Owari Nochi, Asanagi-kurashi.
Giant Spider & Me: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale

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----- Short -----
A short, charming slice-of-life story about daily life with a GIANT SPIDER. A solid read and definitely worth the time, but there are far better series in the genre.

----- Longer -----
The quickest way to get a feel for this manga is just to read it. It's so short that you might as well read the series rather than this review, and I really recommend that you do! Despite how this review sounds, I think this series is worth reading.

Giant Spider and Me is a cookie-cutter iyashikei/"healing" series, much like Hakumei and Mikochi, Aqua/Aria, and Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. These slice-of-life series all show slow-paced ... daily life in absolutely insane settings: "Borrowers"-like tiny forest villages, wet Mars, and post-apocalyptic Earth with robots. For series in this genre, the creativity of the setting/characters is the most important aspect, as the slices of daily life help fill in the details of the world and flesh out the setting.

Now Giant Spider and Me has one great thing going for it: a GIANT SPIDER. This sort of "living with a cute monster" thing isn't new, but it's still a refreshing take. Asa the spider is the center (and star) of every chapter, and he's drawn just cute enough to teeter on the border between cute and scary. But... he can't talk, and the other, less interesting characters take over.

My main issue is that Giant Spider and Me fails in its setting: a post-apocalyptic (flood) woodland. This isn't a totally uninteresting setting, but while reading this I couldn't get the three series I mentioned above out of my mind. Hakumei and Mikochi does the forest/woodland setting so much better, and the post-apocalyptic scenario here is an afterthought compared to the detailed treatment in YKK. In comparison, Giant Spider and Me makes its world look plain, and it's just not long enough to fill it out more.

In a genre that depends so heavily on detailed, creative world-building, Giant Spider and Me tries to be unique with its GIANT SPIDER... but falls short by trying to duke it out with some iyashikei heavyweights on their own soil. Maybe if it were longer, it could surpass the other series in the genre, but it's just too short in length and too few in ideas.

Story - 7/10
The series goes for a mixture of "warm/cosy" feeling stuff (I can't think of a better way of putting it) and drama, which is generally interesting and well balanced. At times (minor spoiler) there are problems solved with a good meal, but for a cooking manga with a cosy atmosphere this works quite well in my opinion.

Art - 8/10
The art is really nice and at times (particularly for the landscape shots) beautiful.

Character- 7/10
The series focuses on the theme of "family" a lot. I'm not sure how much more I can put here without spoilers.

Enjoyment - 10/10
Okay, I'm going to be honest here and ... say this is my favourite thing in the world right now, and the first manga I've though "I'll reread this is I'm feeling sad and need cheering up".
I'll admit I haven't tried any of the recipes yet, but with the art and descriptions really make me want to try them, even when many of them were things I would never normally consider.

My only complaints: I wish they'd maybe expanded on the world a bit more?
But with my foolish optimism I'm hoping for a sequel.