Creeping around the internet this morning, I discovered Marvel.com has been putting old episodes of the Japanese version of Spider-Man online. When I was a kid, there was one VHS of this show at my local Erols Video that I would rent constantly, but as an adult I didn't remember how un-Spider-Man the series was.
Spider-Man doesn't get his powers from a radioactive spider, but from an alien wrist band that holds his spider-suit as well as the controls to a giant robot, you know, so when the villain he's fighting goes skyscraper he can take him out. Power Rangers airing afternoons when I was a child, I can't help but relate the two. The show even has putty like henchmen similar to Power Rangers, but I was surprised to find out that the Spider-Man show predated Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger, the show Power Rangers was based on.
Everything about the Tokusatsu genre is incredible, giant monsters, giant robots, race cars, dirt bikes, sun glasses, babes, miniatures and explosions make Japanese action shows so much different from American ones, better, really. With the shows being so similar, the acting, cinematography and the quality of the special effects were what made some of these shows more than silly and weird. Spider-Man's intense villains and short bike stunts are what make it, check it out, Marvel is adding a new episode every few weeks, they're already up to four.
5 comments:
Holy shit that's cool!
The Japansese are nuts.
This reminds me of the crazy assed Anime Ninja turtles where the turtles all combine in to one big green dude. Like a meat constructacon.
yuk.
BG-
I MUST SEE THIS!
I'm in NYC right now for this comic brunch thing and we went to some store today that had all these crazy Japanese shows, and a complete SAMURAI PIZZA CATS DVD!! i had already bought too much stuff though so i bailed on it, but don't worry, i did buy a copy of perverts of the unknown somewhere else. just sayin.
SR-
Here's some TMNT crazyness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGMfb60lc14
I like the sound of a comic brunch.
Samurai pizza cats has such cool art. I've only seen like half an episode though. Soon you will know all there is to know about it.
Jealous..
Thanks for getting Perverts, It's kind of crappy. But hopefully a fun read. There's a panel in there where I drew the same character 2ce by accident.
WHOA! I no joke had some turtles toys that were like these turtles! I bet they just released the toys here but not the show, this is awesome.
There was a point where the saturday morning cartoons that came on before the major stuff, so like 6AM were Dragonball, Samurai Pizza Cats, and Sailor Moon, but Sailor Moon was cutting into the normal time slots. This was in like 93 or something, I've seen a TON of episodes, all are weird and awesome.
It was actually the first thing I read, I didn't notice the double people but now I'm going to go back and PEEP IT! I got it at this place:
http://jhuniverse.blogspot.com/2009/02/wiredcom-secret-lives-of-comic-store.html
which also had Pillow Fight which is pretty rare round these parts. We tried to hit as many stores as possible but were only there for about thirty hours. what stores were you into while you lived there?
That Turtles thing reminds me of all the weird voltron toya that were out when I was a kid that had nothing to do with the cars or the lion voltron.
Jim hanley's universe is a rad store. I used to call the porn section jim manleys handiverse.
I would go there and Rodgers time machine mostly.
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