Spiderman (1978)
Production: Toei
Episodes: 41
By Matt Kamen

Introduction

Everyone knows Spider-Man, right? You’ll have read the comics, seen the cartoons, sat dazzled in a cinema watching the movies or maybe even played the video games. The story is familiar ground to most by now – motocross racer Yamashiro Takuya is given super powers by the last of the Spider Aliens & defends Japan against the invading forces of the Iron Cross Army with his giant robot Leopardon.

What’s that? Peter Parker? Radioactive spider? Sorry, wrong side of the Pacific.

In 1978, Toei Productions entered an agreement with Marvel Entertainment to produce locally relevant versions of established Marvel Comics characters, of which Spider-Man, or ‘Supaidaaman’ as the Japanese refer to it, was one. The only other truly notable series to come out of the deal was the 1979 sentai series Battle Fever J, which was loosely - and I stress the word ‘loosely’ here – based on Captain America & the Avengers.

Superheroes are tricky beasts. In the USA, they tend to be brightly garbed, altruistic, up-standing types, while here in the UK our heroic fiction stems more from the realm of science fiction; Dan Dare, Judge Dredd, Thunderbirds et al. In Japan, the prerequisites for wearing spandex are a transformation device, a penchant for announcing your attacks, long winded introductions and, of course, a nefarious organisation or ancient evil with ambitions of world dominance/destruction to fight against for about 50 episodes.

With this in mind, Toei built their version of Spider-Man from the ground up, keeping only the costume intact from the source material. Even then, the eyes were somewhat less than symmetrical at times. The hero was no longer Peter Parker, shy high school student. Instead, the webs went to the aforementioned Yamashiro Takuya, played by Toudou Shinji. Where Peter’s motivation came from the death of his beloved Uncle Ben, indirectly due to his own inaction, Takuya is driven by his father’s death at the hands of a robot dinosaur of sorts, sent by the Iron Cross Army to track down the Marveller. The Marveller was a spaceship carrying Garya, the last of the Spider Aliens, whose planet – imaginatively named Spider - had been destroyed by the Iron Cross Army. Takuya is drawn to the Marveller, which has crashed somewhere in rural Japan, yet is conveniently close to central Tokyo. Upon entering, he is given a rather unwieldy henshin device by Garya; his morpher, if you will. This, in accordance with Spider lore, injects him with spider power & enables him to transform into Supaidaaman whenever the need arises. Not too different from the standard origin story, then.

Review

Despite its flaws, the series, which ran for 41 episodes between May 17, 1978 & March 14, 1979 is responsible for two of the staples of contemporary live action Japanese hero shows – giant transforming robots and monsters that require a beating in both value & economy sizes. After defeating each week’s Iron Cross monster at ‘normal size’, it would grow to Godzilla-esque proportions. Spider-Man would then summon his flying car, the Spider-Machine GP7, to dock with the Marveller, transforming it into its robot mode of Leopardon. [Quite what leopards have to do with spiders is beyond me, but the seventies were a very strange time. I’ve learnt not to ask too many questions.] So popular was this giant robot with children, and almost certainly taking toy sales & interest in other giant robot anime series of the time into consideration, Toei began making mecha a regular sight in their Super Sentai Series, with Battle Fever J beginning a 29-years-and-counting tradition. Giant transforming mecha also crept into their non-sentai shows, from Space Sheriff Gavan [featuring a blue dragon with a laser attack] to Kamen Rider 555 [a rather more low-key transforming motorbike with a gatling gun attack] with such frequency that they’re now almost expected in a tokusatsu series.

While the series had a shockingly low budget, it also had a certain kind of charm to it; it is certainly the product of a much more innocent time, bogging itself down in neither the restrictions of real-world physics nor moral grey areas. Here, good guys are good, bad guys are bad and the word ‘angst’ is unheard of. The weekly monsters were a colourful collection of personality-free freaks, designed purely to be evil, menace some passers-by & then be sliced to bits by Leopardon’s sword attack. Toudou Shinji’s in suit performance as Spider-Man should also be noted as well - the Japanese Spider-Man’s movements are slightly creepy, with bug-like skittering up walls & around opponents.

For seasoned fans of tokusatsu series, some of the cast may seem familiar. The leader of the Iron Cross Army, Professor Monster – possibly based on Marvel’s villain Doctor Doom, given his cloaked appearance & face half obscured by metal devices – was played by Andou Mitsuo, who had carved a career from playing lead villains in various earlier tokusatsu series. He was Professor Gill in 1972’s Jinzo Ningen Kikaida [Mechanical Man Kikaida], Fuhrer Geisel in 1974’s Inazuman Flash & Black Cross Fuhrer in 1975’s Himitsu Sentai Goranger, or Secret Task Force Fiveranger. Between bouts of interplanetary evil, he seems like a nice guy. The hero himself, Toudou Shinji, would later turn to villainy in Toei’s 1987 Metal Hero show, Chojinki Metalder.

Conclusion

Although a complete departure from what western audiences have come to expect from Spider-Man, Toei’s series does at least show that in Japan, with great power comes great responsibility - to use a great big robot to kill giant monsters.

Matt Kamen