Monday 23 March 2009

Japanese Spider-Man - free episodes from Marvel!

Marveller, Change Leopardon!



You can now watch subtitled episodes of the 1970s Japanese tokusatsu adaptation of Spider-Man on the Marvel Comics Website! They seem to be releasing one episode a week, and they're onto the third one now. :D

Everything I knew about this series up to now was pretty much from the opening and ending sequences, as I have then on a Yuki Hide compilation album, and saw the videos on youtube. The music in this series is composed by Watanabe Chuumei, so <3 <3 <3. :D I'm very grateful to be able to see this series, especially for free!

Don't expect it to be anything like the story of Spider-Man that you have read in Marvel comics, it's a standard tokusatsu type plot. It is about as far away from the original as any sentai series becoming a Power Rangers series. Perhaps moreso! I found myself thinking "hey, this concept was stolen from Ultraman / Kamen Rider!", though according to wikipedia this series pioneered the concept of having a giant robot to fight giant enemies. (though, hmm, Ultraman being giant for 3 minutes is very similar, he's just not a robot...) There is a lot of overacting and the special effects are.... well, not so bad for something that's the same age as me... but somehow, that's part of its charm. It is very entertaining! :D