Awfully Good: Supaidaman (Japanese Spider-Man)

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Sadly, Spider-Man's adventures in FAR FROM HOME don't include Japan. Otherwise, Peter Parker could've hung out with…

Supaidaman (Japanese Spider-Man) (1978)

Director: Takaharu Saeki
Stars: Shinji Tôdô, Mitsuo Andô, Yukie Kagawa

What if Spider-Man joined the Power Rangers and you dropped acid?

The character you see above may look like Spider-Man, but that is pretty much the extent of the similarities between the Marvel character you know and love and SUPAIDAMAN, a.k.a. Japanese Spider-Man.

Apparently "friendly neighborhood wallcrawler" was already taken as a nickname.

The result of a licensing deal between Marvel and Toei Studios, SUPAIDAMAN was a TV show that aired in Japan from 1978-1979. The deal allowed the Japanese company to use Spider-Man's likeness, but did not insert any control over how the superhero's origin story, superpowers, or personality was portrayed. This, coupled with the fact that Toei is most famous for creating Power Rangers-predecessor Super Sentai, and you may begin to understand how this version of the web slinger is less "nerd gets bitten by a radioactive spider and learns about great responsibility" and more "handsome jock is given alien powers and a giant robot to fight kaiju." (With all the cheesy effects and bad rubber monster suits that implies.)

Drugs must've been great in Japan in the 70s.

It's nigh-impossible to accurately describe the transcendent weirdness that happens in this show, but I'll give it a shot.

Takuya Yamashiro is a popular motocross champion who is out riding one day when he sees a spaceship falling from the sky. He hears a telepathic voice calling him to the wreckage and discovers that his father has just been killed by a stop motion, papier-mâché dinosaur. Takuya is attacked by some weird bird creatures but is rescued by Garia, a telepathic alien refugee from the planet Spider. Garia saves the dying boy by injecting him with "spider extract" (using a bracelet that has SPIDERMAN written on it). The extract naturally gives him super powers, but he is barely able to comprehend his new gifts before Garia dies of old age—and is immediately reincarnated as a spider who continues to talk to and mentor him in future episodes.

It turns out that Garia is the sole survivor of his alien race and has been hiding on Earth for 400 years. His entire planet was destroyed by Professor Monster, the leader of intergalactic terrorists the Iron Cross Army. Professor Monster has also been on Earth for the last four centuries, spending his time building a roster of rubber monsters called Machine Bem to help him invade the planet. (The dinosaur that killed Spider-Man's dad was one of them.) Garia has been biding his time, waiting for the right time to kill Professor Monster once and for all. But hey, he's dead, so that's the new Spider-Man's problem now!

In hindsight, the Red Cross could've picked a less threatening mascot for their blood drives.

If the setup seems unnecessarily complicated, we haven't even gotten to the tools and abilities they gave Supaidaman. He can do the usual superpowered-arachnid stuff: climb walls, shoot web in string and net format, and sense incoming danger via his Supaidey Sense. But his mentor also had the foresight to give him a Spider Bracelet that holds his costume (referred to here as the Spider Protector) and can instantly shoot it on to his body in moments of crisis.

In terms of getting around, there's the Spider Machine GP-7, Spider-Man's flying car, which has a machine gun and missile launcher attached in case he needs to murder a crowd of people. But perhaps most memorable is the Marveller spaceship, which Spider-Man can summon and turn in to a giant robot named Leopardon, complete with a deadly boomerang and a laser sword. If you're wondering how often Spider-Man needs a giant robot, all the monsters grow to building size at the end of pretty much every episode, so it's more common a problem than you think.

Sure, the webshooters were a more environmentally-friendly way to travel, but…chicks dig the car.

Toei made 41 episodes of SUPAIDAMAN, not including a movie that takes place in the middle of the series so as to not be accessible to any new viewers. (The "movie" is also the same half-hour length and is completely indistinguishable from a regular episode, save for the fact that it's shot in widescreen.) Each episode follows pretty much the same format—Professor Monster releases one of his monsters, Spider-Man fights it, the monster grows gigantic, and Spider-Man turns in to Leopardon to kill it with his giant sword. And these aren't your run of the mill monsters, by the way. There's an ancient demon cat with unnecessarily large breasts, a hideous a snake lady with unnecessarily large breasts, and a skeleton beast who thankfully has no chest whatsoever. The creature effects range from laughable to downright terrifying in design and execution. If you've seen any of the original Power Rangers, you should know exactly what to expect.

Still better than THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2.

There are a few non-monster episodes that show Professor Monster taking a more creative approach. In one, he implants a chip in to the brain of a popular supermodel and forces her to use her feminine wiles to assassinate world leaders. (So pretty much the first NAKED GUN movie.) In another, probably my favorite episode, Professor Monster kidnaps the hottest rock band in Japan and replaces them with cyborgs that he's taught to play a song that's so bad it will literally kill Spider-Man. The song is called "Spider-Man Boogie" and actual lyrics include "Shaking his bum, climbing up walls… I adore that Spider-Man, and so we've got to boogie…"

Like the SHAZAM! TV show from the 70s, Japanese Spider-Man was also not very subtle when it came to imparting morals and lessons to its audience, everything from being true to yourself to the perils of gambling. There are also so many episodes that revolve around Spider-Man personally fixing families and relationships, and rescuing children. We see him give a little boy a blood transfusion, befriend a young child having heart surgery, save a young boy and his dog, and help an orphaned blind girl whose father was killed for his blood.

"Excuse me, do you have a moment to talk about our personal Lord and Savior, Stan Lee?"

As with any foreign show, it's possible that something was lost in translation. (Perhaps that's why Spider-Man continually refers to himself as an "Emissary of Hell.") However, SUPAIDAMAN is so weird and out there, that I think even Japanese people found it strange, which is why it didn't last more than a year.

And speaking of translations, my absolute favorite part of Japanese Spider-Man has to be the episode titles, which are proudly displayed and announced at the beginning of each episode. When translated to English, they become truly incredible:

"The Terrifying Half Merman! The Miracle-Calling Silver Thread"
"Fearful Hit Tune! Song Dancing Murder Rock"
"A Very Mysterious Folktale: The Cursed Cat Mound"
"To the Flaming Hell: See the Tears of the Snake Woman"
"Becoming Splendid: To the Murderous Machine of Transformation"
"Fine Dog! Run to the Under of Father"
"In the Mother's Chest: Resurrect the Young Boys"
" Riddle: Calling the Riddle of My Secret Birth"
"Treasure, Dog, and Double Grow Human"
And my personal favorite, and the series finale, "The Hero's Shining Hot Blood"