#anonster

Moving away from Mario, another iconic Argiope is the Skulltula from the Zelda series! Yes, I know I have been going on and on about the striped abdomen, and this one’s abdomen is covered by a skull, but I am still confident here! Not only are the proportions and posture accurate to an Argiope, but it exhibits another important trait of many Argiopes- their extremely fashionable leg stripes! Like Luigi’s extremely fashionable striped socks that Nintendo has erased from history. They can’t edit the striped socks out of nature, though!

In Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures (the best Pac-Man game), Pac-Man can encounter an amoena dangling from a tree in town, and he is delighted to see it! After looking at it, he will become oh so jolly and saunter away while whistling. If he is feeling smug, he will get it out of the way, but with a harmless hand wave that encourages it to ascend back up. I am really impressed by how respected this spider is!

The Argiope genus is present in Animal Crossing, with Argiope bruennichi starring as THE spider! The bug called Spider! The only spider in the game besides the tarantula! If a tree is shaken, Spider may descend! What happens to Spider next is up to you...

What’s with all of these orb-weavers focusing on dangling from a thread rather than actually being stationed on a web? I don’t know. But it’s fun either way! Here is Grabber from Sonic 2, one of those lucky Badniks given the blessing to reappear in future games! Grabbers are here to grab, and if they grab you, they will explode shortly after. Fun spider fact! They do not do that in real life.

I always feel like Yo-Kai Watch doesn’t have enough spiders in it, but I think that’s probably because Arachnus, the most notable spidery character, is more of a spider-themed guy than a spider. But then he got a Shadowside form, and this is pretty awesome! He is actually a spider now! The stripes are here! I can always count on the stripes, and I like when the black is more of a purple, too.

If I ever bothered to actually use Arachnus in game, I would have realized that there was a cool actual spider there all along, as his Soultimate move shows what I assume is his True Form in the background, looking more Argiope than ever! Arachnus is a direct adaptation of the yokai Tsuchigumo, which are actually more depicted as resembling ground spiders... but also sometimes depicted as tiger-like! It always comes back to stripes! It is fun to see this one interpreted more like an Argiope, and it would be especially fun if it was intentionally a reference to the tiger stripes!

In one of my favorite Argiope appearances, we have Como from the Kirby series! While it first appeared in Dream Land 3, it was Return to Dream Land that redesigned it with that distinctive striped abdomen. And then Star Allies went and gave it its own ability and made it a full playable character! Como is easily, to me, the most special spider on this list, and my favorite.

Also look at this! An unused concept for a Spider character, superficially similar to Como, but with eyes and a smile on the abdomen, with the head becoming a sort of torso! This design is so fascinating and I really quite love it. The spinnerets become “hair”, the chelicerae become “legs”, and it gains a pair of magic-style floating mitten hands! Also the original eyes are kind of like boobs now. Is this a good thing? You decide!

There is also a striped spider in Seaman, which you will have to trust me about because I was unable to get a good image. It has a creepy face, poisons Seaman when he eats it, and you then have to speak encouraging words to him, or he will die. Please trust me.