Gokiburi, Blattodea, the Cockroach

Whilst living in Leeds, I decided that the epitome of the nasty scuttling insect was the Silverfish.



The nastiest thing about these characters (apart from the story that they lay eggs in your eyes) is the way they move - an uncomfortable medium between scuttling and shimmying, their silvery backs catching the light and being icky.



Cockroaches occupied a fairly esoteric wing of the Creepy Crawlies section of my brain, so I never considered the blighters to be real enough to worry about. Then I came to Japan, hearing stories about a definite Cockroach season. It started in May with tiny little things, but as the outside temperature rises...in some films before you actually see the monster, you get a shadowy glimpse of the thing, hinting ominously at its size. I had such a moment when I looked out of my window and was heard to remark "What the hell is that climbing up next doors wall?!" Then a couple of nights ago, I met the Daddy (or maybe it was the Mummy) - Christ alive, these buggers can move. Cockroaches have a bizarre jittery way of walking, akin to the Benny Hill sketch (read, body of work) where he`s chasing a crowd of women - in of itself not a pleasant sight. Cockroaches are distinguishable from Benny Hill only by their inquisitive antennae, by far the creepiest part of the things.

Lest it be thought that I am living in squalor, Cockraoches get every-buggering-where in Japan. They prefer warmer climes and are omnivorous, so anything goes in Gokiburi land. There`s lots of myths surrounding Cockroaches - like most insects, they`re scrupulously clean - however, because of their pretty indiscriminate eating patterns (a kindred spirit, I feel) they are likely to harbour any nasty diseases being passed around. Another classic is that, in the event of an absolute nuclear holocaust, they`d be the only creatures left alive. This is one of those stories, completely unverifiable. No real research has been done into the suggestion, and the aforementioned apoclayptic conditions haven`t occured anywhere, so general opinion states that in the event of absolute nuclear holocaust, they`d be the last to die, due to cells being most vulnerable to radiation as they split, which Cockroaches only do when they`re moulting.

In Lyall Watsons` "Supernature", he describes an experiment where one Cockroach was beheaded and another had its legs removed and the two were connected to each other, via an intricate system of tubes & the like, and they essentially ended up functioning as a single organism. A fascinating and adaptable creature. The bastards can fly as well.