“Spider and Tulip”
Directed by Kenzo Masaoka
Originally released on April 15, 1943 by Shouchiku Douga Kenkyuusho
Welcome to Anime 20XX Gaiden, where I cover interesting diversions that don’t fit into the structure of Anime 20XX proper.
“Spider and Tulip” has a long history of being released with Momotaro: Sacred Sailors, first appearing with Momotaro on its initial home video releases on VHS in the 1980s. While some of this may be because of their shared staff, as “Spider and Tulip” director Kenzo Masaoka was an animator on Momotaro, an equally likely reason is that both were produced by Shouchiku in the 1940s and their combined length running is a good 90 minutes, the perfect length for an attractive VHS tape purchase. However, it does provide a nice contrast to Momotaro, as we’ll see in a moment, so having the two distributed together is educational as well as entertaining.
But before that, what is the short about? To summarize: a spider tries to trick a ladybug into relaxing in his “hammock” (conveniently made of the webs he uses to catch insects) so he can eat her. The ladybug tries to escape from the spider with the help of the flowers of the meadow, eventually hiding in a tulip. The spider tries to keep the ladybug trapped in the tulip until he can eat her, but is instead blown away by a sudden rainstorm and drowns in a puddle. After having the remaining webbing torn off by a wandering fly, the tulip and the ladybug emerge unharmed, and short ends on a lovely shot of the spider’s rain droplet covered web.
“Spider and Tulip” was made independently from Momotaro, but the two’s long history of being packaged together makes it easy to compare the two and where their differences shine through. For example, “Spider and Tulip” is actually fun to watch! (I’m being mean, but I can say it’s a much better watch than Momotaro with no hesitation) Well, it’s mostly fun to watch. It has one big thing going against it, which is that the spider is clearly derived from the racist depictions of black people that were all too common in American animation during this time period. I’m not sure if this was motivated by any particular ideology or anything - I’ve seen at least one review that suggested the spider was supposed to be a stand in for the terrors of western culture at large - or if it was just used because it was a common visual trope in American cartoons that the animators liked and it’s obvious racist origins didn’t really matter to them. It’s a shame, because the short is really well done otherwise. It moves along at a good brisk pace and the animation itself is stellar. All the characters have their own distinct personality that shines through in how they are animated, especially the spider. You can tell the animators had a lot of fun playing around with all his limbs and making sure they always have something to do in each shot.
The music is also a highlight of the short, as a chunk of it is told through songs the ladybug and the spiders sing to each other/the audience. They’re short, but well performed (racist stereotyping endemic to the spider aside) and invoke the kind of musical scenes you’d see in music based Fleischer Studio cartoon short (and avoid that strange, out-of-place feeling you get from watching and hearing the songs that Momotaro has). Its short length also works in its favor, it moves at a good steady clip and never has an opportunity to get too slow and overstay its welcome (another advantage it has over Momotaro). While it's unfortunate choice in character design does ultimately hold it back, it’s a really solid effort otherwise. Check it out if you like 1940s animation and similar throwbacks.
“Spider and Tulip” is available on the Momotaro: Sacred Sailors Blu-ray/DVD combo pack from Funimation/Crunchyroll. It can be purchased on Right Stuf and other fine home video retailers.
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