Behold the wonderful insanity of Japanese Spider-Man

Just for fun, we're gonna share something really weird. Marvel Studios has slowly been expanding its line-up television programming, starting with Agents of SHIELD and quickly expanding with Agent Carter and Daredevil. There's plenty to discuss about the business of high-budget television and the current wave of genre shows that we're experiencing, but we're not talking about that today.

Today, we want to share the 1978 Japanese Spider-Man show.

The show, often literally translated as "Supaidaman," has previously only been available in the United States as a bootleg VHS or DVD. But to celebrate a recent comic tie-in with the show, Marvel released two episodes via streaming video, making it legally watchable for the first time. Apart from the usual costume and wall-climbing antics, it has very little to do with Spider-Man. For one, Spider-Man has a gun and rides around in a giant robot named Leopardon. It's highly watchable and extremely bizarre, surely ranking among the least faithful television adaptations ever.

We didn't have a good reason to share this other than finding it really funny. We tend to share informative or serious articles, so once in a while, you need some Japanese Spider-Man. If you ever want to watch some normal Spider-Man with fewer giant robots, we have the original film trilogy and the Andrew Garfield reboot in our collection.

Spider-Man – HU DVD 7121
Spider-Man 2 – HU DVD 7122
Spider-Man 3 – HU DVD 7123
The Amazing Spider-Man – HU DVD 6493