Category: Everyday Life

Goth indeed: it’s ‘Humanoid Monster BEM’!

Main title song: Humanoid Monster BEM

Living hiding in the dark
We are the humanoid monsters
Can’t let anyone see us
See our brutish looks

Hurry! We want to be human!
Cast away our dark destiny
Bem! Bela! Belo!
Humanoid monsters

Finally, we could rent it. Volume 1 of ‘Humanoid Monster BEM’, which we’d been wanting to watch. I heard it was remade in 2006, but this is the one broadcast in 1968.

I watched it when I was a kid:
‘No-one knows when it was born. In the dark, soundless world, a cell divided, grew, and three creatures emerged. Of course they are not human, nor animal… But inside their ugly bodies hides the blood of justice. These creatures… are the humanoid monsters who could not be human.’
And then, after this narration, Bem, Bela, and Belo stand up and slowly move in the opening scene. It’s so cool even as I watch it now. It’s really Gothy. I don’t remember most of the stories, but this part really sums up my impression of ‘Humanoid Monster BEM’.

It doesn’t specify what countries they wander through, but the scenes and names are European-looking.
A vengeful ghost, curses, and cults also appear, and I wondered if it was all right for kids to watch it. (But of course I watched it when I was a small girl.)

Now that I watch it again, some stories are somehow abrupt and inconsistent, and Belo’s childish sense (of course, he is a kid) and laugh, which I liked a long time ago, are annoying. However, Bem, who I didn’t pay much attention to, sincerely believes he can become human if he does good for humans, and he is pretty cool. He is a quiet, good man. And Bela is a noisy good woman.

I had totally forgotten it before I listened to it again: the ending song, ‘Belo is our Friend’, is cheerful but has meaningful lyrics.

Ending song: ‘Belo is our Friend’

We are… Belo! Belo!
Good friends… Belo! Belo!
Happy together, playing together
We are happy playmates

But adults say: ‘A boy like that!
Don’t play! Don’t look!’
Mad at us, for anything and everything!

They are not right
His face is scary, but he’s nice!
Children are children (That’s right! That’s right!)
Children are children (That’s right! That’s right!)
Adults just don’t understand!

– YS, 5 June 2007

5 June 2007