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

[rachelmanija]

Complete in three volumes, this manga is a cozy post-apocalypse tale about the adorable adventures of a young girl and her beloved pet giant mutant tentacled spider.

It’s also a cooking manga.

12-year-old Nagi is living alone and lonely in the mountains since her dad wandered off. But luckily, she encounters and adopts a giant mutant spider baby, which she names Asa. Asa doesn’t speak, but they and Nagi communicate just fine anyway. (Nagi uses “they/them” pronouns for Asa; it’s not stated whether it’s because Nagi doesn’t know Asa’s gender, or if she does know and Asa is nonbinary.)

Each chapter features Nagi and Asa having some kind of adventure and also cooking, so you get titles like “Danger & Pita Pockets.” Recipes included. That is, Nagi or people who Nagi meets cook, and Asa helps out, eats, and carries trays of food on their back.

I only read the second two volumes of this—Lyda and Mason left it with me, along with other manga, to mail back to them. But it was easy to pick up on earlier events, which I gather prominently featured pumpkin dumplings.

Giant Spider & Me is bizarre and also extremely sweet. Some people think Asa is a dangerous monster, but nothing ever gets too threatening and the love between a girl and her giant spider always carries the day.

Adrian Tchaikovsky would enjoy this. I did too. It’s like there’s some kind of conspiracy afoot to make me fall under the spell of our new many-legged overlords, I mean our adorable arachnid friends.

Giant Spider & Me: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale Vol. 1

Comments

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[minoanmiss]

That sounds really sweet for anyone not arachnophobic.

Re: *

[umadoshi]

I worked on it, and I am an arachnophobe, so I can say with some authority that Asa manages to be genuinely cute despite the not-so-minor detail of them being a giant spider. I probably still wouldn't rush out and rec it to fellow arachnophobes, but I was impressed. ^_^

Re: *

[minoanmiss]

Oh, that's a recommendation indeed!

[lydamorehouse]

Isn't it the BEST??? I knew you'd love it. You now know why I had to have the next two volumes!

[rachelmanija]

Thanks for bringing it to my attention and sort of loaning it to me! It'll go in the mail on Monday.

[umadoshi]

Sooo many recipes! *^^*

(Nagi uses “they/them” pronouns for Asa; it’s not stated whether it’s because Nagi doesn’t know Asa’s gender, or if she does know and Asa is nonbinary.)

There was no indication of Asa's gender at all, so I decided to see if editorial would be okay with me using they/them instead of picking one at random, and voila!

[rachelmanija]

Thank you! I think it was a good choice - if the mangaka wanted to choose male or female, I assume that would have been made clear.

I'm arachnophobic and I wasn't bothered. I'm OK with cute fictional spiders.

Man, you work on everything!

[umadoshi]

if the mangaka wanted to choose male or female, I assume that would have been made clear.

That was my thinking, too. (And I was also thinking, hey, it'd be neat if in the time/place of this story, which is so removed from our present day, it might be natural to default to neutral pronouns if you don't know someone's gender without it being a big deal, just a normal way of talking, as opposed to all the fuss people often make right now.)

I'm arachnophobic and I wasn't bothered. I'm OK with cute fictional spiders.

This comment makes me feel better about my odds of being able to handle Adrian Tchaikovsky, who I keep seeing recced and want to read.

Man, you work on everything!

Nah, only...uh... Okay, I'm assigned to eleven series right now, between VIZ and Seven Seas, and that does kinda sound like a lot. But some of them only come out once a year!

[larryhammer]

I want to put this on a shelf next to the nonexistant English translations of Records of a Yokohama Shopping Trip / Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō.

[jon_chaisson]

I read this recently. It's absolutely adorable and I love it. :D