The world might be currently abuzz about Andrew Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but did you know that Japan has its own Spider-Man as well?
Premiering back in 1978, the Japanese live-action television series was produced by Toie Company under license from Marvel and lasted for 41 episodes. The series revolved around Takuya Yamashiro, played by Shinji Todō, a motorcycle racer who is given spider-like powers after an injection of blood from the last surviving person of the Planet Spider.
Like any self-respecting Spider-Man, Yamashiro can shoot webs, but what separates him from his American counterpart is the fact that he gets his own giant robot. I repeat, he gets his own giant robot.
Named Leopardon, the robot helps Yamashiro defeat a bevy of alien baddies. Toei’s experience with this would help lay the foundation for its Super Sentai franchise, which would eventually be adapted in the U.S. to become the Power Rangers.
A Spider-Man that’s also a Power Ranger? Hollywood, that’s the plot to your next reboot right there.
- How to Help Victims of the Texas School Shooting
- TIME's 100 Most Influential People of 2022
- What the Buffalo Tragedy Has to Do With the Effort to Overturn Roe
- Column: The U.S. Failed Miserably on COVID-19. Canada Shows It Didn't Have to Be That Way
- N.Y. Will Soon Require Businesses to Post Salaries in Job Listings. Here's What Happened When Colorado Did It
- The 46 Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2022
- ‘We Are in a Moment of Reckoning.’ Amanda Nguyen on Taking the Fight for Sexual Violence Survivors to the U.N.