Celebrate July 4th With This Stream of Japan's Bizarre 'Spider-Man' Series
Daikaiju Television on Facebook is spending the day airing episodes of the perplexing and [...]
Daikaiju Television on Facebook is spending the day airing episodes of the perplexing and fan-favorite Japanese Spider-Man TV series from the '70s.
The show, which debuted in 1978, was produced by the Toei Company after Marvel licensed Spider-Man to them for Japanese television. Toei's Spider-Man wears the familiar red and blue costume of the Marvel Comics hero, and has the ability to shoot webs from his hands and climb walls, but the similarities to Marvel's webslinger stop there. In the Japanese version's premiere episode, entitled "The Time of Revenge Has Come! Beat Down Iron Cross Group," motorbike star Takuya Yamashiro is given the powers of Spider-Man from an alien who injects him with a spider extract. The alien also gives this Spider-Man the ability to use the Marveller, a gigantic robot that looks an awful lot like Voltron. With his new powers, Yamashiro must defeat Professor Monster, a cyborg alien who turns toys into large monsters that attack Japan.
You can check out the Daikaiju Television channel below.
As recently as 2015, the character made an appearance in modern Marvel Comics, and fans spotted a "Japanese Spider-Man" Easter egg in the trailer for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. That is hardly the first time in recent years the unique take on ol' Web-head popped up in the American consciousness, though. In 2009, Marvel made the first episode of the series available to watch for free on Marvel.com.
"If you've never seen an episode of the Japanese, live action Spider-Man show from the 70's, then you are in for a treat!" then-writer Dan Slott said in 2015. "He is like no Spidey you've ever seen before! Sure, he's got spider-sense, can climb walls, and swing on a web...but he's also got the Spider-Machine GP7, a flying, missile-launching race car-- and a leopard-headed spaceship, Marveller, that transforms into his giant robot, LEOPARDON!...When I was growing up, the only way to see these were on grainy VHS tapes with no subtitles. Luckily for you, the fine folks at Marvel have subtitled these classic episodes for you. So you'll be able to see, first hand, that in Japan, he's NOT your 'friendly neighborhood Spider-Man', but rather 'an emissary of Hell.' That's way more intimidating, right?"
The series ran for 41 episodes from 1978-1979. The complete series was at one time available on DVD as a 7-disc box set. Today's marathon will feature episodes 12 through 29.
