Japanese Spider-Man's main power is baffling the enemy with the unlikelihood of his premise.
In 1978, Marvel lent the rights to franchise character to Toei Studios (Fist Of The North Star, Devil Man, Ghost In The Shell) who were still mainly a kid's TV animation studio in the late 1970's. Toei pronounced ("toe-ay") produced a live action version of Spider-Man and used the Japanese kid's TV formula of giant robots, colorful vehicles and full-body costumes to create something utterly bizarre and entertaining.
For 41 episodes, the show had a pretty unremarkable two year run on Japanese TV but received high praise from Spider-Man co-creator, Stan Lee, who praised the show for it's special effects and expert stunt work. A theatrical version of Spider-Man was shown at the Toei Manga Matsuri film festival on July 22nd 1979 before the show went off the air in 1980.
In 2010, Marvel has subtitled many episodes of the show and re-released this original series as web based video on the official Marvel site.
References:
- Wikipedia, Toei Company
- Wikipedia, Japanese Spider-Man (Toei TV Series)
- IMDB, Spider-Man (TV series 1979)
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