The biggest influences on the Japanese TV show were, rather, the tokusatsu shows that preceded it. Given Spider-Man's buglike nature Kamen Rider was an obvious influence, but the creators really threw everything they had into the show, giving us a kaleidoscopic vision of Spider-Man complete with transforming robots, aliens, monsters, and characters who feel the need to announce their superpowers with special words.
This show ran for 41 episodes. I'll be reviewing 14 this outing, and the remaining 27 might get reviewed in future entries.
Spider-Man does NOT live in New York! Spider-Man is NOT bitten by a radioactive spider! Spider-Man is NOT a high school student!
Instead he is, like Kamen Rider before him, another "70s motorcycle dude." This particular 70s motorcycle dude, Takuya Hamashiro by name, finds an alien who's been imprisoned in a cave for 400 years with a whole lot of spiders, and this alien, a refugee from planet Spider, gives our hero spider extract which, of course, gives him spider powers.
Then some of the bad aliens show up and sh*t goes DOWN. Suddenly Spider-Man has a weird bracelet thing, and he uses this bracelet to summon Marveller, his flying ship, or his sweet, sweet spider car.
There's also some kind of revenge subplot in there, but I can't quite remember what happened. Wikipedia says his father was killed by the bad aliens, but I must have blinked and missed it.
Professor Monster's henchwoman is kinda hot. I'm not that evil or anything, but I wouldn't mind serving underneath her.
Hitomi, while we're talking about the women of Spider-Man, is kinda dumb. It's like dude, your boyfriend was here just a second ago, how are you not aware that he's Spider-manning on the side? Aren't you supposed to be a reporter or something?
This one goes into more of Spider-Man's backstory, detailing the exploits of the guy who gave Spider-man his powers. It is a timeworn tale of murder, attempted revenge, and unexpected cave diving. Not that they never bother to explain WHY our hero was chosen to receive the spider extract, despite the fact that space guy was in the cave waiting to find someone for 400 years.
Spider-man's super car, the GP7, can also fly. This comes in handy when the Marveller is circling overhead. If the monster is too much for the GP7 he can switch to the Marveller mid-air. Then? OF COURSE it's Leopardon time!
In this one the baddies create a fake Spider-man to ruin Spider-man's reputation and draw him out of hiding. Aside from that there's A LOT of flipping.
Spider-man finally meets Professor Monster! Prof Monster gets the bright idea to write a computer program which will determine Spider-man's fate (or something), the outcome of this program being a death match with Mer-Man.
Hitomi, girl, you can probably do better than your present boyfriend. He's not emotionally supportive and he's got a secret life you know nothing about.
A young boy witnesses the Iron Cross Army up to no good, and after they hit him with a truck (!) Spider-man decides to donate blood to help the kid recover.
Surprisingly the kid DOESN'T develop spider powers by the end of the episode. I feel like the writers really dropped the ball on that one.
The robot vs. kaiju battles at the end are fast becoming the weak points of every episode. Spider-Man struggles for a bit, he calls forth Marveller, he changes Marveller into Leopardon, and Leopardon does the same three moves before dispatching his foe with Sword Vigor. Was all this done for the sake of merchandising? Or just to save film?
This is one of the more boring ones. Professor Monster's sexy henchwoman spends a lot of time in the forest chasing people.
If I ever buy one of the toys its' going to be Spider-Man's car, the GP7.
If you're watching this show for the sake of sheer ridiculousness you might start with episode 1 and then skip to episode 7, because episode 7 is where things REALLY get silly.
In this one a rock band writes a hit song about Spider-Man, and Professor Monster gets the bright idea to replace the band with cyborgs who will sing/play the song at a frequency which drives Spider-Man crazy. The resulting "Spiderman Boogie" is a song I will never, ever be able to get out of my head.
Probably my favorite episode thus far. Professor Monster's henchmen dig up a cat demon from the Edo Period and turn it into a still more formidable cat demon monster. Spider-Man later gets wise to the plot and uses magic to irritate it before thoroughly stomping it with Leopardon.
Gotta love Spider-Man holding beads and burning both a statue of a cat and a magic spell written on paper. I'll take Buddhist/Shinto Spider-Man over all others!
Bonus points for actual cats, one of which Spider-Man saves from the cat demon monster.
Like episode 8 another favorite. Matters take a turn for the weird after Professor Monster uses a beetle monster to spy on Spider-Man and his immediate family. Somewhere along the line the beetle monster falls in love with Spider-Man's sister and even steals a dress for her from a local store.
A snake woman lures men to their deaths in a mountain house. Turns out she knew Spider-Man's alter ego back in the day, and her conflicted loyalties spell the end of Professor Monster's nefarious plans - at least in this episode.
Thankfully by this point in the series they vary the penultimate robot-monster showdown a bit.
The abridged version? The one on YouTube is the standard 23+ minutes.
There are some slightly upgraded special effects in the movie, and also the addition of an INTERPOL character who appears off and on in later episodes. The INTERPOL stuff complicates the show in a good way.
For all its corniness this episode is weirdly affecting. In this one Spider-Man gets poisoned and the boy from episode 5 shows up again to provide him with a much-needed blood transfusion.
A young woman becomes a "modified human" as both a way of getting her boyfriend back and becoming a top model.
Oddly enough no Leopardon in this episode. Only Spider-Man swearing revenge for the hundredth time. For someone set on revenge he sure does let Professor Monster and Amazoness slip through his fingers a lot.
"Machine Bem, Biker Monster!"
A biker is turned into a cyborg-chameleon hybrid (or something) and Takuya (a.k.a. Spider-Man) resolves some daddy issues.
Not sure why Professor Monster would want to tool around town in a tricked-out hearse but oh well.
Big Bat tries to divine Spider-Man's secret identity by making him look like a chump. You can probably guess how it ends.
"Change! Leopardon!"
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