Japanese Spider-Man

Apparently this ran in Japan in 1978-79 for something like 40 episodes.

Kinda surreal.

That's awesome. Love that ginchy theme music... and of course, since it's Japanese, it's gotta have a giant robot in it somewhere, right?

I'm a huge Spidey geek but I'd never heard about this. I do remember the cheesy-but-cool American TV version that lasted about a season and a half circa 1977-78 though.

Great, now I got track a down a copy of this.

After doing a little more searching online I found out that Marvel had licensed Spidey to this Japanese company for a four year period with no stipulations on how they presented the character other than his look.

Needless to say, the stories in this show bear no resemblance to actual Spidey tales. I watched one of the full episodes I found and it was absolutely hilarious.

Fat Freddy wrote:

That's awesome. Love that ginchy theme music... and of course, since it's Japanese, it's gotta have a giant robot in it somewhere, right?

I'm a huge Spidey geek but I'd never heard about this. I do remember the cheesy-but-cool American TV version that lasted about a season and a half circa 1977-78 though.

Yea I remember that one too. I saw it on repeats somehow cause I wasnt born when it came out. Are you sure this isnt something someone just made up and spliced together 2 videos, because I dont think they would have a huge robot on spider man even though it was in Japan haha. I think that robot scene is from another movie called Mighty Jack, but I could be wrong. Toho would probably know if this is real or not.

I guess nevermind anything I said lol

I liked this video so much that I posted it on my Facebook page ...within two minutes, several of my friends had commented "WTF?" and "this is the greatest thing I've ever seen." Haha.

Spider-Man wasn't the only American superhero to receive a bizarre foreign film adaptation... check out the Turkish version of "Superman"

I was just thinking, imagine when the first "Spider-Man" movie opened in Japan a few years back, people must've been going "Hey, this is nothing like the old TV show I remember... where's the giant robot? I HATE when movies are not faithful to the source material!"

Here's a few more foreign rip-offs. Bizarrely hilarious stuff...

http://www.cracked.com/article_16704_9-foreign-rip-offs-cooler-than-hollywood-originals.html

Found a Japanese TV commercial for the "Spider-Man" robot toys. I can't understand a thing Spidey says of course but I imagine it's something along the lines of "Hi kids! Buy my robot! Domo Arigato!"

Always with the giant mechanical beasts throughout a skyscraper village.

sam wrote:

Great, now I got track a down a copy of this.

According to Wikipedia, the entire series was released on DVD (in Japan) in a 7-disc box set!

Fat Freddy wrote:

sam wrote:

Great, now I got track a down a copy of this.

According to Wikipedia, the entire series was released on DVD (in Japan) in a 7-disc box set!

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!! DON'T ENCOURAGE ME!!!!!!

I think I've found why stuff about this series is popping up online of late.

It seems that Marvel has recently purchased the rights to this series from the Japanese company who owns it and is going to post it one episode per week on the Marvel.com website for free viewing. Maybe this means there will be an english sub-titled set released soon.

We can only hope so.

sam wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

sam wrote:

Great, now I got track a down a copy of this.

According to Wikipedia, the entire series was released on DVD (in Japan) in a 7-disc box set!

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!! DON'T ENCOURAGE ME!!!!!!

Here's a bootleg of the show:

http://steelcage.ecrater.com/product.php?pid=3816246

Svengo wrote:

It seems that Marvel has recently purchased the rights to this series from the Japanese company who owns it and is going to post it one episode per week on the Marvel.com website for free viewing.

Here's a link to the first episode on Marvel's site. You all gotta see this thing. Even with sub-titles, it makes little to no sense.

http://www.marvel.com/videos/563.Japanese_Spider-Man%2C_Episode_01

They've got the first three episodes on site right now.

Svengo wrote:

I think I've found why stuff about this series is popping up online of late.

It seems that Marvel has recently purchased the rights to this series from the Japanese company who owns it and is going to post it one episode per week on the Marvel.com website for free viewing. Maybe this means there will be an english sub-titled set released soon.

We can only hope so.

I started watching an episode on Marvel.com, and I couldn't get past the intro. I've seen too many shows in my time that feature giant mechanical monsters.

EvyMetal wrote:

I started watching an episode on Marvel.com, and I couldn't get past the intro. I've seen too many shows in my time that feature giant mechanical monsters.

You should've watched till the end. In addition to the giant mechanical monster, you get telepathic talking spiders, troops of ninjas that backflip in unison, and hot Japanese chicks. Totally worth wasting 24 minutes of your life on.

By the way, I also watched Episode 2 and when it was time for Giant Robot Action, those scenes were already recycled from Episode 1! I guess they only had enough budget to shoot those scenes once!

I'm totally lovin' the Japanese Spider-Man. Note the new avatar! I plan to watch each new episode as they add'em to Marvel.com.

Fat Freddy wrote:

/>By the way, I also watched Episode 2 and when it was time for Giant Robot Action, those scenes were already recycled from Episode 1! I guess they only had enough budget to shoot those scenes once!

I'm totally lovin' the Japanese Spider-Man. Note the new avatar! I plan to watch each new episode as they add'em to Marvel.com.

I guess you could think of those recycled scenes as sort of an "homage" to the old Spider-man cartoon that ran from 1967-70. I swear, I think some episodes of that series had only about 5 minutes of new footage.
Of all the cartoons I've seen over the years it certainly ranks right up there with the old DC SuperFriends cartoon for recycled scenes.

Svengo wrote:

I guess you could think of those recycled scenes as sort of an "homage" to the old Spider-man cartoon that ran from 1967-70. I swear, I think some episodes of that series had only about 5 minutes of new footage.
Of all the cartoons I've seen over the years it certainly ranks right up there with the old DC SuperFriends cartoon for recycled scenes.

Well, yeah, Super Friends was a product of the Hanna-Barbera toon factory, who were notorious for makin'em quick and makin' em cheap.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Well, yeah, Super Friends was a product of the Hanna-Barbera toon factory, who were notorious for makin'em quick and makin' em cheap.

I remember watching a SuperFriends episode not too long ago where Aquaman is in some sort of trouble and the SuperFriends begin discussing how they're going to save him. The recycled scene they use for this discussion shows all of the SuperFriends in the Hall of Justice including Aquaman standing right next to them.

Ya gotta love that stuff!

Svengo wrote:

I remember watching a SuperFriends episode not too long ago where Aquaman is in some sort of trouble and the SuperFriends begin discussing how they're going to save him. The recycled scene they use for this discussion shows all of the SuperFriends in the Hall of Justice including Aquaman standing right next to them.

Ya gotta love that stuff!

Yea, that sounds typical of "Super Friends." Either the guy in the editing room was asleep, or they figured "Ehh, screw it, the kids watching this will be so jacked up on sugary cereal that they'll never notice"

In some of the openings of Super Friends they show Aquaman and Wonder Woman flying along with Batman and Superman. Of course we all know that Aquaman, Wonder Woman and Batman cannot fly.

SpectreFate wrote:

In some of the openings of Super Friends they show Aquaman and Wonder Woman flying along with Batman and Superman. Of course we all know that Aquaman, Wonder Woman and Batman cannot fly.

...maybe they're just reallly good jumpers?