Spider-Man Episode 7: The Ferocious Hit Song! Sing and Dance to the Killer Rock
恐ろしきヒット曲! 歌って踊る殺人ロック
Don’t be surprised by the shocking amounts of death in this series, especially since people dying at the hands of the bad guy by the wagonfull is a common trope. This episode is no exception as well.
At a Discotheque, a gaggle of girls cry out for “Ko-chan!” and a smarmy dressed guy presents the VERY popular rock band, Kotaro Kobayashi and the BB Five! The band, a bunch of young dudes dressed in 70s San Francisco 49ers T-shirts play a song called “Spider-Man,” a hilarious song reprinted from Comics Alliance:
Shaking his bum, climbing up walls
He jumps from building to building like Tarzan
He’s so cool that Spider-Man
I adore that Spider-Man
And so we’ve got to boogie
Shake our bums, boogie
Sing and dance, oh, boogie-woogieSpider-Man Boogie
Spider-Man Boogie
Boogie, boogie, oh, boogie boogie
It’s a very apt song that describes Spider-Man to a T, and enjoy it since you’ll be hearing it a lot in the episode. Everyone boogies along to the song, even little Takuji who is watching it on TV. Other viewers now notice the small shorts the kid is wearing, but I’ll ignore it for now. Wacky 70s Japan! Shinko tells her brother to stop acting like a fool, and Hitmoi arrives for Takuya. She intends to write a story on Kobayashi and his band, and finds it a nice opportunity to go on a date.
At a laboratory, Professor Saotome and a colleague are developing a high frequency spectral detector for the government. It is supposed to find out who is human and who is a friggin’ robot, as other groups beside the Iron Cross are attacking Tokyo. At least it’ll help the Kamen Riders right? And speak of the devil, the Iron Cross Army appears, summoning Machine Bem Sasora, some kind of antlion thing, to dispatch the military police. Every officer dies of being hit by needles.
Takuya, while riding his bike, hears the cries of the MPs, and rushes to the scene by jumping three kilometers. Yes he jumped that far, despite driving all the time. He manages to shoo away Sasora, and takes the fight outside, where Ninders shoort darts at our slow wallcrawler. Amazoness commands a retreat.
Professor Monster is too busy looking at spiders and unveils his plan for destroying the friendly neighborhood webswinger, using cyborg replicas of Kotaro Kobayashi and the BB-Five. And yes, even the cool moustachioed guy is perfectly copied. And their only purpose is to play that damned song. Amazoness is also pissed off at this, as the pressing mission is to kill the two scientists, for they threaten the very fiber of the secret Iron Cross Army. The evil Professor reveals that the song will be used to disable Spider-Man, as the ultrasonic waves from the band’s special amplifier will emit a hypersonic wave that hurts arachnids, including our hero! In order for this plan to work, they need to play it withing six kilometers of Saotome’s workshop.
Back at the lab, Spider-Man learns how the machine works as it shoots a wave at a person determining if they are human or not. The scientists promise that as long as they can work unhindered, the project will be a success. For now they will move their facilities elsewhere.
That night, Kotaro Kobayashi and the BB Five are swarmed by groupies as usual. As they ride their tour bus, Kobayashi notices the miniature Machine Bem and gets bitten by it and die. The band try to find out what’s happening, and the bus is driven by a Ninder! Sasora grows to normal size and kills the rest of the band, including my new favorite character Moustache Afro! They are quickly replaced by the androids.
The next day, Hitomi drags her boyfriend to a venue where the duplicates are playing “Spider-Man Boogie.” This time, Takuya is affected by the song, as he cannot stand the frequency. Gee, I wonder why they didn’t do this to Peter Parker earlier? Unless they did. Takuya runs out of the disco and ditches his girlfriend again. I wonder what he does to stop her from breaking up with him? Anyway, he reaches a playground and realizes that the headache is gone.
Professor Saotome continues his work at his villa instead of a more secret location and the Iron Cross Army finds them, with Sasora appearing right in the laboratory. The MPs intervene, but Saotome is being choked by the monster. Spider-Man hears the red alert at the villa and rushes toward the scene. Professor Monster prepares his trap for our hero during the commotion. Spider-Man enters the vicinity of the band once again, and the boogie plays once again. They weren’t kidding about the 6km radius. He struggles to keep control and nearly gets run over by a truck. Despite the song causing plenty of damage to our our bum shaker, he still manages to reach the villa in time. By the way, Saotome’s dead. What is it ten people already dead?
Professor Monster begins to put more of his plan into motion. Sitting on his throne and acting rather surly, he tells Amazoness to make “Spider-Man Boogie” an even greater hit. At the offices of Weekly Woman, the Editor in Chief praises Hitomi’s work. The band’s popularity spreads like wildfire, even reaching the Yamashiro household.
Takuya wakes up and starts feeling that pain again and runs downstairs. Shinko and Takuji still wearing his shorts dance along rather bizarrely to the song. Takuya smashes the disc and is chastised for destroying the record. It was futile, as everywhere he goes the song plays and Takuya basically freaks out in the city,trying to destroy a jukebox that plays the song. A crowd gathers to watch, and possibly this is when he hits rock bottom as far as a super hero like him can go in a children’s show.
Director Murae, Saotome’s colleague, finishes the device at a town far away, but still his home and tells Spider-Man what’s wrong with him lately. After hearing the song live twice, Spidey has somehow developed a Pavlovian response to the song, feeling intense pain every time it plays on the tv or radio. Suddenly, “Spider-Man Boogie” plays and who else could it be? It’s not the radio, but Kobayashi Kotaro and the BB Five’s cyborg replacements playing that damn song on Murae’s front yard. Goddamn kids!
Murae tests the machine on the band and finds out that they’re robots! It turns out to be a ruse, as the Iron Cross Army approaches. What can Spider-Man do while the song plays?!
As Murae hides in his basement entering it through the second floor secret passage, Spider-Man heads out to deal with the band. He goes to the Spider-Machine GP 7 and shoots up the entire band with the car’s machine guns! Oh no! The most popular band in Japan is dead! Who cares, they were murdered before the break! Cyborg parts fly all around and finally the menace is dealt with.
Inside Murae’s estate, a Ninder finds the basement staircase. Sasora is sent downstairs to kill the scientist but Spider-Man arrives just in time to save him. The fight begins while the Machine Bem struggles to jump at the ceiling crawler. They end up at a bridge, and Sasora shoots his needles at him. They obviously miss, and after being thrown down into the ground, Sasora grows ready to be killed by Leopardon.
As an ending scene, Spidey checks on Director Murae and they laugh at how the song doesn’t affect our hero anymore, especially since it’s played on a radio. But what about the BB Five? Were their bodies ever recovered?
Rest in peace Afro Moustache!