Spider-Man (Toei TV Series)

Spider-Man (Toei TV Series)

Spider-Man (スパイダーマン, Supaidāman?) is a Japanese live-action television series produced by Toei Company, loosely based on Marvel's Spider-Man character. The series lasted 41 episodes, which aired on the Wednesday 19:30 JST time slot of Tokyo Channel 12 from May 17, 1978, to March 14, 1979. A theatrical episode was also shown in the Toei Manga Matsuri film festival on July 22, 1978. From March 5 to December 24, 2009, Marvel uploaded English subtitled versions of all 41 episodes and the movie on their official website.

While Toei's version of the character wore the same costume as his Marvel counterpart, the show's storyline and the origin of the character's powers deviated completely from the source material. In addition to fighting by himself, this incarnation of Spider-Man also piloted a giant robot known as Leopardon, which he would summon to thwart off enlarged versions of the show's monsters. Toei would adopt the giant robot concept in subsequent incarnations of their own Super Sentai franchise.