One of Spider-Man’s Earliest Appearances Was a Japanese TV Show From the 70s
Uncovering the weird and wonderful Japanese interpretation of Spider-Man.
It’s a little-known fact that one of the first live-action appearances of Spider-Man wasn’t from Hollywood Studios in the western world but was actually made by the Toei company in Japan way back in the late 70s.
The show was greenlit by the two entertainment giants when Toei struck a three-year deal with Marvel to use each other’s properties in whatever capacity they like – The result? Supaidāman.
Supaidāman, commonly referred to as ‘Japanese Spider-Man’ was a short-lived live-action TV show loosely based on the Marvel Comics character. Aside from the costume, Supaidāman is very detached from what we know as Spider-Man. The main hero isn’t Peter Parker but is rather Takuya Yamashiro a motorcycle racer who sees an alien spacecraft crash and is given powers by an alien called Garia, the last survivor of his homeworld ‘Planet Spider’.
Yamashiro is tasked with defeating the evil Professor Monster and his army imbued with the power of the protector bracelet.
The bracelet enables Yamashiro to active his spider protector suit and become Supaidāman. Also, Supaidāman has the power to call on the crashed alien spacecraft the Marveller and transform it into Leopardon, a giant battle robot designed to take out larger foes.
Supaidāman was considerably darker than many expected with the titular hero using machine guns as well as plotlines focused on suicide, murder and many other adult themes.
The blueprints of the Power Ranger’s franchise can be traced back to the Supaidāman show with Toei using the creative elements from Supaidāman for their own Tokusatsu shows such as Super Sentai – a long-running children’s action show which is the basis of the footage used by Power Rangers for western audiences.
Many elements are similar between Sentai / Power Rangers such as the giant mech robot, the monster-of-the-day formula and the hero using tech-based or alien devices to morph into a costumed hero.
