By CONNOR KEATING
Tiger Media Network
Well, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve done a movie review, and what better way to come back than by reviewing… a show and not a movie! While this isn’t the first time I’ve done this, having reviewed the first season of “Monarch Legacy of Monsters” (shameless plug). For those wondering what I thought of the second season… I didn’t finish it. Anyways, time to talk about an actually good show!
“Human Vapor” is a 2026 Japanese and South Korean co-production distributed by Netflix and is based on the 1960 sci-fi Toho film “The Human Vapor.” The plot follows a cop, a news reporter, and a pair of failed streamer siblings who become entangled in a series of murders committed by the Human Vapor, a mysterious man capable of assuming a gaseous form. As they begin looking deeper into the murders, they begin finding mysterious connections to the Yakuza and a place known as White Center. What’s the White Center? How are the Yakuza involved? And who the heck is the Human Vapor? Find out by watching “Human Vapor.”
Now, I’m sure I am one of the few people in the entire state of Kansas who has seen the original “The Human Vapor,” as it’s an extremely obscure Japanese sci-fi horror film that is just about impossible to find outside of Japan – which is unfortunate because it’s a very good film. So my hope is that this show does reasonably well enough that maybe Toho will release the original movie on Blu-ray here in the west, wink wink nudge nudge. Anyways, how does this show do?
Well, it’s pretty dang good, maybe not as good as the original, but certainly competes with it, and I’m sure that there are plenty of people who would prefer this over the original. Now this show is one of those mystery shows, so there are lots of mysteries and things that can easily get spoiled, which makes this show a bit tricky to review. Because of this, I’m going to have a spoiler section at the bottom before my final conclusion, so be warned.
When it comes to that overall mystery, the show does a good job and throws lots of crazy curve balls throughout that’ll have you scratching your head, wondering “how did that happen?” And later, it’ll explain exactly how that happened, and most things are foreshadowed reasonably well. It definitely seems like the sort of show that would be a fun rewatch when you know exactly what’s happening and can piece everything together as they happen. The show also does a good job of wrapping up most loose ends, leaving questions only around the ending.
When it comes to the characters, they’re, for the most part, fine. Our main character, the reporter Kyoko Kono, can at first be a little on the bland side and sometimes it feels like her actress doesn’t know how to act until the last few episodes, but they do some interesting things with her character, connecting her to the plot in ways that are very interesting. Kenji Okamoto, our police officer, is serviceable, maybe a little flat, but works well, particularly for the message of the series in the final episode.
The standout characters are the streamer siblings Fujita and Kaho. They appear a bit later, but once they show up, they really steal the show. Their relationship is fun and heartwarming and Kaho has a nice little character arc that I won’t spoil, though you can kind of see it coming early on. Also, they have a “Matango” poster, so of course they’re awesome.
But, the big question for anything in the Monster Movie Mayhem series is, of course, how is the monster stuff? Quite good, I should say, quite good. There are a few episodes here and there that don’t have the Human Vapor in them, but overall, he shows up fairly consistently throughout the show, and even when the plot seems like it’s moving away from the Human Vapor, eventually it ties back to him. The Human Vapor himself is quite menacing and has some very intense and terrifying moments. The effects are typically pretty good, but there are some moments when he’s in his gaseous state where he seems a bit too animated, and these scenes can be a bit goofy, but they are few and far between.
Ultimately, the abilities of the Human Vapor allow for some very interesting action set pieces and unique kills.
SPOILER WARNING FROM HERE ON! Skip to the last paragraph for my final thoughts, and come back once you’ve seen the show.
SPOILERS: By far, my biggest problem with the show is the characterization of the Human Vapor himself. In the original film, he’s an ordinary man who has been both blessed and cursed by the ability to turn into a gas, and so in a very sort of Invisible Man type of way, he goes mad with power. In this latest version, however, they give him a new backstory, which is honestly more interesting and tragic than the original, but when he becomes the Human Vapor, he ends up being nothing more than a mindless monster that will take orders from anyone to kill anything, and I feel like he really loses something with that.
This ultimately culminates in the climax, where I wish his original personality would come out a bit more, It’s kind of doing something there, but the fact that his original personality seems totally gone kind of takes a lot out of it for me, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t totally ruin the show. It’s disappointing, sure, but the Human Vapor’s backstory is really good, and all of the other points I’ve made still stand true, but I’d better save that for my conclusion.
Overall, “Human Vapor” (2026) is a worthy successor to the original. The show has a great intricate mystery, lots of cool action sequences and suspenseful moments, and at only eight episodes, doesn’t drag on and overstay its welcome. Some of the early episodes after the first couple can be a little slow, but the last batch are very strong and make it all worth it. I give this series 8 “Netflix shows based on an old Toho monster movie, where a mysterious song somehow plays a major role in the plot” out of 10!
Connor Keating is a senior at Fort Hays State University, studying Natural Resources. Connor is an old-school movie fan, particularly Japanese monster movies, and is an avid DVD collector.
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