This is the Robocop sequel I’ve always wanted to see.
In 1969, Toei Company launched the Toei Cartoon Festival, an annual summer event that showcased their upcoming TV shows in theaters. Kidou Keiji Jiban: Great Explosion at the Monster Factory of Fear was a highlight of the 1989 show. Great Explosion is a 25-minute “movie” version of The Mobile Detective Jiban—a popular tokusatsu TV series about a half-cyborg, half-human cop who wages an ongoing battle against a biochemical villain named Lord Giba.
Now that you have the facts, imagine ordering a deep dish, stuffed-crust pizza with toppings that include green peppers, black olives, anchovies, sausage, pepperoni, pineapple, mushrooms, spinach, bacon, ham, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, peanuts, and bananas. Then sprinkle a light layer of cocaine on top and wolf it down in under five minutes. The feeling you have after eating that pizza is similar to the feeling you have after watching Great Explosion; stuffed, wired, and ready to die because nothing will ever be as good as this again.
Yoko and her students are visiting a museum. Within 30 seconds, tentacles burst out of the walls and kidnap the kids. Yoko pulls a gun and jumps on top of the monster’s getaway van, but it’s no use. The children have been captured by Lord Giba, a cackling white man wearing a fake beard and new wave sunglasses. With his posse of creatures and cyborg ladies, Giba plans to build monsters with items that he stole—a horse, a monkey, two Shih Tzus, some kittens, diamonds, uranium, and “fresh cells from these disgusting children.” And it WORKS! Soon enough, Giba’s monster factory is crawling with mutated monstas that have clearly been generated from the cells of disgusting children. Luckily, nothing will stop Mobile Detective Jiban from dishing out justice with his own version of Robocop’s Auto-9 gun, a laser sword, and a bootleg R2-D2 sidekick.
The best things in life are defined by their attention to detail. That’s why you can buy a luxury candle for $80 and also why To Kill a Mockingbird has never gone out of print since its publication in 1960. But Kidou Keiji Jiban: Great Explosion at the Monster Factory of Fear takes the cake. This is a hypercolored dreamland that gushes with energy, joy, and a relentless devotion to sublime visuals. There’s a lake of green slime. Puppet monsters who appear for seconds and then disappear. A giant spider that emerges Demons-style from someone’s back. The screen is bombarded with smoke, neon, sparks, explosions, rotoscope animation, stop motion, and kinetic photography. It’s like Robocop was dropped into Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory right before a biochemical acid-bomb exploded, replacing the Oompa Loompas with man-bats and octopuses with robot heads. I had more fun spending 25 minutes with Great Explosion than I’ve ever had watching Robocop 2, Robocop 3, or even Robo Vampire. That’s not to say I don’t have a special place in my heart for those movies. It’s just that none of them include a final boss that looks like a combination of Venom and Cthulhu.
Like Kamen Rider ZO and Tetsujin Tiger Seven, Kidou Keiji Jiban: Great Explosion at the Monster Factory of Fear is a testament to the artistry and outrageousness of vintage tokusatsu productions. There’s truly nothing else like it. Plus the title is a literal description of what happens.
I’ll never stop loving this movie.
