A few days ago I was doing some chores, and as I was unloading some laundry from the dryer I happened to notice a bit of movement out of the corner of my eye. I was startled to see one of the largest spiders I’ve seen in quite a while making its way slowly up our cinder block basement wall. As an adult I logically know that most spiders (especially in my area of the country) are helpers; they prey upon pest insects and generally just want to be left to their own devices to do so. But it’s difficult to fully ignore that visceral jump-scare feeling that just seems to be part of human nature when we encounter creepy-crawlies in unexpected circumstances. I’m sure it speaks to something ancient in our DNA, some deep fear that our ancient ancestors dealt with.
Wasurenagumo (translated in English releases as Li’l Spider Girl) tells the story of a bookstore proprietor and his landlord’s granddaughter who, having learned of an ancient spider Yokai, accidentally open a book and release a child of that creature into the world. And the tiny spider girl is extremely cute, skittering around the shop and getting into trouble. But the thing about babies is that their mothers aren’t usually that far away, and they tend to be protective of their offspring…
The bulk of this OVA is cute and funny, as the spider girl, whose upper half is that of a human and whose lower half is all skittering little spider legs, behaves as a spider would. This of course extends to some (rather impotent, due to her small size) predatory urges. It’s easy to say “oh how cute, she’s trying to chew that guy’s head off but she’s too little to do anything,” but this lends the entire episode an uneasy tone. We start to wonder what might happen once she gets big enough to cause some damage. Suzuri, the bookseller, behaves in a fairly understandable way, letting his curiosity get the best of him. But as we all know, curiosity can lead human beings to ignore all sorts of red flags, and Suzuri is exactly the type of person to let his academic interest override his own sense of self-preservation.
This OVA was created as part of an artistic initiative that’s been known under several different names – “Young Animator Training Project,” “Anime Mirai,” “Anime Tamago,” among others. An unfortunate fact is that, while we anime fans think of Japan as a source of much of our entertainment, a lot of the animation work that would have typically been given to young up-and-coming animators as part of their development is now contracted out to firms outside the country. Thus there’s become a lack of opportunities for new talent within Japan to get their foot in the door. This initiative is meant to help alleviate that situation by providing grants to Japanese anime studios to be used in training new animators as they work on a half-hour animation project. Some other famous entries in this series are Little Witch Academia, produced by Studio Trigger, and Death Billiards, which served as a pilot for the Death Parade anime series, produced by Studio Madhouse.
I’ve always hoped for a compilation release of some of the entries from this initiative. Obviously the aforementioned Little Witch Academia and Death Parade are easy enough to find, but most of the other ones are significantly more difficult to dig up. It doesn’t help that the majority of them seemed to be aimed at a younger audience. Occasionally they’ll show up on YouTube (though I won’t confirm or deny anything as I would never directly facilitate piracy, I’m betting if you searched this title up on YouTube you might find something worth your while), but at least as far as substantial releases of most of these, those of us in the United States have had to go digging. However, European distributor All the Anime appears to have a release of this item for those who are able to seek out international releases.
In any case, this is a fun little one-shot that ends on a deeply unsettling note, which is probably half of the reason I find it so memorable. Japanese anime just seems to have a way of combining cute with creepy in a way that hits just right.