Proving once again that they live 10 years ahead of the rest of the world in some kind of rip in time-space, Japan makes another stride to robots being those of the heroic and friendly Astroboy variety — or another step towards a dyspeptic, Terminator-inspired future.

For the time being, though, a rent-a-cop sentrybot was demonstrated by Tmsuk Co. and Alacom Co. Rather than a payload of miniguns and phased-plasma rifle in the 40 watt range, though, it fires a net.

You know, like Spiderman… and not like ED-209.

Then again, maybe the subway gropers and underskirt scofflaws shouldn’t beware that much.

Japanese firms unveil ‘robocop’