Welcome back readers to my new recap series, chronicling the insanity that is the legendary Toei series Japanese Spider-Man! Or, Supaidāman, if you’re feeling phonetic.
Well considering last weeks episode dealt with an evil cyborg rock band utilizing Pavlovian conditioning techniques to defeat Spider-Man it’s probably going to be rough for this weeks episode to stack up in the insanity department right? Well you might say that if not for this episode starting with a crew of Ninders digging up a cat grave!
And not just any cat grave but a cursed cat grave! Surprisingly it doesn’t seem like Professor Monster is going to be the recipient of said curse despite sending a crew of stooges to defile the grave. Also somewhat surprisingly Professor Monster is in the business of looking for cursed objects? Somehow that doesn’t seem like it fits in with his usual bio-mechanical plans.
A cat that was watching nearby goes and informs an old lady from the nearby shrine (yes somehow the lady understands what the cats meows mean apparently) and she does confirm that the cursed cat grave is indeed cursed and that said curse will be soon to follow. And lest you think that Professor Monster isn’t just going straight occult here he’s piled up the cat bones on a little demonic altar that he can do some magic shenanigans on.
I do have to admit that a cat who can kill dozens of people is pretty impressive for a cat. And before you think we’re talking about some kind of giant cat monster or something we get a flashback that shows it was really just a normal sized cat (even if its bones are apparently huge), and it was just like hanging around in the Edo period jumping from walls to tear peoples throats out.
That is of course until a wandering samurai cleaves the cat in twain in mid air in one of the absolute best special effects of all time.
Wow! I can hardly believe they managed to pull that off without the aid of CGI!
Professor Monster notes that the cat skull is still haunted and to prove it he shoves it in Amazoness’s face and the cat skull’s jaws actually start moving as it lets out a long meow which causes Amazoness to remark that she most definitely heard it meow. I promise you that the scene is exactly as ridiculous to watch as it sounds typed out. It is also amazing of course though I think that goes without saying.
Professor Monster decides he’s going to bring the cat demon back to life as a Machine Bem so that it can wreck havoc for him. Previously they have implied Machine Bem’s were made using his twisted science but this time everything is pretty straight up occult as the bones just fly into the air and start emitting smoke and finally a full sized cat monster springs out complete with the incredibly necessarily robotic.. *ahem* feminine areas.
Okay the Machine Bem has Machine Boobs. Machine Bemoobs I suppose one might say if they were in the middle of having a stroke. Oh and the cat demon really loves jumping out from smoke and doing weird poses. She does it a couple times in the episode for no real reason… and the musical Cats came out just a few years after Japanese Spider-Man. Am I saying that Andrew Lloyd Webber ripped off Japanese Spider-Man? I’m not NOT saying it.
Takuya is once again playing escort to Hitomi when he brings her out to the shrine so that she can do a report on the old lady we met earlier but Takuya is pretty sure that the old lady can’t actually talk to cats. I mean he may have super alien spider blood in him and have personally wrestled with a giant brain but come on old ladies who can talk to cats? That’s just silly. Hitomi agrees with him but her Editor sent her to get a scoop on the story. Which considering her editor is Amazoness in disguise that’s pretty weird right? I mean the Iron Cross Army just broke into the place it seems like alerting the public to that is only going to risk getting Spider-Man on the case. And they know Spider-Man has some kind of connection to Hitomi!
The interview goes about as well as you’d expect.
I’ll spare you the anticipation and note that the old lady confirms that that is indeed how she learned to talk to cats. If that were true than I know a few incredibly lonely old women who should have this cat language thing down pat!
The old lady clues them in to the cat grave desecration and theft of the cat demon bones and Takuya immediately senses that trouble is afoot. Oh are you assuming by that I mean that he used his psychic senses? No no no, nothing so extravagant!
It’s as good a time as any to remind you readers out there that these are official subtitles. So yes Japanese Spider-Man apparently has a super evil detecting sense of smell. At this point I’m pretty much just ‘sure, why not’ing all his powers but even that one kind of sticks out as a weird choice.
Late that night the cat demon makes her first strike, taking out a number of people and dragging them off to a lake bed for the next morning where she can take her time er… being a vampire, I guess?
I feel like this cat demon vampire robot is maybe becoming a bit cluttered of a character concept. The cat demon is about to get down to some blood feasting on the dead when she notices that the old ladies pet cat is nearby casually watching her and she knows she’s going to have to take out this witness. Which I guess means she knows that this cat can talk to the old lady, and the cat demon is afraid of the old lady I guess? I mean no offense cat demon but you’re a Machine Bem now I think you can handle a regular ordinary cat.
She decides to attack the cat by taking out her whip (yes she also has a whip) and… throw it at the cat. Not whipping it, just… tossing it casually onto the cat. Where they add a light up effect in post that in no way makes this look like an actual action scene at all.
A lesson folks, never, ever count on a cat to act in your show. Cats are dicks. And I like cats! But they are still total dicks.
Before the cat demon can finish off the regular ordinary cat who should show up to save it but the Emissary from Hell himself, Spider-Man! And with his introduction out of the way we’re in for a quick fight scene. There’s nothing particularly special about it but there’s some fine stunt work all the same. Some decent physical contact aside from one goofy bit where Spider-Man just jumps up and down and the cat demon still somehow manages to punch at air rather than Spidey.
Eventually their fight lands on the steps of a shrine and there’s a helpless woman nearby. The cat demon tries to grab her as a hostage but Spider-Man intervenes which protects the woman but gives the cat demon the chance to escape. In a nice little bit after that which I assume is supposed to be funny the woman wakes up from her fainting spell to see Spider-Man holding her and then immediately faints again.
We get the cat demon’s proper Machine Bem name after this which is… Cat Demon Monster. I guess they didn’t have room to fit in Vampire Robot Belmont after the fact. Still I can appreciate the economy. Cat Demon Monster reports on what happened to Professor Monster and Amazoness… buy just meowing… which causes them to curse Spider-Man for interfering with their plans. Which were… what exactly? To have Cat Demon Monster kill a few random people? Seriously it’s like Professor Monster came up with a great idea for a Machine Bem this time around and just can’t think of what to do with it.
They do punish Cat Demon Monster by not letting her drink human blood until she has killed Spider-Man, and they note without human blood she will die. And considering their plan was apparently just to have her go out and drink peoples blood it seems kind of counter-intuitive to forbid her from doing it. They also note that the old lady at the shrine ‘knows too much’ so she’ll have to be killed as well. Which I will again point out she only told anyone about what was going on and interfered with the Iron Cross Army’s plan because Amazoness herself sent a reporter to go interview the old lady! Man Iron Cross Army what the heck are you thinking this week?
Takuya decides to visit the old lady for information on Cat Demon Monster but he’s too late and finds her already dead. Takuya then… er… vows to get revenge on Cat Demon Monster not for the old lady but for all the cats who Cat Demon Monster is giving a bad name too.
Well hey whatever works I guess. Gotta get that revenge game going if you’re going to get Spider-Man interested in taking on a challenge! Spider-Man starts investigating random stuff around the shrine in hopes of finding some clues when he’s attacked by Cat Demon Monster. He’s unable to zip up into the Spider-Protector in time and so has to make due with a somewhat rare fight in his civilian identity.
He doesn’t acquit himself too bad! He pulls off his jacket to use as a shield for a little while but is eventually overcome by the more powerful Cat Demon Monster. It’s always kind of hard to tell how much of his power lies in the suit but it if nothing else gives him better defensive abilities.
Takuya manages to flee after being torn up by Cat Demon monsters claws, but during the fight Cat Demon monster drops some exposition on him. Nothing that a.) she identifies Takuya as the person who killed her and b.) she has a tragic back story which is that she was starving and stole to survive but humans hunted and attacked her anyways. Considering Cat Demon Monster apparently killed ‘dozens of people’ and drinks their blood I’m kind of thinking her sob story might be a little bit of an exaggeration. It’s a pretty far leap from ‘I was a helpless begging kitty’ to ‘I feasted on the corpses of countless victims.’
Takuya ends up in bed sweating and convulsing (which you may have noticed happens a lot in this show) because Cat Demon Monster has poison claws. Man she’s got almost as many random powers as Spider-Man himself! Takuya’s family and girlfriend have crowded around to administer first aid while he rambles on about cat demons and has weird trippy flashbacks to… the past?
He’s realized that since Cat Demon Monster recognizes him that it was someone from his bloodline that had killed her in the past but the way the scene is presented it’s hard to tell if it’s his imagination or if one of his random psychic powers includes remote seeing the past. It’s kind of telling that in this show the later is more likely than the former.
While Takuya fights off the poison the lights in the house start to flicker and terrifying ghostly cat cries start filling the house. Shinko and Hitomi are immediately frightened while Takuji, who you’ll recall is 7 years old, just straight up grabs a baseball bat and heads for the door where some scratching claws are trying to get in.
Kid does not even flinch. I’m starting to wonder if Garia picked the right guy in the Yamashiro household to be Spider-Man…
When he opens the door they just find a dog at the other side who runs off which just makes this whole scene all make less sense! If there had just been clawing at the door and some weird sounds it would be one thing, but there were legitimate supernatural phenomena and distinctive cat sounds so having a dog show up is… it’s just really weird.
Takuya wakes up the next morning fully healed (and the narrator reminds us it’s because of his alien spider blood even though just a minute ago he also chimed in to remind us of that exact same super power), but he finds that Hitomi has wandered off to the cat shrine in search of a scoop. Which means that she walks around a graveyard talking to herself about scoops. Literally.
But she gets more scoop than she bargained for… or I guess actually the exact amount of scoop she bargained for but was wholly unprepared for all the same… when Cat Demon Monster shows up to attack her! Takuya has zipped up and is on his way but Hitomi is forced to flee. She stuns Cat Demon Monster for a second with a camera flash but before she’s overrun Spider-Man shows up in the Spider-Machine GP-7 and, as is becoming a habit for him, just straight up machine guns Cat Demon Monster right off the bat. She does show more resilience than some Machine Bems do though when she jumps away rather than immediately transform into her giant form.
With Hitomi safe, for the moment, Spider-Man abandons her. Not to go fight Cat Demon Monster but to return to the old ladies shack so that he can try to investigate the random cat junk she had lying around again. This time though a wall scroll falls down (with no prompting by Spider-Man it just… happens), revealing a magic spell hidden behind it!
A magic spell that consists of a really, really poorly drawn picture of a cat! Spider-Man grabs the spell and Cat Demon Monster slams a door shut on him… for some reason… before she heads off to enact her plan to defeat Spider-Man.
Her plan which involves stealing a bus full of children that Spider-Man knows absolutely nothing about! And she doesn’t hijack the bus by threatening the driver. No she throws the driver out and actually DRIVES THE BUS HERSELF.
I can assure you Japanese Spider-Man is the only show in the history of television where an ancient cat demon reborn in the modern era as a robot thanks to alien technology/wizardry has driven a bus. Well okay maybe it happened in an episode of Dr. Who but that’d be about the only other possibility.
But hey that’s not even the craziest thing that happens here! While Cat Demon Monster is showcasing her ability to somehow understand operating a motor vehicle despite having only a few days ago popping into the modern world, Spider-Man himself demonstrates some real flexibility in his crime solving toolkit by revealing his new super power. Sorcery!
Yes, Japanese Spider-Man can straight up cast magic spells. Hey if Professor Monster can resurrect the dead why not? The spell works exactly as intended as well, in that it removes Cat Demon Monsters ability to drive. What you thought the spell would banish her or something? No it just gives her some headaches and she has to park the bus and leave it behind.
Spider-Man knows she’s run off to one of the abandoned work sites these fights often end up at (somehow) but before he can finish her off he’s attacked by a squad of Ninders! They put up about as much trouble as a squad of Ninders usually does but it’s a fun enough fight scene. The highlight of which is when Spider-Man tosses one of the Ninders right off of the high up industrial equipment they’re fighting on.
That dude being thrown is definitely not a dummy and he drops a good around 20 feet to the ground so I salute that brave stunt worker for giving me an enjoyable moment!
Eventually the Ninders are dealt with and Spider-Man goes to attack Cat Demon Monster who kind of doesn’t seem to be bothered by the spell too much anymore. Maybe Spider-Man isn’t as good of a sorcerer as he thought he was? Still he’s able to get in a few good solid hits and we get a rare scene of a Machine Bem growing up to giant size while sharing a shot with Spider-Man himself!
The special effect… doesn’t hold up that well to the test of time. By which I mean it was also probably pretty terrible when it came out. Spider-Man asks for her introduction which she gives to him (I am still unsure why the Machine Bem are always honorable enough to grant that request) and then she doesn’t interfere while he mounts up into Leopardon.
Cat Demon Monster opens the fight with some fire breath, but that’s far from surprising when she actually saved her most absurd super power as a trump card. For after Leopardon shoots off his arm rockets Spider-man realizes that, and I’m quoting here, ‘Cat Demon Monster’s arms also detach!’
If ever there was someone who could match up to Spider-Man’s ever expanding list of super powers it was Cat Demon Monster! I mean she even has that revenge fueled backstory!
Unfortunately while she can match up to it’s other tricks an Arc Turn and a Sword Vigor spell the end for Cat Demon Monster, and with the Narrator chiming in to let us know that you’re just always going to end up having ghosts and demons and curses and there really isn’t anything you can do about it we’re at the abrupt end of the episode.
So, Final Thoughts?
Despite the fact that the Iron Cross Army’s plot this episode made absolutely no sense it was still quite the enjoyable ride. Cat Demon Monster is really one of the all time great Machine Bems. She’s just so absurdly complicated! It’s really like they came up with a great pure concept with having a vengeful cat demon and then they just arbitrarily slapped on every super power they had been sitting around on.
This is another one of those episodes were so much is going on that if you don’t take the time to sit down and analyze it like I have you won’t notice things like how absurd the unexplained supernatural phenomena is, or the fact that they never really address anything about Takuya’s ancestor being a demon hunter. You’ll probably be aware of how absurd having an ancient Cat Demon drive a car is though…
Now that we’re getting a bit into the show you can start to see some trends popping up. Takuya ends up in bed sweating out injuries a lot for example, and Amazoness has a tendency to be rather self defeating when it comes to the Iron Cross Army’s plans. But we’re still picking up new bits. Like how the Iron Cross Army is totally willing to dabble in magic as well as science, and Spider-Man is willing to join them!
One of my all time favorite episodes, and honestly one of the ones I’d recommend showing to someone first if you wanted to give them an idea for what they’re in store for with watching the series as a whole. It’s a great encapsulation of the kind of insanity that really makes Japanese Spider-Man a true treasure.
And now, on the next episode of Japanese Spider-Man!
Professor Monster has developed a Beetle Machine Bem! And it has a super powered laser! And it can shrink! And it’s being tasked with spying on Shinko… for some reason!
And yes you’re reading that title right, all of that setup about miniature laser shooting beetle monsters is all.. for romance! Find out how next week in Japanese Spider-Man Episode 9: The Animate Accessory is the Beetle Spy of Love.
Japanese Spider-Man is copyright Toei Company and Marvel Entertainment.
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