantasy but needs to see what else is out there?

Hi anon! Thanks for the ask! Fantasy’s such a wide genre, and this is such an open ask, that I’m mostly going to be recommending books with similar feels or themes from other genres, to push you a little outside the fantasy bubble and introducing you to different genres and types of storytelling. If you have a favourite subgenre or trope or author, I can maybe get a little more specific or offer read-alikes.

Also, I don’t know if you knew this before asking, but fantasy is my favourite genre too, so some of these recs are books that pushed me out of the genre as well, or that I found familiar-but-different.

And this is getting long, so I’m going to throw it under a cut to save everyone scrolling.

Science fiction

the Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold - This is space opera, which means it’ll have fairly familiar plots except with science-y things instead of magic. There’s an heir with something to prove, heists, cons, and mysteries, attempted coups and assassinations, long-suffering sidekicks, and a homeworld that’s basically turn-of-the-century Russia but with fewer serfs. It was one of the first adult sci-fi books I read and genuinely liked.

The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey - I finished this recently, and the second book of the trilogy just came out. This is post-apocalyptic sci-fi, but not grim or particularly complex. (Some SF gets really into the nuts and bolts of the science elements; this isn’t that.) Basically, Koli’s a teenager who wants more than his quasi-medieval life’s given him, and finds himself in conflict with his village (and then exile) because of it. I could see where the story was going pretty much from the start, but I loved the journey anyway.

The Martian by Andy Weir - This doesn’t have much in common with fantasy, but it’s my go-to rec for anyone who’s never read science fiction before, because it’s funny, explains the science well, and has a hero and a plot you get behind right away. In case you haven’t heard of it (or the film), it’s about an astronaut stranded on Mars, trying to survive long enough to be rescued.

Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh - This is an alien first contact story, about a colony of humans in permanent quarantine on an alien planet. The MC is the sole social liaison and translator, explaining his culture to the aliens and the aliens to the human, and working to keep the peace—until politics and assassins get involved. It’s been over a decade since I read this, so my memory’s blurred, but I remember the same sort of political intrigue vibes as the Daevabad trilogy, just with fewer POVs.

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor - One from my TBR. It looks like dark fiction about women, outcasts, and revenge, which sounds very fantastic and the MC can apparently do magic—but it’s post-apocalyptic Africa.

Speaking of political intrigue and sweeping epic plots, the Expanse series by James S.A. Corey has both in spades. Rebellions, alien technology, corrupt businesses, heroes doing good things and getting bad consequences, all that good stuff. It takes the science fairly seriously, without getting very dense with it, and will probably register as “more sci-fi” than my recs in the genre so far.

Oh, and Dune by Frank Herbert is such a classic chosen-one epic that it barely registers as science fiction at all.

Graphic novels

It’s technically fantasy, but assuming you’ve never picked up a graphic novel before, you should read Monstress by Marjorie Liu. Asian-inspired, with steampunk aesthetics, and rebellions and quests and so many female characters. It’s an absolutely fantastic graphic novel, if you want a taste of what those can do.

I’d highly recommend Saga by Brian K. Vaughan. It’s an epic science fiction story about a family caught between sides of a centuries-long war. (Dad’s from one side, Mom’s from the other, everyone wants to capture them, their kid is narrating.) It’s a blast to read, exciting and tense, with hard questions and gorgeous tender moments, and the world-building somehow manages to include weaponized magic, spaceship trees, ghosts, half-spider assassins, and all-important pulp romance novels without anything feeling out of place.

Historical fiction

Hild by Nicola Griffith - Very rich and detailed novel following a girl growing up in an early medieval English court. It’s very fantasy-esque, with battles and politics and changes of religion, and Hild gets positioned early on to be the king’s seer, so there’s “magic” of a sort as well.

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry - A widow goes to the Victorian seaside to heal and reawaken her interest in biology. Slow, gentle, lovely writing and atmosphere, interesting characters and turns of plot. Doesn’t actually deliver on the sea monster, but still has a lot to recommend it to fantasy readers, I think.

Yiddish for Pirates by Gary Barwin - The late-medieval Jewish pirate adventure you didn’t know you wanted. It’s funny and literary, full of tropes and set pieces like “small-town kid in the big city” and “jail break”, and features the Spanish Inquisition, Columbus, the Fountain of Youth, and talking parrots, among other things.

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett - A thousand pages about the building of a cathedral in England, mostly focusing on the master builder, the monk who spearheads the project, and a noblewoman who’s been kicked off her family’s land, but has several other plots going on, including a deacon with political ambitions, a war, and a boy who’s trying so hard to fit in and do right.

Sharon Kay Penman - This is an author on my TBR, who comes highly recommended for her novels about the War of the Roses and the Plantagenets. Should appeal to you if you liked Game of Thrones. I’m planning to start with The Sunne in Splendour.

Lady of the Forest by Jennifer Roberson - Either a Robin Hood retelling that’s also a romance, or a romance that’s also a Robin Hood retelling.

Hamnet & Judith by Maggie O’Farrell - A novel of the Shakespeare family, mostly focused on his wife and son. Lovely writing and a very gentle feel though it heads into dark and complex subjects fairly often. A good portrait of Early Modern family life.

Mystery

There’s not a lot of mystery that reads like high, epic, or even contemporary fantasy, but if you’re a fan of urban fantasy, which is basically mystery with magic in, then I’d rec:

Cozy mysteries as a general subgenre, especially if you like the Sookie Stackhouse end of urban fantasy, which has romance and quirky plots; there are plenty of series where the detective’s a witch or the sidekick’s a ghost but they’re solving non-magical mysteries, and the genre in general full of heroines who are good at solving crimes without formal training, and the plots feel very similar but with slightly lower stakes. Cozies have become one of my comfort-reading genres (along with UF) the last few years. My intros were the Royal Spyness novels by Rhys Bowen and the Fairy Tale Fatale books by Maia Chance.

If you like your urban fantasy darker and more serious, and your heroines more complicated, try Kathy Reichs and her Temperance Brennan novels. Brennan’s a forensic anthropologist, strong and complicated in the same ways of my fave UF heroines, and the mysteries are already interesting, with a good dash of thriller and a smidge of romance.

Two other recs:

Haunted Ground by Erin Hart - The first of four books about a forensic anthropologist in Ireland, who’s called in when the Garda find bodies in the peat bogs and need to know how long they’ve been there. They’re very atmospheric—I can almost smell the bog—and give great portraits of rural Ireland and small-town secrets, and since not all the bodies found in each book are recent, they also bring interesting slices of the past to life as well.

A Burnable Book by Bruce Holsinger - This is essentially a medieval thriller about a seditious book that’s turned up in London. I liked the mystery in it and that it’s much more focused on the lives of average people than the rich and famous (for all that recognizable people also show up).

Classics

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift - I swear this is actually one of the first fantasy novels but few people ever really class it as such. Basically, Gulliver’s a ship’s doctor who keeps getting shipwrecked—in a country of tiny people, a country of giants, a country of mad scientists, a country of talking horses, etc. It’s social satire and a spoof of travelogues from Swift’s time, but it’s easily enough read without that context.

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - Another, slightly later, fantasy and satire! Even more amusing situations than in Gulliver’s Travels and, while it’s been a while* since I read it, I think it’ll be a decent read-alike for authors like Jasper Fforde, Genevieve Cogman, and that brand of light British comic fantasy.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare - Also technically a fantasy! I mean, there are fairies and enchantments, for all it’s a romantic comedy written entirely in old-fashioned poetry. It’s a pretty good play to start you off on Shakespeare, if you’re interested in going that direction.

On the subject of Shakespeare, I would also recommend Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, and King Lear, the first because it’s my favourite comedy, the others because they’re fantasy read-alikes imo as well (witches! coups! drama!).

the Arthurian mythos. Le Morte D’arthur, Crétien de Troyes, The Once and Future King by T.H. White, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain, etc. - I’ve read bits and pieces of the first two, am about 80% sure I read the third as a kid (or at least The Sword in the Stone), and have the last on my TBR. Basically, these stories are going to give you an exaggeratedly medieval setting, knights, quests, wizards, fairies, high drama, romantic entanglements, and monsters, and the medieval ones especially have different kinds of plots than you’ll be used to (and maybe open the door to more medieval lit?) **

Beowulf and/or The Odyssey - Two epics that inspired a lot of fiction that came later. (There’s an especial connection between Beowulf and Tolkien.) They’re not the easiest of reads because they’re in poetry and non-linear narratives, but both have a hero facing off against a series of monsters and/or magical creatures as their core story.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - The first real science fiction novel. It’s about the ethics of science and the consequences of one’s actions, and I loved seeing the Creature find himself and Frankenstein descend into … that. It’s also full of sweeping, gothic scenes and tension and doom and drama.

* 25 years, give or take

** There are plenty of more recent people using King Arthur and associated characters too, if this "subgenre” interests you.

Other fiction

Vicious by V.E. Schwab - I don’t know if you classify superheroes as science fiction or fantasy or its own genre (for me it depends on the day) but this is an excellent take on the subject, full of moral greyness and revenge.

David Mitchell - A literary fiction writer who has both a sense of humour and an interest in the fantastic and science fictional. He writes ordinary people and average lives marvelously well, keeps me turning pages, plays with form and timelines, and reliably throws in either recurring, possibly-immortal characters, good-vs-evil psychic battles, or other SF/F-y elements. I’d start with either Slade House, a ghost story, or Utopia Avenue, about a ‘60s rock band. Or possible The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which I fully admit to not having read yet.

Devolution by Max Brooks - A horror movie in book form, full of tension and desperation and jump scares and the problems with relying on modern technology. The monsters are Bigfeet. Reccing this one in the same way I’m reccing The Martian—it’s an accessible intro to its genre.

Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson - Contemporary fiction with a slight literary bent, that doesn’t pull its punches about Indigenous life but also has a sense of humour about the same. Follows a teen dealing with poverty and a bad home life and drugs and hormones—and the fact that his bio-dad might actually be the trickster Raven. Also features witches, magic, and other spirit-beings, so I generally pitch this as magic realism.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones - Another Indigenous rec, this time a horror novel about ghosts and racism and trying to do the right thing. This’ll give you a taste of the more psychological end of the horror spectrum.

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia - A good example of contemporary YA and how it handles the complexities of life, love, and growing up. Follows the writer of a fantasy webcomic who makes a friend who turns out to write fic of her story and who suddenly has to really balance online and offline life, among other pressures. Realistic portrait of mental health problems.

Non-fiction

The Book of Margery Kempe - The first English-language autobiography. Margery was very devout but also very badass, in a medieval sort of way. She went on pilgrimages to Jerusalem, was possibly epileptic, frequently “saw” Christ and Mary and demons, basically became a nun in middle age while staying married to her husband, and wound up on trial for heresy, before talking a monk into writing down her life story. It’s a fascinating window into the time period.

The Hammer and the Cross by Robert Ferguson - A history of medieval Norse people and how their explorations and trade shaped both their culture and the world.

A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor - Travel writing that was recommended to me by someone who raved about the prose and was totally right. Fermor’s looking back, with the aid of journals, on a walking trip he took across Europe in the 1930s. It’s a fascinating look at the era and an old way of life, and pretty much every “entry” has something of interest in it. He met all sorts of people.

Tim Severin and/or Thor Heyerdahl - More travel writing, this time by people recreating historical voyages (or what they believe to be historical voyages, ymmv) in period ships. Severin focuses on mythology (I’ve read The Ulysses Voyage and The Jason Voyage) and Heyerdahl’s known for Kon-Tiki, which is him “proving” that Polynesians made contact with South America. They both go into the history of the sailing and areas they’re travelling through, while also describing their surroundings and daily life, and, yes, running into storms and things.

Hope this helps you!

[justfinishedreading]

I cannot resist a quirky manga. These last two years I’ve found myself buying a number of unique titles from Seven Seas Entertainment: BL Metamorphosis, Merman in My Tub, My Androgynous Boyfriend, My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, My Solo Exchange Diary and The Wize Wize Beasts of the Wizarding Wizdoms. My latest purchase is Giant Spider & Me: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale, volume 1, by Kikori Morino.

In its essence this is a foodie manga. Didn’t see that coming, didya? Sure it’s set in a post-apocalyptic world but really this is a manga about how food can bring souls together. Our protagonist, Nagi, lives alone in the mountains, while her father has left to go travelling. We discover that sometime during his lifetime the major cities of Japan were flooded, Nagi has never experienced our world and doesn’t know why things has turned out like this, but this isn’t important to the story.

One day whilst out in the forest Nagi encounters a new species: a giant spider-like creature, who follows her home and apparently really enjoys home-cooked food. They start living together and sharing meals and moments of everyday life. As Nagi cooks she instructs us on how to make whatever she is making. And even though I’m not particularly into cooking, I may watch plenty of cooking shows for entertainment but never feel the urge to try out the recipes, this manga actually made me want to start! Seeing Nagi make pumpkin dumplings in a carefree home environment made me think “hmmm this might be achievable!”

This is a cute manga about the small pleasures of life, there are however two far-fetched things I take issue with in this book, and you might find it surprising to know that not one of them is the giant leaf-covered spider. Firstly, how has her father left his only daughter, a 12-year-old girl, to live alone in the freaking mountains, just because he likes to travel? And secondly how is a spider of that size satisfied with being feed human proportions of food???

I’ve been buying a lot of manga this year and honestly space is becoming a bit of an issue, so although this is a sweet and quirky manga -that clearly still has a lot to offer and explore- sadly it is not one I’m going to continue to buy. But if I had the space, I definitely would.

Review by Book Hamster

[ladyloveandjustice]

Currently got a couple manga listed on e-bay for super cheap. Someone actually bid on Giant Spider and Me (a super cute miniseries about a girl and her giant spider) so I thought I’d post it here if anyone else is interested.

 It’s sort of a test drive, I’m going to do a mass manga/comics/dvds sale sometime this spring/summer probably, and I’m trying to figure out whether it should be thru e-bay or craigslist or what. The picture here is but a small sample of my wares.